T42 intermittent start up probs.

[simonjs]

My T42 has developed some serious start up problems, since I´ve had her (4 years second hand, 2005 model) occasionally she seemed to be dead and i´d just whip out the battery and back in again and all would be rosy for quite some time.

Just recently she took a turn for the worse but I discovered the ole 10 button press 30 sec hold statich dishcharge trick would often help. The Last few days she has worsened again, nothing seems to help, she´ll appear completely dead with no battery light, it does flicker on for a second sometimes when i first connect the power cable, if i´m lucky the battery light will light up and appear to be charging but when i press the start button all lights go out, or just the system light and fan come on but a blank screen. Occasionally she´ll boot up and then after working for a bit go to a white blank screen. Sometimes i´ll also hear the dreaded 4 sets of 4 beeps system board (security chip) code.

I stripped her down to just the standard ram (which i took out, cleaned and reseated) and also swapped around the ram cards.
I also whipped out the CMOS battery for an hour to see if that would help.

Everything I´ve reasearched suggests the motherboard has almost certainly had it. I´m looking in to how i can get a replacement board to brazil but i´m also planning to try one last time a check on the CMOS battery and some confirmed working RAM.

Anyone else have any final suggestions to make? Oh I also had a mess around putting pressure on the ATI chip and the one next to it but that didn´t seem to have any effect.

Thanks

Simon

[RealBlackStuff]

The Board Room (see my sig) is willing to ship a mobo to Brazil.
PM me if interested.

[poshgeordie]

Hi Simon and RBS - I'm in touch with Simon by PM, and Simon I would recommend a Board Room board which I will have refurb'd (I'm the other half of The BR) , and will be a cheaper option for you.

@RBS the board FRU is 93p4156 so "standard" with 7500 GPU. TP model number is 2373-091 for your records - I can't find this model number so is it worth adding to the board numbers page on the BR site?