Thinkpads Forum

... as long as mains power is connected, as does the caps lock LED. 'Stopping' the ultrabay device doesn't extinguish the LED, only removing the AC adapter does.

As for the caps lock LED; It stays on whether the caps lock is actually on or not. Again it only goes out when AC power is removed. I've tried several things to 'fix' this (including updating the BIOS to the latest) but no luck. What annoys me most is this only started the day I sold this TP to my friend. He's here for another few days and I'd love to be able to sort it out for him before he goes home.

Any ideas? A search of this site didn't turn up anything helpful.

Other that these LED issues it works perfectly. However I'm not comfortable letting it go as-is. Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers, and TIA....

Trying another keyboard comes to mind...

RealBlackStuff wrote:Trying another keyboard comes to mind...

Thanks Dom, I'll give that a go in a couple hours. Appreciated.

<edit> Missed him, it'll have to be in a day or so....

RealBlackStuff wrote:Trying another keyboard comes to mind...

Thanks for the suggestion but, alas, a different keyboard didn't fix the issue.

I'm at a total loss as to what this might be, it happened spontaneously while being used when docked. I cleaned both of the dock connectors thoroughly with CO cleaner but no luck. I'm in New Zealand and my friend goes back to New York this weekend - I'm going to be unable to access it to fix it after the end of the week so would *really* like to know what's going on. :-/

Thanks,

misfit wrote:'Stopping' the ultrabay device doesn't extinguish the LED

How about removing the drive or whatever is in the Ultrabay?
Try another drive perhaps?
If you remove it, does the CAPS LED remain on?

Thanks Dom, had already tried it (and cleaned contacts with CO cleaner) but hadn't tried another device. Just did but no change - the message 'safe to remove....' comes up but the LED stays on - just as caps lock works but the LED is always on. It's annoying and I appreciate your input.

Remove the battery and try it.

Next, unplug and cycle the power button 10 times, holding a few seconds each and 30 seconds on the last time, then connect power and see if the circuit that powers these lights resets, if not, you may have a failing system board. You might also want to try repeating the 10x cycle with the cmos battery disconnected just to be sure you got all the static charge drained. removing other unneeded hardware would be a good idea too, but if you've eliminated the optical drive, battery and everything else that can be easily removed, then you've built a strong case for the system board being the guilty party. If you do need one I have some that are pretty cheap starting at only $39 for x1300 discrete graphics. I may have an x1400 board like the one in this machine for 49, or if you want to upgrade, I have a few T60p fireGL boards ranging from $59 to 89. Dom probably has some boards to offer too and if you're friend travels to NY it would make the shipping much cheaper. However let's hope you don't need a board.

ps. I may also have a cpu upgrade for you.

TuuS wrote:Remove the battery and try it.

Thanks for the reply Tuus, I appreciate all and any input as I'd love to get this sorted (even though the machine runs flawlessly other than this annoyance). I'd thought of re-seating the inverter / display cable-at-planar connections but, what with the U/B LED being nowhere near it I'm not sure what effect that would have - if any.

TuuS wrote:Next, unplug and cycle the power button 10 times, holding a few seconds each and 30 seconds on the last time, then connect power and see if the circuit that powers these lights resets, if not, you may have a failing system board. You might also want to try repeating the 10x cycle with the cmos battery disconnected just to be sure you got all the static charge drained. removing other unneeded hardware would be a good idea too, but if you've eliminated the optical drive, battery and everything else that can be easily removed, then you've built a strong case for the system board being the guilty party.

<gulp> Those are the words I'd dare not utter! I'd already tried the button-push thing as it's SOP for me when attempting to troubleshoot TP issues (especially with my ever-growing collection of dodgy X31s). I just repeated it, holding it for twice as long as usual (with crossed fingers - that helps right? ), alas, no change.

