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Sudden ThinkPad death! Help!
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 1:22 am
by AlanHK
I have an X24, which has worked reliably for about 2 years.
I haven't used it for a few weeks, today I plugged in the power to charge it up and play with it, saw the orange light come on, went away for a few minutes and came back to find it completely inert.
No power light, nothing happens at all when I press the "on" button. Not a beep or flicker.
I checked the power socket, it was powered up, 16 V.
In any case there should have been enough juice in the battery to give me some response.
Only thing I can think of is that it can be quite humid here (though currently not so bad) and something shorted out inside.
Any suggestions, short of taking it for professional repair, which I'm afraid would cost more than it's worth.
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 3:15 am
by dr_st
Try disconnecting the AC and the battery, leaving the laptop like that for a few moments, reconnecting and powering it on.
Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 4:28 am
by AlanHK
dr_st wrote:Try disconnecting the AC and the battery, leaving the laptop like that for a few moments, reconnecting and powering it on.
Tried that... still dead.
Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 6:33 pm
by paintstikker
Try pressing or toggling the power button while inserting the battery, I've been successful doing that technique with non-IBM laptops anyway.
Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 10:52 pm
by AKelley728
In addition to removing the batter, remove the memory the hard drive, and PCI modem. Since it's an X24, you didn't mention if you have a media slice or similar dock. Make sure it's not connected to that.
Power on with just the AC adapter. Since you don't have memory hopefully you'll get some beeps that indicate you don't have memory. If you do get beeps reinstall the memory, one at a time. Hopefully one of your chips is just bad. THen install the modem, then the hard drive.
Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 12:46 pm
by AlanHK
AKelley728 wrote:In addition to removing the batter, remove the memory the hard drive, and PCI modem. Since it's an X24, you didn't mention if you have a media slice or similar dock. Make sure it's not connected to that.
Power on with just the AC adapter. Since you don't have memory hopefully you'll get some beeps that indicate you don't have memory. If you do get beeps reinstall the memory, one at a time. Hopefully one of your chips is just bad. THen install the modem, then the hard drive.
I'll give it a try.
I've tried it with the battery out, a different power supply. Not a beep or a flash. I don't have a dock.
However, since the charging light doesn't even come on when connected , I think the problem is likely in the power input area -- too much to hope that it's a resettable fuse, I suppose.
Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 12:53 pm
by edcard
As paintstikker said, try toggling the power button several times, with and without the battery installed.
I have an old 365X that would refuse to power up once in a while. IBM support recommended toggling the power button and it worked.
Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 2:25 am
by AlanHK
Took it back to the dealer, he cracked the case and the smell of burning plastic was obvious. There were some burnt out components on the motherboard.
He didn't have the parts, but eventually I found a small repair shop that did, who replaced the motherboard. Cost about US$70 including parts and labour, rather less than replacement cost, so I went for it. Just got it back, and online again.