T41 will only boot with battery

[PaulR]

My T41 will only boot with battery in and ac cord unplugged. Once booted, I can plug in ac and remove battery, no problem. If I try to boot with battery and ac or just ac and no battery, the fan spins but no boot up. It's otherwise perfectly usable, just a bit of a drag to have to fiddle with it every time. Can anyone help?

[poshgeordie]

Hi Paul and welcome to the forums.

Like everyone else I suspect we've read this and scratched our heads! I've never heard of this before and I cannot even think what might be causing it.

The common components are around the battery charging chip (I'm at home so don't have a board to hand) so I'm wondering if it's gone faulty.

Unfortunately the simplest solution is a new board if you can't live with it.

[PaulR]

Thanks!
I can live with it - it's better than not working with the ac adapter or not at all! I'm just curious.... The battery seems to charge ok too. Oh well...
P

[MnR]

Hi,

Looking around I found that this could be caused by a bad battery, Slow turning fan or posibbly overheating. You might also want to check the on/off switch andmake sure that the area where the battery connects to the laptop is free from dust.

Ok, There are some ideas for you to look for.

MnR

[ajkula66]

I have a T42 planar with Radeon 9600 GPU that behaves in the exact same manner. When I originally pulled the machine apart I noticed corrosion in certain areas, likely due to a very minor liquid spill or prolonged exposure to condensation.

Honestly, I've never attempted to fix it. It has been a testbed for various T4x/R5x screens for a full year now, and has been performing well, no changes for better or worse. And if it decides not to turn on one morning, I won't feel bad about having to scrap it...

Good luck.

[T400plus]

I have been using different brand thinkpads over the years.I never knew that I could just plug the thinkpad directly to the adaptor and dump the battery?.
I am going to try it with my old T41 today.