T23 safe mode vs regular mode RAM

[rkawakami]

Maybe my eyes are deceiving me but with the (tiny) picture that was posted, it sure looked like there's more "melting" of the plastic than normal. I've checked two of my T23 boards and there is a little bit of a deformation of the plastic or there's some epoxy that's been applied to the coil, but they don't look too bad.

[burns334]

Tiny? you joke, it opens very large for me. I agree it looks to be slightly more than normal. I guess if I can't find anything else it is a possibility. Last status of machine prior to disassembly - I have one good memory slot with 512 mb of RAM and get no beeps on startup ever. The only time it will boot and run is if I squeeze machine together, boot sides same time.

[rkawakami]

I've started looking at the board with 5x and don't see anything suspicious, all joints appear to have normal amount of solder and no cracks visible. And then I saw it, the inside of the large inductor at A1, which is missing in Ray's pictures is all melted on the inside, is this one toast?

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/2442/m ... ductor.jpg

When I clicked on that link last night, it was only about 100x100. Now that I can see the HUGE photo, yes, it resembles the two inductors that I have on the motherboards at home.

[burns334]

Well I've spent a few hours looking at the mobo using a stereo microscope and can't find anything that looks suspicious so I thought I would put it back together making sure all the connectors get reseated and hope for the best. It is easier than I thought just taking my time. Out to Ratshack to get some thermal grease and should finish up tonight. I'll keep you guys posted. The top bezel has a break at the narrow part on the left where the palmrest meets the frame, is it worth while to glue that back together with some epoxy or will it just break again?

[rkawakami]

RBS documented a repair procedure for this type of common breakage: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=60282

You should also inspect the right rear corner of the laptop, where the tab from the Ultrabay guide rail (the metal cage that makes up the Ultrabay slot) is bolted to the back panel. If that tab has broken off from the rest of the guide rail, then that allows the case to twist when opening and closing the lid. That can lead to added strain on the keyboard bezel and the weakest point is next to the right arrow key. Since the break in your bezel is on the left side next to the Fn key, then I'm not sure how that one happens. Possibly carrying or lifting the system by one corner...

[burns334]

If you are going to keep your T23 alive, invest a few dollars in a floppy drive. They're cheap on eBay, such as here:
http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-ThinkPad-UltraB ... 0256426673

RBS, I picked up the drive you mentioned above but in does not fit in where the CD/DVD, do I now need to buy a one of these?

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-IBM-Portable-Dr ... 1719wt_986


Would this have been a better choice for me?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 500wt_1030

[RealBlackStuff]

That floppy drive should fit your T23, unless the CD-cage is borked.
If you can fit a CD/DVD drive in there, the floppy drive should also fit!
However, sometimes they require a bit of a wiggle and some force to get them in.
I'd say your cage is bent/broken.
The portable drive bay is overkill and too expensive.
Let me know if you need T23 parts.

The USB floppy drive is highly recommendable for use on T40x and higher, all the way to the latest W700.

[burns334]

You also need to replace the CCFL in your LCD, or get a new/used LCD.
http://www.lcdparts.net/howto/troublesh ... CCFL1.aspx

RBS, I have a few other machines that have the CCFL problem, some pink at startup and in a few minutes it is fine. How long can it stay like this and what is failure mode?

[rkawakami]

An SXGA+ T23 that goes with me every day to work has had a pink tint at power on since I received it in Sept. 2006. I think that it has dimmed just a little bit over the almost 3 1/2 years that I've had it but it's still very usable. The time that it takes for the tint to visibly go away may have also increased a couple of seconds. 15 to 20 seconds after the system is turned on the only thing that someone might notice is that the lower left and right corners are slightly dark. I don't use any screen saver so once it's turned on in the morning, it stays on until I go home at night. Even though the technology is a little bit different than "regular" fluorescent lamps, I've always treated CCFLs the same; it is better to leave it on than it is to cycle it on and off during the day.

The failure mode would be when the backlight refuses to turn on any more . That could happen at any time.

[burns334]

Doesn't sound like I need to jump in and tear it apart immediately, lol. RBS told me just about the same thing on the phone.

[burns334]

FINALLY, I bought a used "working motherboard" from the a popular auction site, it came in a perfect base with all the guts for $30 unfortunately when I installed it I got the oscillating fan problem. The seller refunded my money and let me keep the bad board. I disassembled and found one inductor laying in the base. I resolder it in place and put it all back together. It started up with 2 beeps and then an " Resource conflict Allocation error static node #00". I reset the bios to the default settings and started it once in safe mode and then in regular mode. It found lots of new hardware and the like but seems to be pretty good now.

[RealBlackStuff]

See, there's nothing to resoldering inductors, do that regularly...

[burns334]

See, there's nothing to resoldering inductors, do that regularly...

RBS, I've done lots of soldering and know how important cleaning and flux are to getting a good joint but these were a little difficult. I cleaned the tabs on the inductor and tinned them and then cleaned the board and fluxed it but it was a little difficult to get these joints to flow. Hard to believe 1 inductor could stop everything from working, RBS, thanks for the encouragement to take machines apart.

Peter