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Sadly I did a lot of damage to mine attempting this process.
by chpatrick 3y ago
Sadly I did a lot of damage to mine attempting this process.
- jgrahamc 3y agoWhat sort of damage? I’m quite a long way through restoring two of these into one and the only problem I have is the plastic between the keyboard and screen is cracked and I’m likely going to have to find a third machine. The machine itself works fine since I replaced the CMOS battery and cleaned off corrosion, but the bodywork is a total pain to deal with.
- chpatrick 3y agoI couldn't get out any of the teeny-tiny screws at the front and broke one of the hinges in the process. :( Also the battery contacts seemed too corroded to salvage.
- jgrahamc 3y agoYeah. Those screws are tiny. I was lucky in that I bought a set of screwdrivers especially for dealing with small electronics. Unfortunately I was unlucky in that my two machines only had three screws left between them! If you let me know which hinges are broken I may have a spare I can send you. The battery corrosion can be cleaned off. It takes patience and isopropyl alcohol.
- chpatrick 3y ago> Yeah. Those screws are tiny. I was lucky in that I bought a set of screwdrivers especially for dealing with small electronics. Unfortunately I was unlucky in that my two machines only had three screws left between them! Sadly one was rusty and two were already stripped. I could get one out and I tried to drill out the other ones with a tiny drill bit but it didn't work. > If you let me know which hinges are broken I may have a spare I can send you. When I say hinge sadly it's more like the lid... https://imgur.com/a/QoMCN7r https://imgur.com/a/QoMCN7r > The battery corrosion can be cleaned off. It takes patience and isopropyl alcohol. In my case the copper contacts for the battery were almost rusted through, so there wasn't much I could do. Also I replaced the CMOS and standby batteries but weirdly it still complained in boot. (I checked the polarity).
- jgrahamc 3y agoWhere did you find a replacement standby battery? I’ve found those hard to come by.
- jtwaleson 3y agoDid you get both machines to boot in the end? Looking forward to the next blog posts!
- jgrahamc 3y agoI have one complete working machine. Keeping the other boards as spares. I just need to finish stripping and spraying the cases. And, thank you, for sending them to me. I hope to have a completed machine before Christmas.
- jtwaleson 3y agoHappy to see them with an owner that has more time for them! Do you have more info on how the spraying works? I might be interested for some of my other old Thinkpads.
- chpatrick 3y agoOne thing I've wondered about (but lack the low level knowledge) is whether one could make a PCMCIA card with a modern SoC onboard that would essentially take over the 701c and use it just for the screen and the keyboard, essentially giving you a modern machine. In theory you have full access to memory in PCMCIA so it should be possible, maybe with some kind of minimal helper OS booting on the native CPU.