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    Unbootable Thinkpad G41

    Hello

    I have a Thinkpad G41 that will not boot up. A couple years ago after having it for a little over a year my G41 made some beeps and the screen went blank. After that when I would turn it on it would make 3 beeps and would not boot, nothing would come on the screen but the fan did run and battery light came on. IBM said 3 beeps indicated a motherboard issue but they wanted $475 to fix it which I said no way. Recently I tried replacing the motherboard with a refurbished one. That did not work out as it still did not boot up and made a 4-3-1-4 beep sequence. My motherboard was listed as 27R2069 but it was listed that 27R1872 was compatible with it and I ended up ordering a 27R1872 motherboard which was identical to mine but it did not work, not sure if that would have anything to do with it.

    When I took my old motherboard out I noticed one of the capacitors was raised and crooked. I thought I might have done that when trying to get the stubborn motherboard off but I saw where that is also an indication of a blown capacitor. The capacitor is a fairly tall silver one with a purple mark at the left hand side and is labeled 508
    SVP
    68
    20

    On the other side of the motherboard were 2 similar capacitors but had a 505 on top instead of 508.

    I decided I am going to try soldering a new capacitor to the motherboard where the one is raised before ordering another motherboard or sending it out to get fixed. I am trying to spend as little as possible to fix the computer as it is fairly old. Does anyone know exactly what type of capacitors I should use. I could find any with those exact numbers and not sure what they stand for. I read where 40W is the minimum and a 60W soldering iron is recommended for a P4 processor, are the soldering irons you get at radio shack any good? Is there any way of testing or seeing if any other capacitors are blown/bad because the rest look fine. Could there be something that is causing the capacitor to blow or could it just be the bad batch of knock off Taiwan capacitors that have plagued so many motherboards.

    I am new to soldering electronics but I am pretty good at following instructions and figuring things out.

    Appreciate any advice or tips people can give me.

    Some more info about my G41/motherboard
    It is a 27R2069 mb Type 2886-79U S/N L3-Ar724
    Processor is P4-M 548 Prescott External VGA 93P44275 (nVidiaGo5200)

    #2
    Re: Unbootable Thinkpad G41

    SVP capacitors are Sanyo OS-CON polymers. It's very unlikely that this capacitor failed as its from a reliable manufacturer and it's a solid polymer capacitor, which are more reliable. It's possible it was soldered in crooked originally, or that you knocked it while working on it. If you knocked it hard enough, it's possible to break the solder joint or do other damage to the capacitor, but I'd say that'd take a fair amount of force.

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Unbootable Thinkpad G41

      Have you tried new RAM?

      I know it doesn't flow with the IBM codes but you never know.

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Unbootable Thinkpad G41

        Originally posted by yyonline
        SVP capacitors are Sanyo OS-CON polymers. It's very unlikely that this capacitor failed as its from a reliable manufacturer and it's a solid polymer capacitor, which are more reliable. It's possible it was soldered in crooked originally, or that you knocked it while working on it. If you knocked it hard enough, it's possible to break the solder joint or do other damage to the capacitor, but I'd say that'd take a fair amount of force.
        That is not good news, I was hoping some soldering or new caps could fix the motherboard/laptop. The capacitor was raised, one side of the capacitor pins was broken off on one side but the other side was still in tact. When I tried pushing it down it still seemed a little crooked because the rubber on the button was not setting right.

        Can the other end of the capacitor mount that was broke be soldered back together?

        Not sure if I did it when taking the motherboard out because you have to really fight it to get the mother board out because there are components that extend out the case through holes on two sides.

        In the picture you can kind of see the raised capacitor. It is the 1st one in the row of 3 next to the gap with the other single capacitor.
        Attached Files

        Comment


          #5
          Re: Unbootable Thinkpad G41

          Originally posted by seanc
          Have you tried new RAM?

          I know it doesn't flow with the IBM codes but you never know.
          No, I did not try new RAM. Not sure if a issue with my RAM though would cause my laptop to become completely non functional and not even boot up or display anything on screen.

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Unbootable Thinkpad G41

            Originally posted by Thinkpadg41
            Can the other end of the capacitor mount that was broke be soldered back together
            Those look like surface mount capacitors. Any chance you could get a higher resolution photo from a few angles showing the broken leg? It's possible you could resolder it, but if it broke, it also could have lifted the pad from the board or other damage that would make it more complicated to repair. From the low-res photo you attached, it's really hard to make out anything.

            And yes, bad memory can cause a laptop to completely fail to boot.

            Hmm, the Prescott CPU core produces a crazy amount of heat. Given that it's a laptop, which often have so-so cooling, I'd start with the CPU and look for signs of heat-related failure. What I do when I don't have a spare CPU to test with... I'll buy a cheap Celeron CPU from the same CPU family on eBay, and swap that in to test with to see if the CPU is bad. The celerons can usually be had for under $5, so they're cheap, and you don't have to worry too much about breaking a CPU that's worth something. If it works, I'll look for a replacement CPU that's not a celeron. If not, well, then I'll look for other causes.

            Have you tried reseating the heatsink with new thermal paste? I've had some heatsink issues where the laptop will shut itself off as soon as it's turned on. Of course, it doesn't usually beep in those cases.

