My IBM Thinkpad has died and just wondering if anyone has any tips on how to bring it back from the dead.

The power lights and fan are coming on but the bios isn't even kicking in and the fan stays cool after running for 10mins. Any ideas?

I'd love to get it back working again but I'm more interested in getting the data off than anything else.

could be anything wrong with it, as for the data, remove the hard disk and mount it in a removable caddy…

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/125132

or

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143545

depending on if it is sata or not

BTW is the disk activity light flashing? If so could it be that the display has failed?

How much ram do you have in there? if you have 2 banks ie onboard and extended then take the extended and boot without it. I would put money on it being a ram fault given those symptoms 😉

Its way off being dead yet matey.

Cheers for the advice. May pop down Maplins later and grab something…

Does it beep when powered on, and if so how many times ?

No beeps but lights come on and go off – just Power and HDD light stay on.

Took the mem out and no difference – even took the HDD out but again same.

If its a T41 series then the video chip is a common failure. Will try and power up but will not display anything on screen other than very briefly at best.

R41 – managed to take all the data off the drive by installing it in my desktop but it isn't doing anything.

The BIOS isn't working / loading.

Try an external monitor just in case it's just the screen?

You can usually still see something if the backlight fails though.

Oh, and remove the battery and power it up on the mains adaptor – seen shot batteries work some strange mojo in the past.

take the battery out and disconnect from the mains – hold finger on the on/off button for a count of 10.

put the battery back in/connect to mains and then try to turn it on again

//just what i'd try/