IBM Thinkpad Help

[AKCallahan]

The problems seemed to start with no apparent reason.

1) Laptop would restart by itself at any given time.
2) Laptop would freeze and cause colorful lines to go throughout the screen and eventually the lines would overcome any thing on the screen and become just a screen full of lines.

I have WDCleared it, reformatted, and reloaded XP.
While installing IE7, it froze and lined-out.
When I tried to boot back up, it did then after the installation was complete it shut down without any warning.

 

[ApexHack]

Is/are the fan(s) working? Sounds like it's overheating maybe.

 

[AKCallahan]

Is/are the fan(s) working? Sounds like it's overheating maybe.

Fan is working.
Laptop won't power all the time now, with/without a hard drive inserted.
I have tried powering up with just power cord, just battery, and a combination of both; still nothing.
After the laptop turns itself off, it makes a rapid ticking sound from where the hard drive is inserted. I removed the laptop, and the laptop actually booted once and shut itself down, and still ticked.
I have removed the RAM and still has ticking.
Thought it might be display once my new hard drive didn't work, but the few times it does boot, display is perfect.

 

[AKCallahan]

Rapid ticking sound is coming from the PCI slot, not the hard drive bay.
Just found this out by putting my ear to the PCI slot, and it was definitely the origin of the noise.

 

[oscaryu1]

Rapid ticking sound is coming from the PCI slot, not the hard drive bay.
Just found this out by putting my ear to the PCI slot, and it was definitely the origin of the noise.

There is no PCI slot on an laptop. PCI slots don't even have movable parts.

 

[The_Other_One]

I assume when you say PCI you mean PC-Card? And though there are no moving parts as mentioned, there are capacitors and all that can make noises. There's always the chance one has gone bad. Or I've heard computers making ticks from the internal speaker(though the "PC-Speaker" on a laptop is typically the regular speakers...)

So it's not doing anything anymore? Sounds like some sort of hardware failure. I'd check the powersupply, maybe try to try another if possible. But other than that, the motherboard might be shot...

 

[ApexHack]

I haven't heard of it happening all that much with IBMs, but a lot of notebooks have problems with the AC power socket coming loose from the MB.

Almost sounds like something is shorting out in there. Does it look like it's been apart?

 

[AKCallahan]

The ticking is coming from the part of the laptop I have exposed in this picture. There is a fan located here.

Here is what I do to get the ticking to happen.

I remove all power, and start from scratch. I insert battery/ac-cord. I push power button. Ticking begins, nothing more happens. It doesn't studdernly try to start, or anything. The ticking stops at once when I remove power source.

The power cord was testing today and tested 100%. It doesn't seem to move awkwardly when put into the power port in the back; it fits firmly in place.