Troubleshooting Dead Lappy - IBM Thinkpad 390E

[marmasatt]

Alright, so a friend of mine gives me a dead lappy (IBM Thinkpad 390E specs here)and wants me to a) get it going and b) then upgrade it a bit if possible. I don't know if its worth upgrading too much, but we're letting the horse get ahead of the carriage a bit..... I digress.

So I'm a freakin wiz when it comes to desktops but I have no idea even where to begin with this. Never even held a laptop. You turn the power on and you get a blink of the green led for HD (2 seconds)and the only thing to happen is that the green (yellow?) led for the battery stays on. No boot up or anything. I have it plugged in with the AC but this is all that happens. I was under the impression that if a dead battery was the issue, you could always use the AC for boot up. That is not the case? Do I need to look for a new battery? Do I need to open this baby up, start messing w/ CMOS battery and stuff. Anyone, anyone? Thanks. I'm in way over my head here, unfortunately.

(Posted here as this had dropped to the depths on TS Forum)

Oliver

 

[jyates]

You might do well to reseat the memory and all the drives and then give it another try.
I've had several IBM's through the years that just up and decide they don't want to power
up and after reseating everything they come right up and run like a champ.

Good luck!

 

[iamme]

if you want to test to see if the battery is causing problems, you could always take the battery out and then try to start up the laptop on AC power.

 

[Abhi]

Are you getting display? If not, connect to an external monitor and see what happens...

 

[marmasatt]

Well, I've reseated everything HD, Ram, Modem, etc w/ out opening this baby up. Nothing. I don't think hooking it up to a monitor is going to help quite frankly because I'm getting no fans spinning or any activity on the board itself, so I don't think its a display issue. Do I need to open this baby up?

 

[cy7878]

probably a dead MB. It happens if someone tried to update the BIOS and problems occurred. if that happens, The laptop is dead. The only way is a MB replacement.

 

[marmasatt]

Well, not to be argumentative, but he didn't try to flash the bios or anything. The mobo might be dead, but not from him. He is a friend of mine, it's not like he has any reason to lie. He just told me it stopped working one day. I asked him if he remembered dropping or slamming it or something and he said "no."

 

[WackyDan]

Classic IBM CMOS battery acting up.

Until you take care of that.... you are farting in the wind and so is everyone else here.

 

[cy7878]

well, I guess you got nothing to lose by tearing the unit apart and take a look. Be sure to have the right size screw drivers and properly ground yourself. Replace the CMOS battery like others suggested. It's only a $5 part.......