First ThinkPad (T43)... not booting

[Cristov9000]

Hi everyone, new member and first time ThinkPad owner here.

A friend has gave me a free T43. It stalls at the splash screen on boot then if you hit the AccessIBM button it boots to the XP splash screen. (hence why it was free). The story is that he acquired it with a non functional harddrive and he tried to swap in a HDD from a T42 couldnt get it to work and gave up. The computer is in great shape cosmetically but obviously doesnt run. I dont even know what the specs are of it. It says 2668-CTO on the bottom and 2668 Y42 under that, neither of which have allowed me to find a spec sheet anywhere. It doesnt have the fingerprint reader and looks to be trying to load XP home edition and there is a DVD/CDr drive in the bay but I havnt taken it apart yet to investigate further.

My goal for this T43 was to make a garage computer from it; Datalogging at the track, in car tuning/dyno tuning, shop computer for diagnostics, light data analysis. Nothing crazy performance wise but would have to survive lots of vibration, being in an occasionally dirty environment and my clumsiness while having a decent battery life. My plan was add an SSD and win7, max out the memory and get a new battery and a ultrabay battery, but I am not sure if it worth it to try and fix it or should I just sell and look for a running T60 or something. Where would I even start by fixing it? I have no recovery CDs or any documentation for the thing.

Any help or recommendations would be a big help. Thanks guys.
Sorry if this is noob stuff... I tried to read as much of the forum as I could before the post.

[rkawakami]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

Failure to continue booting after the splash screen is displayed could be due to a number of things:

- there may be a key stuck on the keyboard
- some piece of hardware in the system could be hanging it up
- the OS installed on the hard drive is confused about the hardware it's seeing <---good chance given your T43's history

2668-Y42 was originally configured as follows:

ThinkPad T43 (2668-Y42)
Based 2668-CTO: P M 750(1.86GHz), 1GB RAM, 60GB 7200rpm HDD, 14.1in 1400x1050 LCD, 64MB ATI Radeon X300, 24x24x24x/8x CD-RW/DVD, Intel 802.11abg wireless, Modem, 1Gb Ether, UltraNav, Sec Chip, 6c Li-Ion batt, WinXP Home

My suggestion would be as follows:

- remove the hard drive
- download and run memtest86+ memory diagnostic: http://www.memtest.org/#downiso
- download and run PC Doctor for DOS system diagnostic: http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloa ... MIGR-56222

These diagnostic programs come as .ISO files and must be burned onto a CD using a program like CDBurnerXP. If you can't boot off the CDs with the hard drive out of the system (still stuck at the splash screen), you may be having a problem with a stuck key and you'll have to swap out the keyboard with one that's known to work. Once you've determined that the T43 is operational (minus the hard drive), then it's a matter of finding a recovery CD set. For that, you can post a WTB (Want To Buy) here in the Marketplace forum.

edit: A less obvious problem might be that the hard drive is actually throwing a 2010 BIOS error. The T43 is one of the few systems which has a "whitelist" of approved drives coded in the BIOS. There's ways around that problem as well.

[Cristov9000]

Thank you for the reply. Unfortunately bad news... I finally had sometime to sit down and troubleshoot. Looks like the motherboard is crap. I guess you get what you pay for and this thing was free.

So my next question what now? I was pretty impressed with the build quality of the thinkpad and I do think its what I am looking for. I wouldn't imagine it is worth replacing the board and still have to get a new SSD. Should I be on the look out for another T43 or T43p or is it worth looking at a T60 or T61? Any thing else that would be recommended.

Thanks in advance.

[ajkula66]

Most car shops that I know of use ToughBooks, not ThinkPads. I believe that an integrated serial port is one of the reasons, apart from other requirements that you've already stated.

T60 series is quite inexpensive nowadays and would be worth looking into, as would T61 with Intel graphics only.

If you decide to part company with the sickly T43, feel free to drop me a PM.

Good luck.

[Cristov9000]

Most car shops that I know of use ToughBooks, not ThinkPads. I believe that an integrated serial port is one of the reasons, apart from other requirements that you've already stated.

T60 series is quite inexpensive nowadays and would be worth looking into, as would T61 with Intel graphics only.

If you decide to part company with the sickly T43, feel free to drop me a PM.

Good luck.

Toughbooks are a little overkill I always thought. The ECU is the car is more fragile than the toughbook at that point. Serial ports are kinda old tech for tuning. The Cosworth ECUs that I have been using use ethernet for a coms and some are also going toward USB. ATE motorsport ABS units still use serial I believe.

I would be willing to part company with the T43 if you know of a T60, T60 or maybe something newer. I checked the classified section here but didnt find much. Any other good places to look other than ebay? Thanks in advance.