T30 - 2631 Docking Station locked down -- suggesstions?

[T30 Owner - Richardson Te]

Summary: T30 locked up after first use of used 2631 dock.

My T30 will not boot up following first use of used 2631 dock. Machine powers up for just a second, the fan turns on and some lights go on (except the HDD light), and then the machine powers down, both on AND off of the dock. Power down on the dock occurs with a "click" sound. I believe the power down occurs before the machine looks for a boot device. It will only do this one time, i.e., to get this far I have to disconnect battery and all power, and this brief sequence will not occur on the battery (battery appears to be charged but status unknown due to underlying condition).

Suggestions to correct?

Anyway to get the T30 to believe it is not on the dock?

Is my HDD fired too?

Thanks.

[schen]

It's kinda difficult to see what that might, be from reading about it, but it might have gotten something like an electrical surge through the Dock. There are a variety of things that you can try if you have spare parts, such as RAM, A/C adapter etc.

If you want, we can get together and try everything out. I've got a T30 as well as a Dock and other parts that we can try. I'm out in Forney (which is just East of Mesquite), so around 15 to 30 minutes from you depending on the traffic.

[RealBlackStuff]

You describe exactly the problems I had with my T30.
Try booting with an external monitor.
If that works, you will need a new LCD screen unfortunately.
(ca. $100.- used on eBay)

[T30 Owner - Richardson Te]

Thanks for the two replies above.....just to clarify, the problem occurs out of the dock too while using the normal, AC adpater power supply. Thanks again!

[T30 Owner - Richardson Te]

The issue does in fact appear to be with the display .... the machine booted up, IN the dock, when connected to external monitor. THANKS FOR THE IDEA !! Now, the question is how the dock managed to fry the LCD. Power surge sounds logica to me.

[rkawakami]

Have you tried using the Fn+F7 keystroke combination to alternately change which display is enabled; from the LCD, the external display and both?

[RealBlackStuff]

(For those who don't know: during a cleanup and reassembly I inadvertently shorted my original inverter against the metal frame of the original LCD screen, this started the above symptoms).

I think it's a bit more complicated.
My T30 does exactly the same as T30-owner's one, with either battery or adapter or dock.
There's nothing wrong with my battery/adapter (I have 2)/dock.
With an external monitor attached, either direct and with battery or AC-power, or via the dock, it boots perfectly and PC-Doctor can find absolutely no fault during diagnostics.
By now I have installed a new inverter and new LCD-cable.
This morning I received my new (used) LCD-screen, and I put that in as well. Unfortunately that did not (yet) solve the problems.

When I remove the CMOS-battery I've come across an interesting fact.
It will revert the BIOS to basic settings. With no monitor attached, it will conk out as above (i.e. start, fan on, power down after a few seconds). With an external monitor it starts, beeps with Date/Time and CMOS-checksum errors, and goes automatically into BIOS to let you set it up (temporarily, because no CMOS-battery), with a warning that it has reverted to default settings.
These are (under Video settings): start first on PCI and VGA Analogue. When I set this to start first on LCD, it won't boot.

I checked the CMOS-battery, which is in perfect health.
The fact that we have to remove power, before we can try a reboot, leads me to believe that there may be an issue with a blown capacitor(s) or could it be that the BIOS is screwed?

EDIT: to help you guys further, with the LCD cable removed from the mobo, or with LCD-cable attached and no screen or inverter, or with LCD-cable and inverter, but no screen, the laptop also boots without any problems using an external monitor. With all 3 attached, AND an external monitor it also goes well.
This means you need to concentrate on the power circuitry, and perhaps check that the security chip is properly attached/inserted (don't know where, read about this on a German TP-forum)

[schen]

I'd lean more toward the blown capacitors theory. If he brings the thing over, we can reflash the BIOS to check.

[RealBlackStuff]

Please keep me posted, and take pictures if you find/replace any 'sinners', so I can do the same on my T30.

FYI: during one of it's 'life' moments, I flashed the BIOS to 2.10 and the embedded controller to 1.07, did not make any difference.

[RealBlackStuff]

Any updates on fixing the above?

[T30 Owner - Richardson Te]

No changes here -- I haven't yet acquired a new LCD, but it sounds like that solution did not work for "realblackstuff." I will try to make contact with "schen" so we can meet up and try some fixes for both our sakes.

In response to earlier post, the LCD does not appear as an "available monitor" in the "Displays" control panel.

Incidentally, the eBay seller suggested that it was my T30 fried the dock which in turn fried the T30. To buy peace, they have agreed to full refund.

Thanks again, everyone.

[RealBlackStuff]

Another memory test would be to disable the 'fast POST' setting in the BIOS, meaning the memory gets tested during boot-up.
Another thing to try (if you have it) is perhaps a different CPU, although that seems rather unlikely.