T41p turning on from suspend, battery draining, overheating!

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dshechter · #1 Post by **dshechter** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 9:56 pm

I recently purchased a "certified used" T41p that's been wonderful so far, except for the following problem: after leaving the computer in suspend mode (with the "moon" light on), I have occassionally found it with either a totally drained battery or very hot to the touch and the lights flashing and the battery almost dead. This only happens 1/4 of the time when I leave it in suspend.

I have checked all of the obvious settings in the BIOS and in windows for something that's waking up the computer, but everything is off. (No wake-on-lan, redisave, etc.)

Any suggestions?

David

Chatbox · #2 Post by **Chatbox** » Mon Jul 19, 2004 10:55 pm

Maybe it's the battery not holding charge?

#3 Post by **BillMorrow** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 12:57 am

david..

where did it come from..??

what is the warranty in place ast this time..??

WARNING: if the battery is getting very hot it can be dangerous..
if this IS the case, the battery or the charge circuit is malfunctioning..
call ibm service if you have ibm warranty..

dshechter · #4 Post by **dshechter** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 9:16 am

I purchased it from IBM, under their "certified used" program, a month ago. It has a 1-year EZserv warranty, so it shouldn't be an issue getting it fixed.

However, it is not the battery getting hot, it is the computer itself, as if it turned itself on in the case and since it is tightly enclosed, the computer is heating up. this has happened maybe 3 times, but it is quite annoying and will destroy the battery life, and perhaps cause damage to the computer from the heat.

The battery seems to be holding charge ok, as it only goes down 1-2 % overnight in standby when it does not wake itself up. My full charge capacity is now down to 66.29 Wh (9-cell sanyo), but that should be expected from a few full discharges, right?

My question is: what could be causing the computer to turn itself on from standby mode?

David

apoll0 · #5 Post by **apoll0** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 11:38 am

dshechter wrote: My question is: what could be causing the computer to turn itself on from standby mode?
David

My guess is:

1) Bios setting to allow network device to wake up the computer. But I doubt this is the case. I'm still waiting for my TP so i'm not too familar with the IBM bios. I know that my desktop bios has the option to allow network card to wake up the computer.

2) My bet is on this one: Scheduled tasks. Go to Start>Programs>Acessories>System Tools> Scheduled Tasks. Select a task and view its properties. Under the "Settings" tab, check at the very bottom, there's a checkbox that says "Wake the computer to run this task". This is the probable culprit.

dshechter · #6 Post by **dshechter** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 11:49 am

thanks for the suggestion, unfortunately, only one task is visible ("BMMTask", the thinkpad battery maximizer), and it does not have the "wake computer" item checked. I searched for hidden tasks and there are none.

I did take the opportunity to download the latest battery maximizer, perhaps there was an issue with the verison running on my system, although the version # was nowhere to be found.

David

#7 Post by **BillMorrow** » Tue Jul 20, 2004 11:53 am

like Apollo said, sounds like it is coming on, display and all, while closed and it should be in suspend..

i have seen this happen and there is usually SOMETHING turning it on..

most likely, some app or utility..
lkess likely, bum lid closed sensing switch..

kjarrett · #8 Post by **kjarrett** » Wed Jul 21, 2004 7:03 pm

Call IBM. This is a known issue, I forget the app, but it's battery-related. It's an easy fix.

-kj-

dshechter · #9 Post by **dshechter** » Fri Jul 23, 2004 9:06 am

Well I called IBM support last night, and after 30+ minutes of difficult communication (I have a feeling I reached an India support center... maybe b/c it was the evening in the US? ~9PM EST), the guy finally seemed to understand the problem. After speaking to a supervisor, he said to search for this document on IBM's site: migr-4gxpeg
http://www.ibm.com/Search?v=11&lang=en& ... igr-4gxpeg

That led me to download the newest power management application (v1.26). I had v1.25 installed, and the changelog only indicated a minor fix to the uninstallation of the app, so I doubt that this will fix it. His other suggestion was to wipe the HD clean and start over, not something I want to do...

I was rather unimpressed with my first support call to IBM, I hope this is not the typical response.

