T30 no video on LCD or external monitor

[singbad]

Hi,
I've bought a bad T30 on Ebay that showed no image but the fan is working. 256MB RAM installed, no startup beep or POST beeps.

I replaced the LCD with a good one (tested with a working T30 before) but still no video, neither on LCD nor on the external monitor.

How can I find the bug and where should I begin to search? I got a digital multimeter and a little soldering experience.

Best regards,
singbad

[Harryc]

Remove all drives, external cables, all RAM, the internal WiFi card, and the battery. Plug in the AC adapter and power it up. Do you hear any beeps?

[singbad]

no beeps, no sound other than the (moderate) fan noise

[Harryc]

The most likely cause of this issue is a defective systemboard.

[singbad]

Oh, I thought it was one of the stripped units

Or do you mean the board, the PCB itself?

I've checked the usual-suspect voltages and re-soldered the loose pins 1 - 6 of the second memory slot. I've checked all pins, first slot was ok. If I can find my Mini-PCI/parallel POST card again I'll check how far the BIOS gets.

The POST card hasn't been of much help in the past. The Mini-PCI side doesn't work at all and most modern laptops don't have a parallel port. I'll try and post the POST code if any.

[singbad]

I found my POST card and it outputs code 4A. It even works in the the MiniPCI slot which it doesn't with other laptops.

According to the little leaflet that came with it POST code 4A means "Initialize all video adapters". Does that mean the boot process stops after or during video initialization?

The error message is listed under Phoenix 4.0. Well, I don't give very much on that tiny leaflet anyway. A quick search leads me to the IBM PS/2 (Micro Channel) BIOS. If that's what I got the 4A code means Test system timer 1 count.

There's other 4A interpretations for other BIOSes:

AMI Color:
Verify CMOS extended memory

AMI Ez-Flex BIOS:
ROM BIOS data area checked

Zenith 191 BIOS:
Initialize monitor RAM

Zenith Orion 4.01E BIOS:
Install BIOS interrupt vector

Eventually I tried to start the T30 with my thumb pressed on the Radeon chip. OUTCH! This thing gets hot like a frying pan. However, I can't see signs of overheating on it. Is that normal?

And then I spotted a black felt pen mark on one corner of the Radeon's green PCB - someone must have given up earlier.

If it's really the Radeon, do I have something like a Phoenix 4.0 BIOS ???