Thinkpads Forum

I was given a T60 because it didn't power on. In the process of diagnosis I found some odd behavior that I can not find any record of in my searches.

I have removed the motherboard and checked all fuses and they are fine. On plugging in AC power the AC plug light lights up.

On pressing the power button, the caps lock, number lock, and WWAN lights turn on, the DVD drive spins up, the CPU fan spins, and then all go off and the AC light blinks.

The static discharge trick has no effect.

BUT!

If I remove AC power, main battery, and CMOS battery the laptop fires right up. Kind of. It comes up with an error about the date/time being wrong (0271) and a CMOS checksum error (0251) which make sense, since all power was just removed. The laptop then goes into the BIOS where everything can be changed.

If the laptop is restarted in any way (save changes, discard changes, ctrl-alt-del, pull the plug, etc) it will not boot up again and reverts to the original behavior. It will go into BIOS and only BIOS after pulling all batteries.

My idea was to flash the bios since it's old and hopefully clear up any corruption but it will not boot from a CD as it enters BIOS after the two errors appear.

I hate to replace the motherboard where it appears to be working besides the odd power behavior. Has anyone else seen this issue before?

Not this behavior exactly but similar in a T60. I replaced the MB. It just wasn't reliable enough to use with that kind of problem. I've also had power on issues with a Toshiba Satellite. I didn't want to spend the money for a new MB and sold that laptop for parts. I don't think it's bios corruption. It's more likely some sort of component malfunction in the power control circuitry on the MB.

I have 3 T60s and another one can have problems if I don't turn it on periodically. Weird battery and power issues. If I remember to turn it on every few days or so when I'm not using it regularly, it's fine. Seems to be a T6X thing. Two out of three T60s I own have had power on issues. It doesn't happen with my T4X laptops. I can leave them off for months and they start up fine.

The problem could well be just a bad/dead CMOS battery.
Measure it with a multimeter (RED = pos., BLACK = neg.), it should be 3.0V DC or better.
These batteries are cheap enough on eBay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/OEM-CR2032-CMOS ... 0268170513
Or make your own with a new CR2032 from the pharmacy. See e.g. here: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=106674

I have no specific bytes what it can be but go through this checklist :

- CMOS battery is bad, and if there is no diode in front of the battery in the circuit (which i dont know if is the case), it can maybe pull down the voltage to the component it is supposed to supply even if that component is supposed to be supplied from the main battery or power supply when they are connected

- USB port broken and some pin inside it is shorting to the shield

- Some malfunctining hardware shorting, try to disconnect everything possible (HD, CD, card reader, CPU fan, camera, wifi...) and see if something changed. No ? Keep disassembling more (pull the LCD flat cable and connect external monitor, remove all RAM and revert to guessing by the beeps etc)

- Dirt or remains of long time ago liquid spill are on the board, take it out and clean it throughly with alcohol and a fine brush, let dry. Peek under the detached edges of black tape coated areas too however it is unlikely that any contamination has gone to the places where the tape does stick well to the board

- Does it have one of the GPUs known to make trouble ?

Thank you all for the support!

I have already tried replacing the CMOS battery without success. The original was still at 3.04v and the new one read 3.30. No change there unfortunately.

I disassembled it down to the bare motherboard to check the fuses and for water damage though all seems to be in good condition. I have it currently set up with only the bare motherboard, RAM (tried a few different sticks), keyboard, and display.

No evidence of shorting exists in any ports, though I would think it might help, since removing power from the board seems to at least partially solve the issue.

Removing the RAM and attempting a boot results in a 1-3-3-1 error. Removing the CMOS battery and doing the same results in a 1-4-3-1 error. Though both errors seem to indicate the 'problem' I just caused according to what I've read.

I could see it being a power supply issue where a transistor is latching up on supply, but do not have any schematics to identify which components would warrant testing. If this were home theater gear I would be checking capacitors but no electrolytics exist on the board.

The odd thing is this laptop is in extremely good cosmetic condition, it just doesn't power on.

Oh and I forgot too, this model does not suffer from the Nvidia bug. It has an ATI chip, I believe a Radeon x1300.

Hook up the speakers, keep CPU and fan attached, remove the RAM and try to boot.
If the mobo still has any life left in it, it should beep 1-3-3-1.
If not, start hunting for another...

RealBlackStuff wrote:Hook up the speakers, keep CPU and fan attached, remove the RAM and try to boot.
If the mobo still has any life left in it, it should beep 1-3-3-1.
If not, start hunting for another...

I got a 1-3-3-1 beep with the CMOS battery attached and a 1-4-3-1 with it disconnected.

So that's a good sign that there's life left, but how do I resurrect it?

Something else to try...

Swap the HDD with a known good one.

I have a computer I'm repairing for a lady at work (Dell desktop) who bought new RAM and managed to install it backwards (I should have taken pictures...)

Anyway, she managed to blow the RAM, motherboard, and the logic board on the HDD.
When I tried to boot the drive in a known good machine, it did absolutely nothing. No POST, no beeps, all power diagnostic lights on the power supply were out. Different drive installed, boots up great.

I'm thinking you could have a bad logic board or drive that is creating odd behavior. Worst case, you rule that out.

joester wrote:Something else to try...

Swap the HDD with a known good one.

I have a computer I'm repairing for a lady at work (Dell desktop) who bought new RAM and managed to install it backwards (I should have taken pictures...)

Anyway, she managed to blow the RAM, motherboard, and the logic board on the HDD.
When I tried to boot the drive in a known good machine, it did absolutely nothing. No POST, no beeps, all power diagnostic lights on the power supply were out. Different drive installed, boots up great.

I'm thinking you could have a bad logic board or drive that is creating odd behavior. Worst case, you rule that out.

Hmm, almost all this time I've been playing with it it hasn't had a hard drive attached at all. I tried booting it once with a known good drive with the BIOS update CD data copied on it in the hopes it would work (no luck). But I've tried all iterations of accessories plugged in and detached. Right now it's as a bare motherboard with one stick of ram, keyboard, and display bare on my desk. The roll cage isn't even attached. No speakers and no USB ports on the right side.

Also still no worky