T20 to T22 disc transplant?

[ohthinker]

My T20's backlight has become a BLACKlight. It never flickered, never showed any reddish or other off-color, no other warning symptoms. One day, it just didn't light up. I can see the images on the screen when I shine a flashlight on it obliquely, and it also works fine when the video output is routed to an external CRT monitor, so it's not a video card failure.

I've disassembled the KB and LCD bezel (not so easy for these hands that aren't as steady as they used to be). I've poked and prodded a bit, reseated the plug on the mainboard, looked for breaks in the cable (admittedly I didn't check it for continuity), and swapped out the inverter board (easy to do since I had a spare). No dice so far.

I guess I could ask, "what's the most likely culprit," but I'm having trouble convincing myself to put a lot of effort into this relatively slow, older machine. (Go ahead, twist my arm.)

Instead, I'm considering picking up a newer TP (T42 or T43 maybe) and passing my 1 gHz T22 on to Margaret (my significant other; she's been using the T20 for a couple of years).

The main difference I can see between the T20 and the T22 is that the T22 has a higher resolution screen (1440 by 1050 or something like that) while the T20 has a 1024 by 768. I'm running Win 2K on both machines. I'm wondering if I could just delete the video driver from the T20's device mangler, shut it down, pull the hard disc out of the T20, pop it into the T22, and fire up the T22.

Presto -- all her files and programs are transferred to the T22, ready to go.

Yes? No?

Is there any difference between the T20 and T22, besides the video system, that I need to be concerned about in this scheme?

While I'm about it, is it my imagination, or have Thinkpads become less reliable than they used to be? I still have a 760EL (ca. 1996) which ran and ran and ran; the only reason I don't use it now is that its backlight fiinally got kind of flickery. It even still has its original battery, though it only runs for about 20 minutes on it now. Other than that, it still works fine.

And a coworker of mine has an ancient battleship 365X which just keeps on keeping on, too.

'Course, TPs don't cost $5000 like they used to in those days, either.

Anyway, all thoughts and ideas welcomed.

Cheers!

[rkawakami]

It might be possible to swap the hard drive into the T22 without too many problems. As you say, the only apparent differences that I can see between the T20 and T22 is the video chip (S3 Savage IX8 for T20, IX8+ for the T22). However, looking at the download page for both systems, the driver pack is the same:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4JRNJB

That would seem to say that you can leave the existing video driver alone. I don't know if Windows 2000 has any product "activation" scheme when faced with a different hardware setup at boot time from the previous start. That's the only other thing that I can think of which might bite you with the hard drive swap.

[ohthinker]

Slight change of plans. After I'd already gotten a T43 and Margaret finally tried out my SXGA T22, she decided she didn't like the fine print on the 1400 x 1050 screen either. So, in the end, I picked up a cheap and rough T22 with a good XGA 1024 x 786 screen on fleabay, and transplanted the T20's disk and a few other bits into the tired old T22.

The surgery was successful, and the patient only needed a little rehabilitation. She booted up in VGA mode and all I had to do was rerun the Savage video driver setup. Well, OK, I did have to reinstall the ethernet driver for some reason, but otherwise it was a mostly painless swap. We got a slightly faster machine out of it, and a box of spares to boot, so I can't complain.

Thanks again to all who offered counsel! This is obviously where the knowledgable ones hold forth.