Thinkpads Forum

Hello.
I am new to the forum, having just found it (to my delight..), and I have a quick question regarding diagnostics for the Thinkpad R500. I also have a T440p, and on that machine I can press F10 while booting, and it will go into a DOS diagnostic mode with tests available for much of the hardware.

Does anyone know if there is a way to do that on the R500? I know the R500 is a very old model, but I have always liked it better than almost all the other Thinkpads I have used, and I would like to have some diagnostics to help me resolve any issues.

Thanks in advance for any help, and a big thank you to Bill for all his long hours and effort over the years providing this excellent resource.

If you press Esc at the ThinkPad Splashscreen it will show some useless info. Within the BIOS (press F12 at the Splashscreen) there is a tool to check the Hard drive for errors. That’s it for R500. Possibly tell more about the issues it’s having and someone might know something helpful.

OK, TPFanatic.. thanks! I rather suspected this was the case, but I try not to assume. I don't really have any current issues with the machine, other than a loose/broken lid hinge. The T440p, on the other hand, is doing some odd things that point to a bad lid cable, and I was looking at going back to the R500. Having this forum will be very helpful in getting all the issues sorted. Thanks again.