IBM ThinkPond

Posted by @ 1:10 am on Tuesday 12th March, 2019.
Categories: Blast from the Past

I bought this R61i ThinkPad in a sale back before Lenovo acquired IBM's personal computer business in 2005. It had every feature that I wanted at the time - plenty of connectivity features, wide-screen, UltraBay system, dockable, what was a huge HDD back then (160 gig), and, IMO, the best Windows operating system at the time - XP.

Over the years I've tinkered with it - it's not in the same league as "Trigger's Broom" but now it has a 1TB HDD inside, a second 1TB HDD in an UltraBay caddy, additional RAM to take it to max for the operating system (still XP, but with all SP3 updates), and USB 3.0 capability thanks to an ExpressCard USB 3.0 Adapter. The only parts failures have been the cooling-fan assy which was a cheap fix, the battery (I got a full decade out of the original before it degraded) and the matt screen which I was going to replace with a glossy one anyway. I even paired it up with an Advanced Dock to get even more ports, an extra UltraBay slot, and dual-monitor capability.

It was perfect for my needs, it did whatever I asked of it, I looked after it and it hardly ever complained. It owed me nothing.

But last Wednesday I let it down. I drenched it. In my elation at being told that I would be discharged from the hospital for a week or so, I decided to celebrate by going outside for the rare pleasures of some fresh air and a bit of sunlight. While slinging my jacket on I knocked over a full cup of well-sugared tea, and almost all of it went into the laptop. There were pops, crackles, fizzing and bleeping, so I pulled the mains plug, hit the on/off button and removed the battery and the UltraBay HDD - both were soaked.

I drained everything as best I could, leaving a ThinkPad-shaped stain on the hospital blanket, but after a few hours it refused to start. I brought it home and started to mourn my loss and to curse my careless enthusiasm.

But a day later I had time to give it some TLC so I put it on a hot radiator for a few hours in an effort to dry it out. If it wouldn't start after that, I was going to take it apart, clean and dry its guts, and reassemble it, but it wasn't necessary... first attempt: bleep then shut-down... second attempt: BIOS fan-error message then shut-down... third attempt: no fan-error but shut-down on Windows start... fourth attempt: up and running again! Aside from a somewhat sticky shift key and a mild aroma of caramel, it's back as it was before. It's been running fine since then, apart from the occasional fan-error on start-up.

Result!

Trigger's Laptop... "Well here's a picture of it, what more proof do you need?"

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