Thinkpad R51
Went to my local thrift store and hidden away was two Thinkpad R51s. I bought them both plus two parallel cables for 9 bucks.
They're both missing hard drives and CD drives. One is missing the keyboard and the other is missing two keys the zero and H keys.
Anyway both have 1GB of memory as well and looks like they use to be own by the local school board.
I tested both of them and one is totally dead and the other one has a bad LCD. Ripped them both apart and mixed and matched parts and got one fully working system. Now to piece it back together and see if I have a hard drive that will fit.
They're both missing hard drives and CD drives. One is missing the keyboard and the other is missing two keys the zero and H keys.
Anyway both have 1GB of memory as well and looks like they use to be own by the local school board.
I tested both of them and one is totally dead and the other one has a bad LCD. Ripped them both apart and mixed and matched parts and got one fully working system. Now to piece it back together and see if I have a hard drive that will fit.
Comments
Are they ATI or Intel models? The ATI models were prone to failure. Still, nice find.
The R51 is a cheapified version of the T41 (Pentium M) - it's still a solid, reliable machine, just old.
It appears I need a new CMOS battery. I found a hard drive that will work but the only issue I have is powering it. Right now im using my bench power supply. Works fine powering at 12 volts with the correct current rating.
Also, the ATI T40/T41/T42/T43 laptops were all prone to failure. I know there were a few R-series Thinkpads that were prone to failure, but the only ones I know about are the R51 and R52. Not sure about other models.
Edits: Misspelled a few words
On the latter R5x/T4x models, (not sure if yours is) the HD is standard IDE, but it's behind a SATA translator. If you're crafty, you can attach it to the SATA bus directly.