Can you post a photo of the RAM bay?

Sure thing .

I wanted to see the chips beneath the sticks. Check the RAM chips soldered on the motherboard for broken solder joints or shorts.

No problem. I have taken a picture of what’s underneath the 2 ram sticks which I assume is the built in memory.

Melchieor wrote on 2025-04-25, 23:38:

No problem. I have taken a picture of what’s underneath the 2 ram sticks which I assume is the built in memory.

Are sure? Have you checked all the pins on the bottom row?

How do I check the pins ? Physically they look fine ? With a voltmeter ?

Melchieor wrote on 2025-04-27, 14:28:

How do I check the pins ? Physically they look fine ? With a voltmeter ?

Poke them gently with a sharp object like a tweezer to see if any of them moves.

They all look ok to me . I don’t think that’s the issue . Could it be cmos battery ? I see a large green battery when I opened the laptop.

Well, replacing the battery is a good idea. Can you post a picture of the battery?

Melchieor wrote on 2025-04-30, 13:51:

Could it be cmos battery ? I see a large green battery when I opened the laptop.

If you're referring to the internal NiCd battery, that's the reserve battery, it's not needed for the machine to boot. Mine leaked and actually destroyed the traces connecting it to the daughterboard (amongst other things) so I've simply removed it.

Check the connections to the optical and floppy drives, I've found that they need be connected for it to complete POST, at least on the same revision A05 BIOS that you have. I don't remember at which stage it got stuck, could after the memory test (I can check again at the weekend).

I removed and repligged the floppy and optical drives with the same issue. I do think it has something to do with the optical drive as the floppy drive will engage and then get stuck. Perhaps it’s trying the optical drive . I do get power on the optical drive. Wish I could get into the bios again somehow .