VOGONS


First post, by OldLappy

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Hello-

I recently found my old T6400. Found a nearby power cable (didn’t belong to laptop, but I assume modern ones work fine), plugged it in and turned it on. I could hear it turning on, but the screen never turned on. Instead, I started to smell this horrible fishy smell. I’m not very tech savvy, so I’m not sure what it could be, or what I should check to see is wrong.

Any help is appreciated.

Reply 1 of 6, by BitWrangler

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Likely it's the power converter board for the backlight, see Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 3 of 6, by OldLappy

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
Deksor wrote on 2021-09-27, 16:28:

check the capacitors in your computer as well

Hard to get it opened, but I did remove the panel under the keyboard and exposed some of the circuit board…do those look leaked?

Reply 5 of 6, by Thermalwrong

User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

Wow, I saw one of these parted out recently because the 'screen stopped working'. It's just some electrolyte eating up the traces.

You will need to buy some new caps that match the specs of your original ones that have leaked. Replacing just the ones that have leaked should be fine, those are usually the ones that got pushed the hardest - I did a similar repair with my T1950CT's DC-DC converter board. I took off every single cap and tested them, only one cap (C511) was bad. After replacing that it's all up to working again: Re: Toshiba T1910

Here's a really good visual for a safe way to remove caps from a PCB without damaging the PCB traces / pads: https://twitter.com/TubeTimeUS/status/1440865127713021956 (wow those are some awesome looking side cutters)
The repair gets much much harder if the pads or traces get lifted.
Once the caps and their legs are removed, clean up the electrolyte with IPA. Then put some kitchen roll on the PCB and brush that onto the IPA to really clean it up.
The electrolyte can flow around sometimes so do check to see how far it may have travelled. Toshibas from around this time use a lot of flux which can look pretty gnarly when you partially clean it with IPA, but flux on a board should be fine.
It looks like the corrosion may be under some of the solder mask on a couple of those traces, see if the solder mask comes off easily and ensure the copper traces look good. They can be resealed with nail varnish / UV solder mask.

For the replacement caps, anything of matching spec should be fine. Especially if like my computers, it's just for occasional use. I would go with 105C rated caps though, since it's easy to tell the voltage / capacitance of a cap, less easy to tell the thermal rating on SMD caps like thes in your picture. You can use regular through hole capacitors in place of the SMD caps, just bend their legs around as long as the case still fits together.

Reply 6 of 6, by Deksor

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t
OldLappy wrote on 2021-09-27, 16:45:
Deksor wrote on 2021-09-27, 16:28:

check the capacitors in your computer as well

Hard to get it opened, but I did remove the panel under the keyboard and exposed some of the circuit board…do those look leaked?

Yep that's definitely leaking. See that shiny dark stuff on the left of the two middle caps ? That's a liquid.
Get rid of them asap, clean the whole place with vinegar and alcohol and replace them. Don't breathe the fumes that your soldering iron will make with the electrolyte because I'm pretty sure it's really bad for your health (I breathed some before and it hurted my lungs for a day or two).

Trying to identify old hardware ? Visit The retro web - Project's thread The Retro Web project - a stason.org/TH99 alternative