[help]please help me fix my t23 laptop 0175 post error

[darkchaos]

It seems like my bios has a problem. It gives the 0175 cannot post error and it beeps. When I press insert while turning it on (I read somewhere that could help) it doesn't beep but when I release the button it does the same thing as usual... please help me I have a lot of stuff on that laptop

I don't know how to replace the bios either

[doodles113]

I have here in my office 35 ThinkPads model A21e with the same problem. There is a corruption on the EEPROM on the motherboard, who prevents the normal startup.
Solutions:
1- Replace the motherboard.(faster)
2- Find someone who knows a lot about EEPROM's and electronics and ask him to restore the EEPROM to previous state (not so fast, but cheaper)

[egibbs]

You can pull the hard disk and put it on another machine - either a laptop or a desktop with an adapter - to recover your files. The drive should be fine even though the Motherboard (actually just the BIOS EEPROM) is not.

Ed Gibbs

[beeblebrox]

What actually happened is that the EEPROM become corrupted during the write cycle at powering up the notebook. Blame it on brain-dead IBM engineers (or purposely designed hardware) who designed the electronics based on a simple Atmel chip without a default paramaters setting. The same concept is in all modern Thinkpads. More than stupid!

IBM will ask you to send in the notebook and get the motherboard replaced for big bucks.

There is actually a formal investigation going on in China right now, because a lot of Chinese have that problem (potentially blame it on not really reliable power lines outside of larger cities). However, they can not afford buying a new motherboard or notebook.

It turned out that IBM is actually reprogramming the chips again, since it only takes 15 minutes work time. (You don't even have to take anything apart.)
After that they are happy to sell you a new/refurbished (potentially your own!) motherboard. Guess, who is making a huge profit with selling motherboards?

The whole story surfaced these days when one of the debuger electronics cards was smuggled out of the factory and a small shop was set up to service the broken Thinkpads for a fraction of costs (1/10th).

If you are interested in that story: google for "CRC" and "www.nbdoor.com". For a similar debugging device service just google for "Joe in Australia".

[beeblebrox]

Oops, I forgot to mention: if your Chinese is a bit out of date you potentially use Altavista Babelfish for translation.