Dead T42p -- did I do something wrong?

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sjh953 · #1 Post by **sjh953** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:39 pm

I'd appreciate some help in trying to figure out what just happened to my T42p. It was working fine (as usual) this morning, I set it down to recharge, it went to sleep, and now it won't wake up. At all. It's totally dead.

It's a 15" 2373-Q1U. Flexview. I've added a Hitachi 7200rpm 100gb drive, plus upped the memory to 2gb. This morning I added the Li-ion battery which slides in the CD bay, which I don't normally use, but which never had a problem before.

What happened is: I was using the computer on battery and it shifted in standy-by, with the screen going dark. I quickly plugged in the AC adapter, hit a key, got the screen back, and kept working. No issues, nothing unusual. When I was done, I left the AC adapter in, the screen went to where the IBM logo is moving around, and I let the batteries keep charging. At some point, if I remember, the IBM logo disappeared, tho I'm not sure. Then, when I went to use it again, I hit a key to wake it up -- and nothing.

If I remember correctly, my power settings are set to "Always On". I noticed that the other day when I was checking out how to extend battery life.

This non-waking up has happened several times before, and after I couldn't get it to wake up, I did what I usually do -- disconnect the AC, pull the battery, wait a few seconds, put battery back in, and hit the power button. In the past, this got me going again. Not this time.

I've only had this machine several months. It had never been used before I bought it, so it's essentially a 'new' computer. I'm still under the original warranty, and a few weeks ago I added a few years via IBM. It looks like I may have to send it in for service, but before calling IBM, I thought I'd ask here first since it all happened so suddenly.

Is there some trick I'm missing here, or is my machine really dead? Thanks in advance for any help.

sjh953 · #2 Post by **sjh953** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:52 pm

Instant update:

Right after I pushed Send on the original message, I decided to try powering up the T42p one last time. Guess what? This time it worked.

So now my question is: do I have some kind of 'intermittant' problem that's just waiting to be really fatal? Did I do something wrong? Or, is this somehow normal behavior that needs to be lived with?

I think the first thing I'm going to do is use the original 60gb drive and the Rescue and Recovery CD's, and build myself a factory-fresh drive I can use should I need to send the machine to IBM. I didn't like the idea of sending my everyday drive, with all my personal info.

If anyone has any idea of what's going on, I'm all ears. Thanks again.

SHoTTa35 · #3 Post by **SHoTTa35** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 6:17 pm

well did you check the logs to see if it was anything with windows, like did it crash or somtehing?

#4 Post by **GomJabbar** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 6:18 pm

You could have some sort of intermittant hardware problem. I just want to mention two points. First, when waking from Standby, it appears that sometimes one has to press the Fn key more than once or for several seconds. Second, if you ever see the message: "Resuming Windows", then your computer went into Hibernation and only the Power Button will wake it up.

#5 Post by **richk** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 8:33 pm

Sometimes the power switch on the keyboard gets flakey. Replacing the keyboard is a cheap fix. I think your model is a 15" one. Make sure you get the right keyboard with 3 mounting screws.

sjh953 · #6 Post by **sjh953** » Sat Sep 08, 2007 12:31 am

Thanks all for your input - especially that of checking the Event Viewer to see if the problem showed up there.

It did. It goes the name of ACPIEC, and while I'm not sure exactly what's going on, it seems to have something to do with errors caused by a [mis]communication between the BIOS and EC chip regarding temp control and fan speed. I think. It's way over my head. The net result is that the computer locks up if the ACPIEC 'spams' the Event Viewer log with a burst of Error messages. [It also seems to be a fairly common problem as I found a sticky on ACPIEC troubles in the Utilities section of this site.]

I've spent the evening trying to find a cure. Of course, I found it here at tp.com. It comes via the latest version of tpfancontrol, 0.24, which runs as a service -- but also includes a .bat and .reg file which automatically adjusts the Registry so that ACPIEC doesn't log "Errors" in the Event Viewer. So far, I'm getting lots of "Warning" messages - but no "Errors" - and the machine is working fine. I'll let it run all night and see how it looks in the morning.

Thanks again for your help. I may be back in a few hours -- but for now, all appears to be ok.

Edited to add: this is where I found the latest version of tpfancontrol -- http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/tpfcserv.zip

Nick Y · #7 Post by **Nick Y** » Sat Sep 08, 2007 2:21 am

GomJabbar wrote:...when waking from Standby, it appears that sometimes one has to press the Fn key more than once or for several seconds...

Sometimes I find that my T43 just hangs when returning from standby; it seems to start a resume and then appears to stop with no disc action or anything. Used to be more frequent, but each time I end up pushing the power button for 4 secs.

Troels · #8 Post by **Troels** » Sat Sep 08, 2007 6:19 am

The harddrive tray has two points on the uderside of the tray which act as ground connections. If these aren't properly alligned, and the HDD screw tightened, the laptop won't power up. Maybe this was what has happened?

Dead T42p -- did I do something wrong?

Dead T42p -- did I do something wrong?

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