Purchased a ToshibaT5100 - Powers on, but no screen

[retinull]

I'm the proud new owner of a Toshiba T5100! I received it yesterday. I've built many computers over the years but never had to fix anything this old. So far I have disassembled the entire thing and everything looks incredibly good except this corroded area on the board. Minus some dust etc on exposed areas. Even the hinges work pretty good!
My question is, would this keep everything from working? I get power and fan, and some weird droning beep like sounds that repeat. Didn't match any beep codes in the manual that I found. Anyway, thank you guys for creating a place like this and for all you do! This is amazing! If you need anymore pictures or information let me know.
Thank you!
-ret

 

[retinull]

Oh, also when I turn the power off I can see the orange plasma flash slightly. Not sure if that helps at all.

 

[T-R-A]

Is that corrosion or possibly glue to hold that (poorly soldered) connection/revision together?

 

[retinull]

That I'm not sure of. When I took the machine apart it didn't have any signs that I could see of it being opened before. Do you know if they did glue connections like that from the factory? I'm worried if I clean it and it's supposed to be there it might mess things up more so than they already are.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

That's definitely not glue, it's corrosion. You can even see the corroded bodge wire.

All of that corrosion needs to be cleaned up, and those chips might need to be replaced if the corrosion shorted them out. The strange beeps are probably a sign that the motherboard isn't booting properly. A whole menagerie of different problems could be the reason it isn't booting properly, I'd start with cleaning that area of the board and looking for damaged traces and disconnected pins. You may have to replace those three ICs on the board.

You'll also want to check the VIA going through the board there, that looks like a pretty large trace, and it's likely a main power rail, hence the large amount of corrosion.

 

[retinull]

Thank you very much for the help. Much appreciated! I'll get it all cleaned up over the next few days. Any suggestions on what's best for a cleaning solution for older boards? Thanks again!

 

[GiGaBiTe]

I use CRC Lectra Clean. It's expensive, but you only need tiny amounts of it at a time, a whole can will last you years.

CRC 19 oz. Lectra Clean Heavy-Duty Degreaser 02018-6 - The Home Depot

To increase operating efficiency, use the CRC Lectra Clean 19 oz. Heavy-Duty Degreaser to remove grease, oil, tar, adhesives, dirt, grime, corrosion or sludge from your machinery. With no flash or fire

www.homedepot.com

It works a LOT better than isopropyl alcohol, which tends to just smear stuff around and is a pain to clean with. The only warning with Lectra clean is do not get it on plastic or an LCD screen, it will immediately melt it and cause irreversible damage. I accidentally sprayed one of my Xbox 360 cases with it and now it has what looks like white spatter marks all over it lol.

 

[3lectr1c]

Another thing to note - Toshiba laptops from this whole era are notorious for bad capacitors in the DC/power supply boards. Usually they used ELNA caps which leak an absolutely nasty corrosive liquid to a horrible extent. So have a look at that, it may not be immediately visible. Photos off the entire motherboard and the PSU board would be useful to see as well.

 

[retinull]

Here's a better shot of the motherboard. Thank you for helping! Very much appreciated! I'm a bit worried I won't be able to put it back together 😆
EDIT: Might have been the size from my phone. I cropped them and exported them to be smaller. Sorry about that

 

[3lectr1c]

Neither of the images came through

 

[retinull]

I also came across this short YT video and the sound that is coming from their hard drive is the same sound that mine is making. I've read that there is a fix for these old HDDs that involves taping a rubber piece that gets stuck, but I'm not sure if that sound is caused from the same issue.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

Might want to pull the ROMs and dump them to see if there's any weirdness. Not sure if any official dumps exist of those ROMs.

 

[3lectr1c]

Images showing now. Luckily I see no signs of ELNA brand capacitors that leak so often. It's still probably a good idea to recap that PSU, it's just old enough that it could benefit, even if it isn't super likely to be your issue. Test voltage output from it if possible though. Don't think I can help with your issue though unfortunately.
Also, pull that Tadiran clock battery from the board. Those can leak catastrophically. Not as often as NiCad Varta batteries on many other systems, but when they do spill, it's bad bad news.

 

[retinull]

Will do, thanks. I just yanked a very odd 2.4v NiCd from an old monochrome Thinkpad 350 I'm restoring for the same reasons. It looks like half of a number 2 pencil, yellow and all lol. But, I guess I'll start the cleaning process in the next couple days and see where that takes me. I'm waiting on an external IDE/SATA drive adapter and once that arrives I should have some more information about the hard drive. Hopefully good! I'll post back with updates over the next week.

 

[3lectr1c]

Hard drives that old are gonna have trouble on any sort of modern adapters. IDE may have used the same connector over the years but it did get faster with time and different protocols and most if not all modern adapters don’t support the older ones.
And best of luck on that 350…. They’re rough systems to work on. I’ve got a PS/Note 425 which is the same system. The hinges in particular are absolute garbage. I’d be interested to know if you can figure out how to fix and reinforce them. The 350 will need its motherboard, display, inverter board, and floppy drive recapped before it will function long-term.

 

[retinull]

That thing is hard to get open! It's weird for a thinkpad for sure... Definitely more like the PS/Note rather than a Thinkpad. The hinges creak a little but they're in great shape, but yes, they are a hot mess from what I've seen. The 350 surprisingly still has quite a bit of spring left in it when the slider is used to open the lid. I've collected quite a few of old thinkpads, defintely enjoying this vintage computer run I'm on. Rarest of the Thinkpads I have is probably the 360PE - It's a 2 in 1 so to speak I guess? It's in good working order now, except the screen is a bit dull. Also just found a IBM P70/386 luggable! Not sure what I'm getting myself into with that one, but it only had 1 owner and it's been in the original zippered bag it came with for years in a climate controlled home. It's white still too... but, it's having much of the same problem I'm having with this T51000. Power comes on, fans comes on, keyboard lights up briefly but nothing after that.