Laptop won't boot anymore

[dave225]

I have an IBM thinkpad (kind of old) - Windows 98 installed on it.

I started having trouble with Windows not coming up - locking up on the splash screen.

I tried booting to DOS from a floppy to reinstall everything. By the time I found a working bootable disk (and had tried booting off other disks that were no good), the thinkpad was only occasionally booting to DOS - well, it would lock up at different stages - I could usually type about 15 characters before everything would lock up.

Finally, the think just beeps (four times I think) and then does nothing. I tried pulling the battery & clock battery to reset the CMOS - which worked - but curiously, it only worked for a short time (not enough time to fix the OS.)

So now when I turn on the laptop, it beeps a few times and then nothing. Any ideas on how to fix this? I'm not afraid to get in there - but I don't know what to do. I have a thinkpad user manual, but of course it sucks. Is there a jumper I can add or remove to reset everything?

I've gotta think this is a BIOS problem and not a hardware problem.

Thanks -

[kenja]

This table can be found on the CD that accompanies the eleventh edition of Scott Mueller's book "Upgrading and Repairing PCs" (Que):

1 short beep • Normal POST—system OK
2 short beeps •• POST error—error code on display
No beep Power supply, system board
Continuous beep ————— Power supply, system board
Repeating short beeps •••••• Power supply, system board
1 long, 1 short beep –• System board
1 long, 2 short beeps –•• Video adapter (MDA/CGA)
1 long, 3 short beeps –••• Video adapter (EGA/VGA)
3 long beeps – – – 3270 keyboard card

Note: Specifying a model as "kind of old" doesn't narrow it down very much.



[This message has been edited by kenja (edited 12-26-2000).]