I dub thee THE BEAST

Two weeks ago, I purchased a fairly mangled T23 on Ebay without knowing its true condition. The screen had been stepped on in a corn processing plant in Indiana, the guy I bought it from had stripped out the most useful components (hard drive and memory) and had replaced them with old, nearly worthless parts (4gb Hitachi drive, 64 mb ram), the back usb ports only worked 20% of the time, the keyboard had been worn and the CDC network card did not work. I knew about only 20% of these issues at the time of purchase.

I returned to ebay and proceeded to buy all of the components necessary to get the machine to work. Immediately, I replaced the screen (which had problems not described in the original sale of the machine), then I installed a 120gb Seagate 5400.3 drive, 512 mb Samsung stick of ram. I got a speed boost of around 9x from said upgrades.

I thought the pain was over, but when I was playing Starcraft, I realized that my mouse wasn't recognized and that no matter what I did, I couldn't get the ethernet connection to work. I then bought a new back i/o board (I got a T22 model) and spent around 4 hours installing it. After putting the machine back together again, it didn't even turn on. I guess that the T22 i/o board isn't compatible.

So, I got a T23 i/o board and installed that (I am still waiting for a new CDC ethernet card). I put a new keyboard on and got a new AC adaptor too. So... now it finally works. Laughing It hasn't even taken longer than 27 seconds to boot up in Windows XP and Office opens in 3 seconds. I'm fairly happy.

Here is what I bought:

XGA Screen (whole assembly)
120gb Seagate 5400.3 drive
new i/o board
AC adaptor
keyboard
CDC ethernet card
another battery

The total came to $404. Here are some comparison pictures:

old:

http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/7375/pict5682dc3.jpg

http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/5500/pict5680ee3.jpg

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/2879/pict5676mm5.jpg

http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/2396/pict5678rv4.jpg

new:

http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/7632/pict5696wi8.jpg

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/3056/pict5695mw0.jpg

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/8831/pict5694ln5.jpg

http://img524.imageshack.us/img524/1171/pict5693rq3.jpg


I'm still looking for a full battery, so if anyone has any lying around give me a PM.

Overall I spent around 20 hours on the machine, but the learning experience has been excellent.

edit:

The seller of the laptop's name is jschoellkopff
Unfortunately, I gave him a good review before I found out all of the problems with the machine.

I haven't had any issues with any of the other sellers that I've bought from. I got my cdc card, used battery, keyboard, io boards, AC adaptor, and display from lady_fixalot for $100 including shipping and she is an excellent seller.

 

You did a really nice job and now you have a machine you can be proud of. I think you were pretty resourceful in what you did to restore it.

 

So how much was the machine itself, $304? ($404 minus the $100 in parts)? Would have thought you could have found something a little more recent (T30/T40) out there for that price range. I'd still file a complaint with eBay and see if you can work something out with the seller.

 

I think you've done an amazing job.

 

Good job. Aslong as it does what you want it too, thats fine.

 

Sorry about not putting all of the prices down. I actually got the laptop for $170 + a $15 rebate from the seller on Ebay (I forgot that he charged extra to include a DVD drive and 2 hour battery). I planned to put roughly $80 into it so that I could run Word, etc. When I got it though, much more needed to be replaced. (the seller said that payment was final, after complaining he gave me a $15 rebate) In total, I ended up sinking roughly an extra $250 into it. Here is a copy of all of the costs:

IBM Thinkpad T23- $155 inc. shipping
512 mb pc133 ram- $55 inc. shipping
3x new style trackpoints- $5.88 inc. shipping
Seagate 120GB 2.5" 5400.3- $75 inc. shipping
14.1" XGA Screen- $70 inc shipping
AC Adaptor, I/O Board, Excellent battery, excellent keyboard- $40 inc. shipping
CDC Ethernet Card- $2 inc. shipping
Total = $402.88

Thanks for the comments.

 

Well, that's not bad at all then, and a good "project pc" You did well on the parts as well, so I wouldn't feel bad about it.

 

sweet work you did there

 

You have gained more than a useful computer! You have gained great knowledge of the computer (notebook & IBM Thinkpad) KNOW-HOW & the greater feeling of Accomplishment!

Hands On!!! You probably feel really good, now!

Believe me! Doing-It is more than Talk-It. You are great asset to the Forum!

Notebook-ON!!!

Sircas

 

Great Job! T23s are great machines; I used mine for over 2 years until I got my T61 just now. Then I gave the T23 to my fiance and it is great for her. I would consider getting another 512mb of ram to get it to 1gig (some T23s support that). Mine flies with 1gig of ram. I could do anything on it except play some games and because of that I got the T61. Plus I needed more screen real estate. If not for that I would have stayed with my T23