Thinkpads Forum

Problem one: 1 out of 4 times when I start my T60 it just beeps a whole bunch of times and the screen stays black and does nothing until I power it off and start it again.

Problem two: When I close the screen and then try to open it again the screen just stays black and does nothing no matter what I do. On my T41 it would power back up right to where I was be4. Also sometimes when I leave it alone and it goes to screen saver the screen goes black and I cannot get it out of that just like I cannot when I close the screen.

Any help you guys can offer to fix these very annoying problems would be greatly appreciated. TIA!

EDIT: I am forced to hold the power button down to turn the computer off, there is no other way it seems to get the black screen off.

Sounds like a dead video chip. Call IBM and get that sucker RMA'd.

Both problems would be caused by a dead video chip?

Also you can have a dead video chip and it will still work some of the time?

My T40 did. Sporatic bootup, sometimes it would work for hours and sometimes it would freeze booting windows.

Even if its not the vid chip (which I think it is), that is definatly a system board issue and it needs to be replaced.

You could try reseating the RAM. Loose RAM will cause the computer to beep loudly and not boot. There are just 4 screws on the bottom, you pop up the palmrest, and pop the catches holding the RAM, and then put it back in, making sure it is pushed forward firmly into the socket. It wont void your warranty to try this.

I acutally installed my 2nd gig stick myself so loose ram could be the booting problem. But I have never seen it read anything other than 2 gig's of ram.

Would loose ram have anything to do with the comp not starting back up after I just close the screen?

HockeyZ39 wrote:I acutally installed my 2nd gig stick myself so loose ram could be the booting problem. But I have never seen it read anything other than 2 gig's of ram.

Would loose ram have anything to do with the comp not starting back up after I just close the screen?

No, thats the Powerplay setting on your graphics card. Either turn off PP in the Catalyst Control Center or revert to BIOS 1.04.

Unless the RAM are identical modules, you can also try swapping them into each others spots. When doing this though, feel free to leave the palmrest and touchpad disconnected until you have it working right. Stinks to screw it back in and realize it didnt work.

I am running desktop drivers. Is there still a way to turn PP off?

I am about to switch back to the omega drivers since there was not very much of a difference. ( still had the problem with the omega drivers.)

HockeyZ39 wrote:I am running desktop drivers. Is there still a way to turn PP off?

I am about to switch back to the omega drivers since there was not very much of a difference. ( still had the problem with the omega drivers.)

Yeah, in the Catalyst control center its the last or next to last option in the list on the left side. Not sure about Omega, but I think its in about the same area. Omega does let you disable Powerplay too. BTW, if you have 2GB and are getting lockups (besides with standby) I would recommend reverting to 1.04 for that also. In fact, you might as well just go back to 1.04 regardless. The only reason to stick with the newest BIOS is if somehow you managed to get the newest version of CSS on your laptop. Then reverting the BIOS would be dangerous, but if you are running Client Security 6, its safe.

BTW, I am running the desktop drivers too, version 6.6, its the same deal in the Catalyst Control Center, its the next to last option on the list, before VPU recover.

Do you have the link to reverting to 1.04, I feel safer when I have something to follow? My computer is pretty much brand new, I have not done anything to the BIOS yet. I have flashed a bios on my desktop but never a laptop.

I have been going into the bios, and doing some restarts (I am benchmarking desktop apps vs omega) and it is now going black every time I restart. After it goes through the windows shutdown it just goes black and I have to hold the power button down to power off and turn it back on. Real annoying, 1.04 should fix this?

HockeyZ39 wrote:I have been going into the bios, and doing some restarts (I am benchmarking desktop apps vs omega) and it is now going black every time I restart. After it goes through the windows shutdown it just goes black and I have to hold the power button down to power off and turn it back on. Real annoying, 1.04 should fix this?

That may be related to the RAM, not PowerPlay. When I was using 2GB of RAM (im currently waiting for a replacement from IBM for a defective stick), this was one of the symptoms. Even if I could get the system running, when I tried to shut down it would crash. 1.04 might fix it, but since I never ran my system with two reliable sticks of RAM, I cant say. Here is the link to the page with the BIOS update. You could also just go onto the Lenovo site, enter your system model, find the BIOS update page, and scroll to the bottom for the old version.

