T23 LCD goes black except for .5" horizontal line across top

[halfmoongh]

I dropped my laptop way back in May on the PCMCIA end with no cards in it, and it was in a back pack in a padded bag. It dropped about 2 feet almost straight down.

It dislodged a bunch of dirt/dust, cracked the back a bit and I had to snap the left side of the LCD top back together. It however worked fine up until last friday when all of the sudden my screen went black except for a whitish .5-.75 inch horizontal white bar across the top.

Only way to shut down was to remove power cord and battery. I rebooted fine but ten minutes later the same thing happened. I shut it off by removing power cord and battery. However, I was unable to reboot it in spite of several tries. I could not boot with external monitor, either.

So I took it to local computer repair to see if he could figure it out. He says it's the motherboard. I sent him info on soldering, etc. of loose parts, but he did not find any such parts to solder.

So, I can find a 1.2, 1.0, or 1.13 Ghz motherboard, all reasonably priced. It had a 900/1.0 ghZ in it. Does it matter if I up the speed a bit? Or is there something I'll have to add to my harddrive to get this to work?

Any other ideas on what this would be? He believes he's also ruled out video, LCD, inverter, etc.

Am I nuts to buy the whole motherboard and put about $150 into this T23? I really have grown rather fond of it....it's small, and travels well.

Should I scrap it and buy another used T2X, T3X, or T4X?

I don't have the laptop here so I cannot tell you any more about it except it's a T23 with a 900/1.0 ghz and running XP Pro.

[Robbyrobot]

About the only thing I could recommend would be to resolder the inductors on the board even if the soldered joints appear to be OK - it's possible one or more of the joints were dislodged/disturbed by the fall.

Am I nuts to buy the whole motherboard and put about $150 into this T23?

Only if you pay such a price for no more than a T23 motherboard You can easily get a complete T23 for that kind of money nowadays.

If you want to upgrade, though, I'd tend to go for a T41-T43, although the price would be around double what you'd pay for a T23. Still, you get a fairly modern machine with some interesting bells and whistles (integrated WLAN, for example) and a faster CPU. The only problem with this series is so-called "flexing" of the motherboard caused by improper handling and thermal stresses, which leads to loss of contact of the BGA graphics chip to the motherboard. Look at the stickeys in the T4x section of the forum for more details.

[RealBlackStuff]

I picked up a very cheap used T23 mobo for $31.- shipped only last week.
If you have to pay more than $40-45 you are being ripped off.
There are 2 versions available, the ubiquitous 26P8218, and its later brother 12P3770, recommended for 1.2 CPUs.
Both mobos will actually work with all CPUs for a T23.
The most common is the 1.13GHz, Intel SL5CK.
The fastest for a T23 is 1.2GHz, Intel SL5CL.

You should perhaps check the back of your LCD, the LCD cable might be just 'hanging in' there, and causing an intermittent short. Another test: remove the LCD cable from the motherboard and then try an external monitor.

[halfmoongh]

Okay I searched all over the web such as I can on a very slow iBook and limited browsing capabilities and never found a deal on the entire computer much less just the MOBO.

I was looking at paying $46 shipped for the slowest, 1.0 Ghz MOBO from Ebay. This vendor at least has a 30 day warranty and a return policy, others that may have been cheaper did not.

So where can I find entire cheap T23's or T4x's just mother boards that will work so cheap?

I sent the tech the info on checking various things and I had asked him if external monitor was working but I have not heard back.

Thanks,

Heather

[RealBlackStuff]

What is the TYPE of that T23? Looks like e.g. TYPE 2647-4MU. (on the bottom of the laptop, on the IBM label).

If you decide to get another T23, you will/should be able to re-use almost all the parts, such as keyboard, battery, AC adapter, RAM, optical drive, hard drive, ethernet card, modem and/or wifi card.
I don't have any spare motherboards, but I could sell you a barebones T23 with a good LCD and a 1.13GHz CPU.
The price would depend on what parts can still be re-used.
If you like, you could even send me your old T23, and I'll transfer whatever is still usable.

[Harryc]

Nice offer on the rebuild RBS. Take him up on it Heather ...

[halfmoongh]

All I can tell you right now is that it says IBM ThinkPad T23/78-WHCXX on the invoice from the sale back in 2005.

I don't have it in my possession to look up more info. I sent you a PM.

Thanks,

Heather

What is the TYPE of that T23? Looks like e.g. TYPE 2647-4MU. (on the bottom of the laptop, on the IBM label).

If you decide to get another T23, you will/should be able to re-use almost all the parts, such as keyboard, battery, AC adapter, RAM, optical drive, hard drive, ethernet card, modem and/or wifi card.
I don't have any spare motherboards, but I could sell you a barebones T23 with a good LCD and a 1.13GHz CPU.
The price would depend on what parts can still be re-used.
If you like, you could even send me your old T23, and I'll transfer whatever is still usable.

[RealBlackStuff]

Check your email.

Can't seem to find any parts/warranty info on that serial #, neither as 2647, nor 2648.
Anyway, that's irrelevant for the moment.
As long as it is a T23, you'll be fine!

[rkawakami]

Can't seem to find any parts/warranty info on that serial #, neither as 2647, nor 2648.

My understanding is that about a year ago, IBM and/or Lenovo purged their database of older systems; those that were a couple of years past warranty coverage. Try entering any of your T23 or T30 systems at either the parts lookup or warranty sites:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... yle=lenovo
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... -WARNTY#sw

[Robbyrobot]

So where can I find entire cheap T23's or T4x's just mother boards that will work so cheap?

Why not just ask here in the Marketplace?

[OMNIBUS]

hallo
i don't know if this is the right topic;
i have a T23 2647 with 1,0 cpu and i would upgrade to 1,2 or 1,13 can i do it?
what i have to check?
thankyou

[RealBlackStuff]

Just buy a 1.13GHz (Intel SL5CK) or 1.20GHz (Intel SL5CL) CPU and swap it out with your old one.
Clean up and apply fresh thermal paste (Arctic Silver 5). That's all.

[halfmoongh]

I got the laptop back, the type is 2648-LU7, but what exactly does that mean? I searched this forum for that but did not find any posts.

And thanks to the other poster for the suggestion of asking here....I'm working on getting a solution from a poster that offered.

Heather

My understanding is that about a year ago, IBM and/or Lenovo purged their database of older systems; those that were a couple of years past warranty coverage. Try entering any of your T23 or T30 systems at either the parts lookup or warranty sites:

[RealBlackStuff]

Product: ThinkPad T23 2648-LU7 [change]
Operating system: All [change]

Original description: Based on 2648-2TU: PIII-M 1.0GHz (512KB),256MB RAM, 30.0GB HDD, 14.1 XGA(1024x768) TFT LCD, 8x-3.3 DVD-ROM, Modem(MPCI), Ethernet(CDC), Win2000