Update/Repairs to my T40 Would Love Some Tips!

[akkadian]

Hi there,

New T40 owner. I've owned a T60 and a T61. This is my first Thinkpad with the dreaded garbled screen. I've taken a look at the thinkwiki article on it: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_w ... led_screen. I'm going to try out the suggested solutions. I'm running Ubuntu 10.10 and it's all good accept for the garbled screen when there is pressure on the front of the laptop. I've tried the underclocking solution and it help. So here are all the things I plan on doing and with each project I have a couple questions.

1. Fixing the graphics issue. I'm going to attempt the the motherboard reflow technique. I've been doing research in it so I'm pretty sure I know what to do but if anyone has any comments to make from their own experience, it would be much appreciated.

2. New HDD. I just want to get a straight answer on this because I'm getting mixed results from google search. The T40 is PATA not SATA correct?

3. I want to add an SD card reader to the expansion slots on the left side. I'm not having much success tracking one down via google search. These are the search terms ive been using: "thinkpad sd card reader" "t40 sd card reader" "expansion t40"

4. I want to add a 2nd HDD too. I was looking at this: http://www.amazon.com/IBM-Ultrabay-2000 ... B00004Z74V The Ultrabay slim adapter also works for this T40. Would there be any reason to favor one over the other?

Thanks. I know these are a lot of requests. I don't expect anyone to do any research for me. Ive just hit a wall with answers for these few. So if anyone has any answers readily available then it would be a huge help and much appreciated. Thank you!

[tfflivemb2]

I am a little out of the T4x game, but I can tell you that the T40 HD is definitely PATA, and not SATA.

Good luck on the reflow!

[akkadian]

Thanks for the help tfflivemb2!

[rkawakami]

3. I want to add an SD card reader to the expansion slots on the left side.

If you are talking about the PCMCIA slots near the front left edge, then look for "pcmcia secure digital adapter". There's 5-in-1, 6-in-1 and various other adapters that will also accept MiniSD, CompactFlash, MMC, xD and/or MemoryStick formats.

4. I want to add a 2nd HDD too.

You will need an Ultrabay Slim 2nd HD adapter. The Ultrabay 2000 adapter will not fit. The FRU for that is 62P4553. That's for PATA drives; there's another one for SATA drives and I believe that FRU is 26R9247.

[poshgeordie]

[quote="akkadian"]1. Fixing the graphics issue. I'm going to attempt the the motherboard reflow technique. I've been doing research in it so I'm pretty sure I know what to do but if anyone has any comments to make from their own experience, it would be much appreciated./quote]

First place to go to is Reflow GPU's sticky in this thread and read through people's experiences there.

Secondly search on my name "poshgeordie" for all the replies I've made about reflowing over the years - too many to list!

Thirdly, have a look at the Board Room which RealBlackStuff and myself have set up to provide refurb'd motherboards for USA forum members. There's a sticky and a link at the top of every page to the website.

Get back to me if you want any more information etc.