By the way, the BIOS is really easy to flash. There are instructions on the download page, but essentially you download the file, open it, and what it does is simply unpack the files, not flash the BIOS. It will store them in the C>Drivers>Flash folder on your HDD. The 1.04 BIOS updater is in the folder titled 79UJ05US. Open the folder and double click WINUPTP.EXE. It will flash the BIOS, and then ask you to restart. There is also the option of doing it from a disc, but its much easier this way.

I just got my system back from a dead motherboard on it that was showing something like what you were talking about prior to the "fix (replacement) and now it is doing something very similar to what you say. I have 2GB of RAM in there (two chips).

If I walk away from it for a few hours and then come back, it shows a login screen (as if it had restarted and then sat at that screen), but it won't respond to any input at all.

And then during regular use now it regularly freezes up and I have to restart. This is beyond annoying.

Well I have not had time to check the ram but I listened to the beeps this time. It was one beep followed by two sets of 3 beeps and then one beep at the end. I know bios beeps are codes for problems, does anyone know what those beeps are code for?

1-3-3-1 means either a faulty system board (motherboard) or bad RAM

In my case it was the system board.

with bad MB or RAM it will still work alot of the time???

For mine, it would never fully boot. It just died and even if I tried to boot linux from a CD it would fail in the same spot - that made it easier to point to the motherboard.

If yours will successfully boot but occasionally crash and have issues, I don't know - but it could be the RAM is shot or just poorly seated.

If you bring it in to the IBM shop they can run tests on it to figure it out - mine was all covered under warranty, it was just a huge hassle to not have it during that time.

I will pull both my sticks out later when I get a chance, and they put them back in good. If that does not cure the problem I guess one of the sticks could be bad and I will go to an IBM store, mine is brand new and still under warenty

When I had two 1GB sticks in mine up until yesterday, I was not getting the beeps at all (those were all pre-service and relating to the MB) and it was crashing every few minutes.

I tried putting in different combinations of RAM, and some made it far worse - so I finally just left it with the 1GB stick that it came with and now it has been up all day with no crashes.

There are other threads on here discussing the 2GB RAM issue with these things.

I am curious if this issue exists in other ThinkPads like the X60 - I am tempted to get one of those instead at this point since I mostly just use mine hooked up to an external keyboard/mouse and monitor.

HockeyZ39 wrote:with bad MB or RAM it will still work alot of the time???

What RAM modules does it have. I assume one is the preinstalled module, and another is one you bought? If so, check this thread that talks about some problems with bad RAM. If you have tried reseating the RAM already, you might want to check to see if one of your modules is bad. Im getting one of mine replaced. Anyways, with my two sticks of RAM in, my system rarely ran for more than a couple minutes.

When I ordered my laptop I ordered it with 2 gig's of ram. But one of the sticks came un-installed, so I put it in.

HockeyZ39 wrote:When I ordered my laptop I ordered it with 2 gig's of ram. But one of the sticks came un-installed, so I put it in.

Right, well, I would check the serial numbers of the RAM. If they have "VJ16U" or "VJ172" in the number then you may have defective sticks.

Well flashing the BIOS to 1.04 did not fix the beeping...... I checked the ram, pulled it out and I am 100% it is secure. On the restart RIGHT AFTER flashing it I got the 1 3 3 1 beep.... =( Not having much luck finding the PP in the omega drivers either.

HockeyZ39 wrote:Well flashing the BIOS to 1.04 did not fix the beeping...... I checked the ram, pulled it out and I am 100% it is secure. On the restart RIGHT AFTER flashing it I got the 1 3 3 1 beep.... =( Not having much luck finding the PP in the omega drivers either.

Well, suppose PowerPlay might not be there because of the V5200 in the T60p, but you would have to hear from another T60p owner about that. The good news is that whatever is wrong with it, its covered under warranty.

Ya but I have to send it in...... so that is more waiting!

What exactly does PP do? It is something to conserve the battery right?

HockeyZ39 wrote:Ya but I have to send it in...... so that is more waiting!

What exactly does PP do? It is something to conserve the battery right?

Exactly. It changes the graphics settings depending on the battery level and plugin status.

I just installed memory that I ordered for my T60p T2600, V5200, 2GB and now I got that error beep when shutting down.


[censored]...

Well someone told me to switch the ram into the different slots. I didn't think this would do anything but have not had the beeps since!