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Unbootable Thinkpad G41

              Originally posted by yyonline
              Those look like surface mount capacitors. Any chance you could get a higher resolution photo from a few angles showing the broken leg? It's possible you could resolder it, but if it broke, it also could have lifted the pad from the board or other damage that would make it more complicated to repair. From the low-res photo you attached, it's really hard to make out anything.

              And yes, bad memory can cause a laptop to completely fail to boot.

              Hmm, the Prescott CPU core produces a crazy amount of heat. Given that it's a laptop, which often have so-so cooling, I'd start with the CPU and look for signs of heat-related failure. What I do when I don't have a spare CPU to test with... I'll buy a cheap Celeron CPU from the same CPU family on eBay, and swap that in to test with to see if the CPU is bad. The celerons can usually be had for under $5, so they're cheap, and you don't have to worry too much about breaking a CPU that's worth something. If it works, I'll look for a replacement CPU that's not a celeron. If not, well, then I'll look for other causes.

              Have you tried reseating the heatsink with new thermal paste? I've had some heatsink issues where the laptop will shut itself off as soon as it's turned on. Of course, it doesn't usually beep in those cases.
              More pics will take a little while because I put the laptop back together. It was not the poor quality of the camera though, it(or me) just was not able to focus properly on the board that close. Unfortunately it did not go down all the way when I pressed it down so the rubber base may have been pulled up or unseated too. Is that going to be really hard or an issue to repair.

              I really only tried to replace the motherboard with a different unit which did not work.

              Would bad memory just suddenly fail with no signs? The computer worked perfectly before with no problems with the OS or problems with graphics and then suddenly shut down, beeped, and would not restart/reboot properly. I think once prior it beeped and froze and had to be manually shut down but that only happened once. I have two 512 memory chips in to make it 1 Gig, should I try taking one out and see what happens? Can I just use some cheap RAM chips to test it or do I have to get a specific Thinkpad G41 RAM?

              The CPU appeared fine and did not appear to have any damage or signs of overheating and still had wet paste on it although it was a pretty thin sporadic layer. You can see the CPU in the picture I added.

              I did not try resetting the heatsink with thermal past either as I was pretty sure my issue was just I needed a new motherboard.

              I would think if the CPU was getting too hot and there not being enough thermal paste there would be signs like everything slowing down and it crashing alot prior to failure which did not happen. I will apply more thermal grease the next time I take it apart and try fixing it or looking at it though and I will give getting a cheap Celeron CPU a shot when I can.

              Thanks for the help and suggestions. This has been a pretty frustrating ordeal when my less the 2 year old $1400 laptop is suddenly a useless expensive paperweight and I can't even figure out what is wrong or how to fix it. I definitely don't want to pay IBM over $500 to try and fix it because it is just not worth it especially when the fix may be pretty inexpensive.
              Attached Files

              Comment


                #8
                Re: Unbootable Thinkpad G41

                Yes bad RAM can suddenly cause a laptop to not boot.

                Swap the sticks about, try some different RAM, as long as it the correct speed (PC2100/PC2700/PC3200 etc) and type of RAM (DDR/DDR2) it will work.

                I have a perfectly functional Sony laptop - free.
                It was left with me as dead - it did not POST.
                The customer had sent it off to the manufacturer, they'd said it needed a new motherboard. I took out the RAM and plonked some other RAM in, it's been working fine ever since.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: Unbootable Thinkpad G41

                  Originally posted by yyonline
                  Those look like surface mount capacitors. Any chance you could get a higher resolution photo from a few angles showing the broken leg? It's possible you could resolder it, but if it broke, it also could have lifted the pad from the board or other damage that would make it more complicated to repair. From the low-res photo you attached, it's really hard to make out anything.

                  And yes, bad memory can cause a laptop to completely fail to boot.

                  Hmm, the Prescott CPU core produces a crazy amount of heat. Given that it's a laptop, which often have so-so cooling, I'd start with the CPU and look for signs of heat-related failure. What I do when I don't have a spare CPU to test with... I'll buy a cheap Celeron CPU from the same CPU family on eBay, and swap that in to test with to see if the CPU is bad. The celerons can usually be had for under $5, so they're cheap, and you don't have to worry too much about breaking a CPU that's worth something. If it works, I'll look for a replacement CPU that's not a celeron. If not, well, then I'll look for other causes.

                  Have you tried reseating the heatsink with new thermal paste? I've had some heatsink issues where the laptop will shut itself off as soon as it's turned on. Of course, it doesn't usually beep in those cases.
                  As for replacing the CPU with a cheap Celeron unit to test if it works I am a little unsure what kind I would need to get. My ThinkpadG41 uses a P4-M 548 [3.33GHz] and I see a ton of different celeron types on eBay. What kind of cheap celeron processor could I use in my G41 to test it?

                  I tried experimenting last night and took one of the RAM chips out and turned it on which there was no difference. 4 beeps and fan stays constantly on. Then I took both out. When I put them back in I think I put one in upside down from the way it was in before and it now beeps 3 times like what it originally did when it failed and the fan did not stay on constantly and only came on briefly when I first turned it on which is more normal like what it did when it was working right but still nothing on screen.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: Unbootable Thinkpad G41

                    Long shot -> research thinkpad nvidia bga.

                    There are youtube videos on this as well which may or may not help you.

                    Originally posted by Thinkpadg41
                    Hello

                    I have a Thinkpad G41 that will not boot up.
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