T42p onboard Ethernet not working, dock port fine

[jkn]

Hi all
I have a T42p which I bought second hand some time ago. It has so far worked great for me. I usually use it with a Thinkpad Dock II, and because of this may not heve spotted this problem until now.

It seems that the built-in (wired) ethernet adapter is not working. If I run the laptop undocked, and with the same (crossover) cable I use to connect to other local machines, I cannot do this. In XP (this is a dual-boot Windows/Linux machine) the port is referred to as 'network cable unplugged'

If use the T42p docked, with the same cable and using the RJ-45 ar the rear of the Dock, everything seems to be fine.

I presume that this implies that internal to the T42p, something at the physical level is broken, like the Ethernet transformer, that is duplicated within the Dock II, this being why it can work on the dock connector. Any suggestions as to what this might be and how I might investigate further? I'm pretty technically minded and well up for replacing a chip etc. if possible.

Alternatively, I winder if it might be something to do with the switching of capabilities between the on-board port and the Dock port that is causing the problem. I probably installed both Linux and XP with the T42 docked and wonder if this might be related to what I'm seeing.

Any thoughts and insight gratefully received.

Thanks
Jon N

[richk]

I am out of town until Sunday and don't have a board here to look at, but if you don't get a good answer, send me a PM on Sunday.

[Harryc]

A shot in the dark. Take a look at this thread -

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... t=ethernet

[jkn]

Hi there

A shot in the dark. Take a look at this thread -

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... t=ethernet

Thanks, but it's not this. I had a look earlier and the contact wires all seem to be aligned.

I forgot to mention in my original post that neither of the two small LEDs indicating connection (physical carrier & data flow?) light up. I guess this just confirms my original observation about the port not working.

J