I'm since yesterday the proud owner of a beaten up T30. I've put some photos at the end of the post so that you can see how I received it (and how it is, now).
The seller announced that when he plugged the charger, there was only the battery LED that was blinking and nothing more. I tried too to confirm that the laptop was pretty lifeless.
Then starts the fun !
- without battery: idem;
- without CMOS battery: idem;
- CCMOS by pressing the power button during 30 seconds (without batteries and without charger): idem;
- without hard disk: idem;
- without optical drive: not better;
- without RAM: no reaction;
- without Wi-Fi card: still nothing;
- without CDC: nothing new;
- after unplugging the touchpad: the same old story.
So, I plug the keyboard of the T40 and tadaaaaaaaam: the laptop boots!!!
Then stops (3 seconds after). I tried 3 times. Same behavior.
On a 2002 laptop (july), I'd be surprised that the thermal compound is in good shape. And on a Pentium 4-M, that must be something. I disassemble the palmrest, the cooling system and, of course: very old thermal paste, nothing left or just very little. Too little. I clean the CPU, I clean the cooling system, I apply some MX-4 I put back together the components in the laptop, I reboot and again, the laptop reacts fine and this time keeps running. And I have something on the screen !
Oh nooooo! Artifacts everywhere!
I move the screen, nothing changes. I plug a VGA external screen: Artifacts too!
What is strange is that there isn't no cooling system on the GPU. Something missing? No, according to the HMM, there is no cooling system on the GPU.
I'm probably good to find another system board.
But let's have a look to the keyboard shall we ?
I haven't said, but the laptop was one of the crappiest I have ever had! Mud, animal cocoons, remains of spider webs and a lot of dust (not even clean dust, go figure out!). The keyboard was no exception. So, I disassemble it, the keys in a bowl of hot soapy water, and energic brush on the rest. Thirty minutes later, all is clean, reassembled, I can try the keyboard on the laptop again. And it boots, and without artifacts!!!
Sooo, just dust and mud problem?
Unfortunately not. It seems that the keyboard doesn't respond every time. And the artifacts appear if I move the laptop or If I try to flex the chassis. I've checked all the screws and screwed them all a little more. It seems that it's better, but still not perfect.
You have probably guessed: I think my T30 has the same problem as the T4x: bad wielding of the GPU.
And you would have guessed that it also has the RAM slot problem.
That's a little too much to consider it's reliable at the time I'm writing this, but I know I can fix that. I could access to the OS (not password protected), it seems that it hasn't seen the light of the day for at least 12 years ! Totally "bloatwarized" ! The system partition fully full of crap softwares (toolbars, printers tools, porn, toolbars, updates and oh, did I mention the toolbars? ). For the fun, I did some cleaning. I cleaned 15 GB out of 40 (over three partitions)!
So, here are my questions:
- is your diagnostic the same as mine?
- I haven't read about wielding problems on the T30 GPU. Is that a common thing?
- I'd like to try a thermal gun on the system board. Can I use it like it was a T4x system board or are there any precautions to take?
https://imgur.com/a/T7eBrZn
Have a good day!
W.
PS : by the way: it's a 2366-85G, Pentium 4-M 1.8 GHz, 512 MB of RAM, 4200 rpm 40 GB hard disk drive, 1024×768 display, Wi-Fi 802.11b card. I'll try to find a no-1802 BIOS to change the Wi-Fi card, as it's only a WEP one (I have two others that are Wi-Fi 802.11g and that will accept the WPA2-PSK).