Hello,

I have a problem with an IBM Tinkpad T42 (2373) with a Radeon graphic card.
There are two different cases when powering on the laptop:
Either everything stays black, the system is not booting. Or for the
first three seconds everything works like it should, then where normally
the screen switches from the IBM start logo to the other one everything
goes black again and the system does not boot either.
In both cases the fan is running and the LEDs show normal activity
(except HDD). When I use the external video port the same happens.

I cannot reproduce any behaviour for sure, though the first case is by
far more common (about every 1/20 tries I get the second case).
I opened the case in order to check if there are any loose parts, I
checked the video connectors and tried to boot when the display is not
connected. The same results.

The laptop is from a colleague who dropped the notebook bag it was in.
This seems to be origin of the problem. At first everything worked fine
but after a few days the notebook shutdown randomly until the behaviour
described above occurred.

Does anyone have an idea what may be the problem or a tip how to debug this?
My only idea would be to test part by part from a compatible laptop. But
before embarking on that endeavour I was wondering if there is may be
more targeted approach.

ciao,
Elmar

--
"Religion und Familie sind die beiden größten Feinde des Fortschritts."
(André Gide (1869 - 1951), französischer Schriftsteller)