R51 MB gone?

[seaweedsl]

I had just got XP reinstalled in my R51 last week and was using it on a job. I turned it off using an unprogrammed button as the standby and hibernate options have been mysteriously missing in the power properties menu.

I have done that once or twice before, but I know it was not very smart - I just am habituated to hibernating that way when they are setup.

Well, I go to turn it on later in the day and all the LEDs do their thing, but no post, nothing on the screen, no HD activity past the initial spin up. The AC LED and fan stay on, the optical drive ejects, but it otherwise seems dead.

So:
1) pulled the battery and did the mysterious on off 10 times hold 30 seconds.
2) pulled RAM and hd to see if it would post without them
3) pulled all removeable components including the CMOS battery and cleaned contacts and replaced them.

No change. This reminds me a lot of what happened to my T21 earlier this year when it died forever.

I feel fairly certain that it's the system board. I am on the coast and corrosion is heavy here.

Anybody got any suggestions or thoughts to the contrary before I start shopping for a new system board?

Thanks,
Steve

PS. It was still under warrantly until Feb 5, 2008. Talk about bad luck!

[sjthinkpader]

The computer certainly would not POST without RAM. Do you have another stick to try?

[seaweedsl]

Well, I put one back in first to test it, then the other RAM to be sure. They are IBM and identical.


Wait, I just swapped them so that the "external" was the internal and left the other out.

Surprise, I got the IBM boot screen. It's posting! Can't get into BIOS though and the drive was still out.

OK. Testing further, it posted twice, and now it won't again.

I also just remembered to try flexing, but simple flexing doesn't help.

[sjthinkpader]

Your R51 is the intel video version. So it should not have the ATi GPU BGA issue.