David

dshechter · #10 Post by **dshechter** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:38 pm

Unfortunately, it happened again and the laptop turned itself on from suspend mode, so the power management software wasn't the issue. Anyone else with suggestions? Could it be the video driver (ATI powerplay?)

It only seems to happen in the bag when I'm carrying it home from work. Could it be the active shock protection? I doubt it, but that is the only thing that senses motion.

David

jsmit86 · #11 Post by **jsmit86** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 8:57 pm

I would suggest a few things -

> When I am not using my T42 for more than an hour or so, I HIBERNATE instead of suspend. It only takes a few more seconds than suspend/resume, but it uses no power. Just press FN + F12. To wake up, press power. On my machine, this is way faster than rebooting, and so far everything is stable and works fine after hibernation..... even my wireless connection.

> By the way, I did upgrade my video driver because I was having issues with the video blanking after suspend/hibernate. Since the driver upgrade no issues.

>I also had a problem with my unit not actually going fully into suspend mode. I suspect that access connection may have hung during suspend. When that happend, my battery drained totally! Since updating Access connections to V 3.21, this has not been a problem.

> If all else fails, IBM should be able to fix or solve the problem. Call again, and be persistant.

dshechter · #12 Post by **dshechter** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 9:04 pm

Hibernation is certainly an option, but suspend mode works perfectly most of the time, so it is exceptionally frustrating. I just looked in the bios again and there is an option labeled "Internal Network Option ROM" that was enabled. I disabled it, any ideas on what it does? All the bios says is that it loads the ROM "to enable startup from the integrated network device. THis option must be enabled to display the MAC address for the integrated network." Since I don't need the MAC address displayed, exactly what is it doing?

David

dshechter · #13 Post by **dshechter** » Mon Jul 26, 2004 9:42 pm

So my machine seems to have been taken over by a very persistent trojan/spyware, "Wintools/IBIS/Search toolbar", which seems to have a bunch of processes checking for removal and then reinstallation. Amazing, I should have installed Adaware/spybot before doing anything else, and now I'm paying for it.. Could this thing be waking the computer up? Hopefully I'll kill the bugger soon, but it's pretty persistent...

#14 Post by **BillMorrow** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 2:20 am

i WAS going to ask if the cover closed sensing switch might be vibrating a bit and thus telling the thinkpad that the cover is open..

but after your revelation about the [censored] spywart thing i think that it might be to blame..

i would not be surprised..

i had a website do the same thing to me..
never have gotten rid of the #@$&*!$! thing..
kill it and it reappears and takes over IE..

tried several spyware killers with no success..

finally took that drive out of service..

dshechter · #15 Post by **dshechter** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 7:55 am

Bill, thanks for the reply. I'm now pretty sure it was the trojan, I managed to kill it after a good deal of digging, there were a few "backup" files for the trojan that I managed to find in the "windows/prefetch" (named something like wtools*) dir that were reloading it (in addition to the many registry entries and the add/remove program that when I ran it to remove the "toolbar", it put new entries in the registry to reload it...).

So I haven't had any restarts during suspend since I killed it. I had played with the latch sensor, jiggling it a lot while the cover was closed and nothing happened, so I basically ruled it out. I never called IBM again, figuring that my time was better spent working it out myself.

Thanks for all the comments,
David

ian · #16 Post by **ian** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 9:51 am

Glad you got it sorted - it happens to us all, at least once. I just had this fleeting thought that, eventually, the trojan didn't do much damage at all really - bashing the living daylights out of the laptop to see if it was the lid switch was far more harmful

dshechter · #17 Post by **dshechter** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 9:56 am

I wouldn't call what I did "bashing", I just rattled the switch a bit to see if there was any obvious defect there.

David

#18 Post by **BillMorrow** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 10:49 am

NOW, if anyone can find the author and beneficiary of this trojan(?!) lets tell osama and company their names and redirect his attentions at something that will get his approval rating up a bit..

(its a JOKE, mousy)

ian · #19 Post by **ian** » Mon Aug 02, 2004 11:47 am

Hey dshechter - I was only joking...

T41p turning on from suspend, battery draining, overheating!

T41p turning on from suspend, battery draining, overheating!

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