Help me fix this IBM Thinkpad T40

[Tristicus]

Okay, I had a stick of 2700, and the PC booted, but displayed nothing on screen, and beeped twice after a few seconds then the CPU fan shut off. The mobo is an R51, but the people over at the forums told me everything would work (seller told me to try 2700).

 

[junkyardDawg]

can you try an external monitor? 2 beeps should be followed by a post error code

 

[Tristicus]

Tried.

0271: check date and time settings

1803: unauthorized daughter card is plugged in power off and remove the daughter card

I removed Bluetooth and Wireless and even the expansion slot thing...what could it be?

 

[Tristicus]

Okay, so apparently the guys at the forums overlooked that I had a 14.1" SXGA screen that has problems with an R51 board...yeah.

Fortunately, the guy who made the mistake offered me a free screen or motherboard, and I offered to send my current motherboard, and he is mailing one out by the end of the week, so we'll see...

 

[Tristicus]

Okay, so new motherboard, found out a stick of ram was bad, running with 1.25gb.

When I boot it up, gets fuzzy sometimes, other times when I login to desktop. However, when I start playing a dvd (specifically The Reaping), the fuzziness goes away. Completely, and had yet to come back for the 10-30 minutes I kept it on after shutting the video off (and yes I used it a bit).



Does it just need to warm up or something...?

 

[Tbirdkid]

is it just fuzzy as in display? and it gets better as it warms up? if so, that could be a few things, but i would take the time to open it up and blow it out with a vacuum cleaner or something. then try it again. it could be that the video card is getting too warm. also, pull the cpu heatsink, clean it up, and then put some new paste underneath it.

 

[Tristicus]

I've been taking apart the thing for the last month...there is no noticeable dust. Thanks..but did you read the thread?

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

I'm going to go against everything said here and say toss the thing and start over with something newer than 5 years old. We still have some T42's floating around at work and even with 1GB RAM they are painfully slow.
A fuzzy screen that gets better over time or usage is probably an inverter or loose video cable

 

[Tristicus]

Pay for it and certainly.

 

[Tbirdkid]

Yes, I read the thread. I still believe that the inside of that notebook is too hot, causing it to be blurry. Its either the video, or the cpu that is causing it. Is it blurry if you pull the cdrom? Is it blurry if you pull the hdd and boot off the cdrom?

Is it blurry when you hook it up to an external monitor?

 

[Tristicus]

The notebook is like this when booted up. It gets better as the notebook gets hotter. I've used two CPUs, but I can try another one, even though I've never found a CPU to make a screen fuzzy. I've not tried the external part yet, but generally no as I tried it before. But the screen did it on and off, so I don't know.

 

[Tbirdkid]

if its not blurry when using an external monitor, then its probably the inverter for the lcd, or the lcd itself. it could also be the connection. the wires are really tiny, and hard to see at times....

 

[Tristicus]

Using external ATM, nothing wrong at all, 1920x1200 and seems to be doing fine. I'll take it apart for the umpteenth time and blow the connection off real good and see if it makes any difference. I suppose it could just be thrown in the TV cabinet/put somewhere though and used as a PC for video viewing or something if the LCD doesn't work..

Oh wow, inverters are cheap on eBay...you reckon it is that? I know it's cheap but I only want to spend the money if sure.

Booted it up after blowing it out and such, fine for a while, then decides to go crazy after I moved a little bit...moved the screen, got better for split second here and there, but now is fully fuzzy.Theres one position or so it doesn't seem to be fuzzy in, but then it goes back after I move my hand from the screen.