Thinkpad 390e Boot problems

[craigmontHunter]

I was asked to repair a friend's 390e (2526-DOU). It would start loading win2k, and stop with the grey bar just before the white splash screen. I ran PCDoctor for dos (most of my floppies are wearing out), and found that the fan was not working (should have noticed that ). I tried to spin it through the vent, and it still was not working. Thinking it was a loose wire, I dissasembled the system, took out the fan, WD-40d it, and put it (working again) back in the system. I also adjusted the repair job that they had done to the left hinge (common problem?). Now I have put it back together, and when I tried to start it, the power light came on, the fan came on (it works now), and it sat there. 30 seconds later, all the indicator lights flashed and the hard drive turned off, the access light stayed on. I have dismantled it again, trying to see if I missed something, but everything is connected.

Any ideas?

Jack

[craigmontHunter]

Does anyone have any ideas? I would like to get it back to him, but I have hit a stone wall here.

Any ideas are welcome.

Thank you

[TTA]

CPU or the thermal resistor on the MB went. An E was a celeron with a solderd CPU wasn't it. You can upgrade them but the whole MB and CPU fan will need to be replaced. (differnt fan due to no socket on the MB)

[craigmontHunter]

I think it is the processor, since it does the same thing with or without it installed. Would it be possible for a short on the processor to cause these symptoms? There was some silver grease spread around the processor, could that short out a chip? any ideas?

If not, are the processor boards in the 390e standard, or an IBM part?

[TTA]

I thought e's were Celeron. (am I thinking 390m?) If it's socketed any CPU of that vintage shoud work. I'm sure I have one here. (a CPU that is) The motherboard is obviously an IBM part but as far as I know any 390 MB will fit. I'd grab one from an 390X and pop a PIII 500MHz into it.
I'm sure any 390 is so cheap on eBay you might just get the whole machine cheaper and easier than fixing the broke one. They also sold them as an i series. You can get them cheap too as people don't search for them but they were not as common.
I don't think the CPU would shut it down, I'd guess MB but maybe someone here will chime in.

[craigmontHunter]

I don't know if it is worth much money to put into it, but if the cpu are a standard design, I have a friend with a dead gateway, I could see about a swap.

This 390e has a p2 300 processor.

The problem is not that it shuts down - it does not. It just sits there with a blank screen with the hard drive off, but the access light on.

Thank you for the help so far.

[craigmontHunter]

I am still working on this, and I was wondering, will the system start without the keyboard attatched, or does it need to be fully assembled to work?

Thank You

[virge]

Followed this thread over from the off-topic forum...

Has it been confirmed whether or not this machine has a removable CPU board or if its soldered? I think I have a couple old CPU cards from the 600 series if you need one for testing.

Will it beep if you run it without memory installed? If you have more than one module, try them separately. I've bad RAM cause a no-boot situation without any error beeps.

Also have you tried to power it on with all accessory cards removed?

[Unknown_K]

The 390E has no onboard RAM so it will not do anything without some good RAM installed (kind of funny how sellers on ebay think those machines are dead when they just need a RAM stick installed).

Since the power button is on the side and not on the keyboard you should be able to boot it with no keyboard attached, use an external keyboard in the PS2 mouse port.

[craigmontHunter]

It is a MMC1? cpu, and I think I have access to another one if I can get another dead computer. I think it is the cpu because there are no error beeps when there is no memory installed (I have checked the volume, and tried the headphone jack to check)

As it is, it just sits there with the power and battery lights on, and if the hard drive/cd drive floppy drive is installed, it has the access light on constantly.

Thank You

Jack