[PLUG] Thinkpad DVD drive failure, maybe

wes plug at the-wes.com
Thu Apr 11 03:56:21 UTC 2013


I found some info on the interweb and all of the hardware related to the
optical drive is soldered directly onto the motherboard. your
safest/cheapest bet is to find a t61 motherboard on ebay and swap them out.
if you're feeling adventurous, we can try replacing just the connector
(keith will decry my soldering skills, but they are adequate enough to get
the job done) or perhaps the controller chip if we can find it. while we
have it apart, we can thoroughly inspect the board and try to locate any
trouble spots. an intermittent functionality could indicate something as
basic as a solder joint that has come apart, or as deeply involved as a
controller chip that has failed internally and will be nearly impossible to
detect via any deterministic means - meaning the only way to figure it out
is replace something and hope it works.

-wes


On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 8:19 PM, John Jason Jordan <johnxj at comcast.net>wrote:

> I think the DVD drive in my Thinkpad is kaput. Actually, not the drive.
> I think it is the connector in the back that the drive plugs into that
> is flaky. It has been temperamental for some time. I bought a
> refurbished drive that worked better at first, but now it won't work
> either. I can't get anything to mount - DVD, CD, new media, nada. The
> light flashes for a while, but then stops and nothing appears
> in /media. I tried mount and nothing interesting appeared. I also tried
> dmesg and got no clues.
>
> Before assuming that I need to buy a new computer:
>
> 1) is there anything at the command line or otherwise that I could do
> to see what is actually happening?
>
> 2) I looked at the service manual for my T61 and cannot figure out the
> drawings. Is it possible to replace the connector that the optical
> drive connects to? Has anyone ever been deep inside that part of a T61?
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