Thinkpad: Video dies after bioscheck
in [Laptops]
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From: Elmar Weber on 5 Apr 2008 18:45 Hello, I have a problem with an IBM Tinkpad T42 (2373) with a Radeon graphic card. There are two different cases when powering on the laptop: Either everything stays black, the system is not booting. Or for the first three seconds everything works like it should, then where normally the screen switches from the IBM start logo to the other one everything goes black again and the system does not boot either. In both cases the fan is running and the LEDs show normal activity (except HDD). When I use the external video port the same happens. I cannot reproduce any behaviour for sure, though the first case is by far more common (about every 1/20 tries I get the second case). I opened the case in order to check if there are any loose parts, I checked the video connectors and tried to boot when the display is not connected. The same results. The laptop is from a colleague who dropped the notebook bag it was in. This seems to be origin of the problem. At first everything worked fine but after a few days the notebook shutdown randomly until the behaviour described above occurred. Does anyone have an idea what may be the problem or a tip how to debug this? My only idea would be to test part by part from a compatible laptop. But before embarking on that endeavour I was wondering if there is may be more targeted approach. ciao, Elmar -- "Religion und Familie sind die beiden gr��ten Feinde des Fortschritts." (Andr� Gide (1869 - 1951), franz�sischer Schriftsteller)
From: BillW50 on 5 Apr 2008 19:10 In news:47F80102.2050802(a)elmarweber.org, Elmar Weber typed on Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:45:22 +0200: > Hello, > > I have a problem with an IBM Tinkpad T42 (2373) with a Radeon graphic > card. There are two different cases when powering on the laptop: > Either everything stays black, the system is not booting. Or for the > first three seconds everything works like it should, then where > normally the screen switches from the IBM start logo to the other one > everything goes black again and the system does not boot either. > In both cases the fan is running and the LEDs show normal activity > (except HDD). When I use the external video port the same happens. > > I cannot reproduce any behaviour for sure, though the first case is by > far more common (about every 1/20 tries I get the second case). > I opened the case in order to check if there are any loose parts, I > checked the video connectors and tried to boot when the display is not > connected. The same results. > > The laptop is from a colleague who dropped the notebook bag it was in. > This seems to be origin of the problem. At first everything worked > fine but after a few days the notebook shutdown randomly until the > behaviour described above occurred. > > Does anyone have an idea what may be the problem or a tip how to > debug this? My only idea would be to test part by part from a > compatible laptop. But before embarking on that endeavour I was > wondering if there is may be more targeted approach. > > ciao, > Elmar Wow the HD lites doesn't show anything? Being dropped? Oh bad hard drive or bad motherboard is my guesses. But I am thinking of the latter actually. This isn't good Elmar. -- Bill
From: Elmar Weber on 5 Apr 2008 19:40 Hellp, BillW50 wrote: > Wow the HD lites doesn't show anything? Being dropped? Oh bad hard drive > or bad motherboard is my guesses. But I am thinking of the latter > actually. This isn't good Elmar. Thanks for your reply. HDD was defect after the crash, I replaced it with another one that works and boots (in another laptop) but the notebook never comes that far. In case of a defect motherboard its of course FUBAR, although its hard for me to imagine that the motherboard is gone because it sometimes produces a "normal" first few seconds. Although there are not mechanical components on the motherboard, is it possible that a circuit path has some kind of "loose contact" - if you can call it that - based on the crash? ciao, Elmar -- "Religion und Familie sind die beiden gr��ten Feinde des Fortschritts." (Andr� Gide (1869 - 1951), franz�sischer Schriftsteller)
From: John Doue on 7 Apr 2008 02:42 Elmar Weber wrote: > Hellp, > > BillW50 wrote: >> Wow the HD lites doesn't show anything? Being dropped? Oh bad hard >> drive or bad motherboard is my guesses. But I am thinking of the >> latter actually. This isn't good Elmar. > > Thanks for your reply. HDD was defect after the crash, I replaced it > with another one that works and boots (in another laptop) but the > notebook never comes that far. > > In case of a defect motherboard its of course FUBAR, although its hard > for me to imagine that the motherboard is gone because it sometimes > produces a "normal" first few seconds. > Although there are not mechanical components on the motherboard, is it > possible that a circuit path has some kind of "loose contact" - if you > can call it that - based on the crash? > > ciao, > Elmar > You are not saying what kind of OS is on the replacement hard-drive. Without more info, I would suggest you boot into Bios, so that any OS problem can be ruled out. If the Bios screen appears correctly, there is a good chance the system is not damaged and you need to reinstall the OS to confirm this. This being said, as Bill, I am not holding my breath ... Regards -- John Doue
From: Elmar Weber on 7 Apr 2008 08:11
Hello, John Doue wrote: > You are not saying what kind of OS is on the replacement hard-drive. > Without more info, I would suggest you boot into Bios, so that any OS > problem can be ruled out. If the Bios screen appears correctly, there is > a good chance the system is not damaged and you need to reinstall the OS > to confirm this. the HDD is not the problem, whether with HDD or without makes no difference. The problem is that the system does not boot into bios. It goes black before one has the chance to do anything on the system level - in the few cases it produces a video output. As described in the first post, in most cases there is no video output at all. ciao, Elmar -- "Religion und Familie sind die beiden gr��ten Feinde des Fortschritts." (Andr� Gide (1869 - 1951), franz�sischer Schriftsteller) |