[PLUG] Thinkpad DVD drive failure, maybe

Keith Lofstrom keithl at gate.kl-ic.com
Thu Apr 11 20:51:12 UTC 2013


On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 08:19:12PM -0700, John Jason Jordan wrote:
Failing DVD drive ...
> 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?

"dmesg" and /var/log/messages will give you all the gobbledygook you 
would ever want.  

> 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? 

The connector is soldered to the motherboard.  You do not have the
connector or the tools, and replacing the whole motherboard is a 
complicated job. 

However, chances are your problem is a bit of junk on the connector
or a little corrosion, and you do not need to do nearly as much
disassembly to open up the machine and expose the connector for
cleaning.  The IBM HMM service manual describes the steps.  I will
defer to Galen or others for the best way to clean a connector.  I
usually use a pencil eraser, Q-tips, isopropyl alcohol, and a paint
brush.  Someone more skilled than I might do this just by reaching
six inches into the drive bay of the intact machine.

An even easier approach is to buy a USB2 DVD drive, and use USB
flash drives for stuff you want to move fast.  I bought a used
USB2 DVD drive for $25 at ecoBinary in Beaverton.  They may have
them at Free Geek, Green Century, and other Portland places.
New is easy, but where's the adventure in that?

You do not need to buy a new computer.  You can buy a used T61 for
$100 to $200 on eBay or Craigslist.   There are two for sale on
Portland Craigslist as I write.  Even more will come out of the
woodwork on Craigslist if you post a "wanted" request, especially
with people scrambling for money to pay taxes, or who have
imprudently pre-spent their anticipated refund.  When you buy a
Craigslist machine, bring an Ubuntu Live CD for testing, and run
a minute or two of the memory test, first.

Most of the newer Thinkpads, even the business-class machines, are not
as sturdy as the old ones.  I like to keep a couple of backup spares
of the laptops I use, along with spare keyboards (which I wear out),
a spare hard drive, and plenty of AC adapters and docking stations.
All this stuff is way cheaper for 5 year old designs, and it will
last practically forever on a shelf.

The best part of keeping identical spare laptops with Linux is that
moving hard drives takes minutes.   If the hardware and graphics
drivers are the same, this Just Works, unlike the mother-may-I mac
and windoze serial-number-sensitive crap.  It takes me longer to
modify the MAC ethernet hardware address in my DHCP server tables.

If you do backups properly, you can even clone a new hard-drive
from them, so you can clone a whole machine from last night's backup
and be up to speed in a few hours at most, after the complete loss
of your working machine.

Fixing a hardware problem in Linux is much easier than proprietary
OSes, and mastery of your own hardware brings the same satisfaction
as mastering your OS does.  If you can fix a house, you can learn 
to fix a laptop.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993



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