T43 ThinkPad came back to life

[billp117]

I recently picked up a 15" T43 (2686-EGU)...the only problem was a bad battery and no video. I thought the motherboard would require a reflow or reball to bring it back to life. To my surprise...I removed the MB and plugged it into a dock...presto...it worked fine.

I reinstalled the same MB, loaded Windows 7 Home, and ran all the diagnostics with no issues to report. This is the second T4x motherboard to act the same way. Thanks to HarryC for mentioning he was running a board in a dock...sure worked for me and saved me a lot of work.

[lukee]

So if I'm understand correctly, the mobo doesn't work inside the ThinkPad but lonely in the dock it works?

[billp117]

Works like a charm...you have to use the processor, heatsink, one chip of memory. You can even plug in the HD and KB. Yes you do need to plug in a monitor to the dock.

Don't short anything by accident like set the KB on the MB. This is an easy way to see if the MB can at least post to the BIOS.

[RealBlackStuff]

For checking out T4x/R5x mobos all I use is a spare power connector and a spare mobo-to-VGA strip/cable.
Both plug in easily.