T60 shuts down immediately

[goofyGAguy]

Hello folks, I think my T60 has developed a serious problem. I have it hooked up to an external CRT monitor because the LCD has gotten very dim. Tonight when I pressed Fn + F7, the laptop immediately died, and now will not boot at all unless the adapter and battery are removed and the power button is held down. Upon booting, the fan starts up but the machine dies within two seconds every time. Anyone have any ideas? Thank you.

[ajkula66]

Unhook the internal LCD and test it out using the external one only.

If nothing changes, swap the planar.

Good luck.

[goofyGAguy]

Unhook the internal LCD and test it out using the external one only.

If nothing changes, swap the planar.

Good luck.

Thanks George. No changes.

[goofyGAguy]

Anyone have a non-widescreen T60 board for cheap?

[goofyGAguy]

Hi again George. Any idea how I fried a board just by hitting Fn/F7?

[FryPpy]

As a last effort you can disconnect AC adapter, battery and backup batery (yelow coin under keyboard) for some time. That resets bios. Than connect and assemble all parts and try to start your Thinkpad.
PS
I haven't your trouble with video output. But twice my old T60 refuses to bootup after loosing all power sources (AC and battery when it was on) and disconnecting backup battery helped me.

[goofyGAguy]

Holy %$#@! Removing the CMOS did the trick! Thanks for the suggestion.

[TuuS]

Another thing to try when you have problems like this is a static discharge. remove battery and ac power and press the power button 10 times, holding a few seconds each and 30 seconds on the last. This probably would have cleared the problem as well as removing the cmos battery if it was a static issue not a bios setting.

I'm glad it's fixed, but if you do find you need a motherboard I have several T60 boards ranging from $40 (integrated) $50 (discrete) and $89 for T60p with fireGL. I also have kits put together to retrofit a T61 board which will allow for more ram (3gb vs 8gb), more and cheaper cpu options, SATA2 allowing upto twice the transfer speed, better graphic options and better cooling systems. The T60 is one of the best thinkpads ever made and with a T61 board it becomes what many of us feel is the ultimate thinkpad.

ps. I'm aware you know most of this, but not all the readers may know this is possible.