TuuS wrote:If you do need one I have some that are pretty cheap starting at only $39 for x1300 discrete graphics. I may have an x1400 board like the one in this machine for 49, or if you want to upgrade, I have a few T60p fireGL boards ranging from $59 to 89. Dom probably has some boards to offer too and if you're friend travels to NY it would make the shipping much cheaper. However let's hope you don't need a board.

Yes, thanks. He's been visiting for a month, if this issue had become apparent earlier in his visit I'd have swapped the planar for the one in this 200772U that I use. Alas, as an invalid although I can do most anything with a TP I can only do it when circumstances allow - and I'm not at my best a/t/m.

(I've been contemplating replacing my 200772U planar with an Intel graphics planar I have in a 14" T60 anyway as the GPU is the hottest part and I don't do much 3D stuff - if any.)

TuuS wrote:ps. I may also have a cpu upgrade for you.

OK. I didn't think it was worth upgrading a T7400? Everything I've read says you get ~5% more processing power at the most going to a T7600? (I also have a T7400 in this machine, I upgraded it a while back.)

Said friend has just joined this forum (username 'Liet') and, finances allowing on his return to NY next week sometime is hoping to contact you to buy two of those lovely LED UXGA screens. He'll send his to Dom for the mod when he has the funds but will send one to me as-is and I'll attempt the conversion myself when I've read more. (I can't do without my lid / inverter / LCD cable for any length of time or I'd get Dom to do mine also.)

Liet is new to the insides of a TP. He's owned an R61 for a few years (and never really opened it) and, on visiting me and seeing my FlexView collection was amazed at the difference between the R61 screen and a FlexView. Consequently I agreed to part with my 'spare' T60 and he's loving it. Several hours use and zero eye-strain - something that he says certainly wasn't the case with the R61!

So I'm sure that you'll be hearing from him in the next 10 days or less. I just hope that the aberrant LED behaviour he's experiencing at the moment is a temporary thing.

Best,

I've found using a T61p heatsink/fan on the T60/T60p discrete boards makes them run much cooler, you can also do a simple mod by replacing the silicone pad with thermal paste as the T61p uses, even with the T60 fan it will still be an improvement, just make sure you have good contact GPU>Heatsink.

Regarding the CPU, I'm aware the T7600 isn't a huge increase over the T7400, but I may be willing to take the T7400 in trade since I have someone interested in one, but it's nothing urgent.

Thanks for the reply. I haven't had my hands on a T61/p HS/F to try but will look out for one. I tweaked the two T60 heatsinks when I first got them so that they make direct contact with the GPU (well, Arctic Silver 5 instead of the thermal pad). That decreased the GPU temps by maybe 10ºC but the GPUs still run hotter than the CPUs. (I've under-volted them with Notebook Hardware Control.)

I'd be tempted to upgrade to a T7600 if you took the T7400 as a trade-in but I'm in New Zealand.... My friend in NYC isn't yet comfortable with opening his T60 although he's going to be studying the HMM.

Cheers.

I agree the distance is an issues, but if I was to get you a new system board, and your friend is coming to usa, then we might be able to work things out which is why I mentioned it. The T61p heatsink uses three heatpipes and does a better job at cooling, it also has a much bigger heatsink on the GPU, but as you noticed getting rid of the silicone pad does help quite a bit. There is also a problem with the ATI chips reporting the wrong temps. I think they are off by close to 10 degrees if my memory serves.

If you wanted the T61p heatsink I could provide that too.

Understood. Thanks, we'll see how it goes. He's currently in-flight to (or recently arrived at) LA on his way back to NY. His T60 with the LED fault is still running fine (other than the LEDs...), it's been thrashed through CPU and RAM testing and he did a bunch of file copying before he left and so far nothing's wrong other than the LEDs.

He'll be contacting you w/r/t a couple LED UXGA screens soon but at this stage he has almost zero experience working on laptops so I'm not sure what he'll do about his system board - Probably he'll just keep using it as-is and crossing his fingers for now.