T41 with occasional POST - a dead puppy?

[jefflz]

My T41(2003) died a year ago - I went to a T60p in the interim and the T41 has sat in a drawer since. I am trying to revive it with a new hard drive and have ordered recovery discs from Lenovo. Unfortunately when powered up with or without the battery there is no POST with very a faint delayed beep. Occasionally it boots to the logo and ask if I want to enter BIOS settings. Before I can do anything on these rare occasions the LCD fades to black. A year ago with the old drive being dead, it would POST and then fail to find the drive.

Is this a dead puppy- Should I write it off and return the hard drive?

Thanks for any thoughts

Jefflz

[zdriver]

It sounds like it has bigger problems than just the hard drive.
Try reseating the ram, and removing all the options - hard drive, DVD, and wireless mpci card.
Leave just the 1 stick of ram under the keyboard, plug in the keyboard and power up to see if it reacts differently.
It may have a lcd backlight problem, but try the above first...
What is the model code on the base of the thinkpad - eg:2372-xxx

[jefflz]

It sounds like it has bigger problems than just the hard drive.
Try reseating the ram, and removing all the options - hard drive, DVD, and wireless mpci card.
Leave just the 1 stick of ram under the keyboard, plug in the keyboard and power up to see if it reacts differently.
It may have a lcd backlight problem, but try the above first...
What is the model code on the base of the thinkpad - eg:2372-xxx

Thanks for the reply. The model is 2379-DJU. I have downloaded the T4x repair manual and shall gfive your suggestions a try.

Thanks again.

[sktn77a]

Yep, sounds like the backlight or graphics chip. Shine a bright light on the screen after it dies, if you see an image (faint) it's probably the backlight (if the image is pink on bootup, also, this signifies a backlight problem). If there's nothing, it's probably the motherboard (graphics chip, etc).

My daughters 2379-DKU just did the same thing I'm hoping the motherboard can be fixed but we'll see.

[jefflz]

I tried the strip-down approach resetting DIMM etc and RAM under the keyboard, as suggested by Zdriver but no luck. The bright light on the screen doesn't show any images. This is indeed looking like a dead puppy.

Thanks for all of your comments

Jefflz

[ajkula66]

You may want to contact forum member jamiphar who repairs motherboards amongst other things...

[Robbyrobot]

I'd second ajkula66's suggestion, but first would see what happens when you remove the keyboard (but don't unplug it), then press down lightly on the GPU with a finger and then simultaneously push the power button. If the computer then starts normally, you have some evidence that the GPU attachment to the mainboard is defective and that's something that can (with luck and expertise) be fixed. But it would be better if you'd try this before speaking to jamiphar , since he'll probably ask you this kind of question too.