T60p goes to sleep, won't wake up (long)
Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 8:41 am
I have a T60p.
Right around a year ago (right on July 4th) I had some issues with it, had it sent back to IBM for a new motherboard, and gave up on 3GB of RAM in it.
Ever since, has been running great.
Until lately.
It has a new problem that always occurs with one of my new computer bags - and sometimes occurs with the other.
The behavior:
1) I close the lid, it goes to sleep - little moon icon lights up, battery stays lit (I think), all else goes dead (note that at this time, the battery is at 100% - I nearly always have this plugged in)
2) I put the laptop into the bag
3) travel to next destination
4) take laptop out of bag, place on table, open up - the moon icon light is no longer lit, even though it was just prior to opening - and the device is a brick. No response. Power button, nothing. Keyboard, nothing - totally dead - no lights - the light on the side isn't lit, no sound, no heat, no light - dead.
Note that time between #4 and #1 doesn't seem to matter - it isn't as if there was enough time between for the battery to die or something like that. It could be 2 minutes, it could be 2 days - same result.
The bag that this happens more often with is one that has a tight laptop sleeve that the laptop goes into - this, if I had to guess, pushes the battery in slightly - so that is my theory on how this is related somehow.
But I can always (to date) get it to wake back up (losing its sleeping state and essentially coming to as if it were a desktop you had pulled the plug on - unhappy and loss of work on the screen - by doing the following:
1) unplug anything that might be in the laptop ports - no USB mouse, no power, nothing
2) unhook the CD-ROM bay switch, pop out the CD-ROM pull tab, pull it out, and then immediately slide it back in (immediate doesn't seem to matter, but there doesn't need to be a pause at all - don't even need to take it out all of the way) and push its release tab back in.
3) Take out the battery.
4) close the laptop, flip it over a few times, gently (I am less sure this step is required) - if you hear a click or a rattle - it is likely the spring/door of the card slot on the left of the laptop and not something crucial loose (that was my first reaction)
5) put the laptop down on a level surface, open the lid, press on the connecting ribbon from the lid to the base
6) plug in the power supply
7) hold down the power button for several seconds until the icons light up, then release and let it come up to the boot screen
put the battery back in - ideally without moving the laptop, just slide it in the back
9) once it is up in Windows, then add in the USB connections if you have any (you can do it earlier, but why tempt fate)
I thought I might be able to skip many steps and when this happens, just take out the battery and try to boot that way - but that doesn't work - something about the various other steps seems to help.
As you may imagine - figuring out that chain of motions was tons of fun. It reminds me of medicine men accidentally curing someone and assuming it was the dance they just did that was the cure.
Meaning that I suspect none of that is needed and it might even be a timing issue - don't know.
I have a new X60 and these things are fantastic, so I am in the process of migrating everything over to it. But I still want to use this T60p as essentially a docking station since it still works, it just no longer likes to travel.
I had taken the T60p apart and put it back together a few times - tightening screws and reseating the RAM, hoping that would help - and it seemed like it did, but then this just happened again this morning.
So if anyone has any suggestions as to what might cause this, or what sort of fix it needs - please speak up, I'm very curious.
Worst possible fix is "send it back to IBM" - I use my laptops 12-20 hours a day, every single day. Once I get the data off of this one, I can probably send it back - but I would much rather find a fix that doesn't involve total motherboard replacement every year (note that this problem here is not the same as the one I had last year).
Right around a year ago (right on July 4th) I had some issues with it, had it sent back to IBM for a new motherboard, and gave up on 3GB of RAM in it.
Ever since, has been running great.
Until lately.
It has a new problem that always occurs with one of my new computer bags - and sometimes occurs with the other.
The behavior:
1) I close the lid, it goes to sleep - little moon icon lights up, battery stays lit (I think), all else goes dead (note that at this time, the battery is at 100% - I nearly always have this plugged in)
2) I put the laptop into the bag
3) travel to next destination
4) take laptop out of bag, place on table, open up - the moon icon light is no longer lit, even though it was just prior to opening - and the device is a brick. No response. Power button, nothing. Keyboard, nothing - totally dead - no lights - the light on the side isn't lit, no sound, no heat, no light - dead.
Note that time between #4 and #1 doesn't seem to matter - it isn't as if there was enough time between for the battery to die or something like that. It could be 2 minutes, it could be 2 days - same result.
The bag that this happens more often with is one that has a tight laptop sleeve that the laptop goes into - this, if I had to guess, pushes the battery in slightly - so that is my theory on how this is related somehow.
But I can always (to date) get it to wake back up (losing its sleeping state and essentially coming to as if it were a desktop you had pulled the plug on - unhappy and loss of work on the screen - by doing the following:
1) unplug anything that might be in the laptop ports - no USB mouse, no power, nothing
2) unhook the CD-ROM bay switch, pop out the CD-ROM pull tab, pull it out, and then immediately slide it back in (immediate doesn't seem to matter, but there doesn't need to be a pause at all - don't even need to take it out all of the way) and push its release tab back in.
3) Take out the battery.
4) close the laptop, flip it over a few times, gently (I am less sure this step is required) - if you hear a click or a rattle - it is likely the spring/door of the card slot on the left of the laptop and not something crucial loose (that was my first reaction)
5) put the laptop down on a level surface, open the lid, press on the connecting ribbon from the lid to the base
6) plug in the power supply
7) hold down the power button for several seconds until the icons light up, then release and let it come up to the boot screen
put the battery back in - ideally without moving the laptop, just slide it in the back9) once it is up in Windows, then add in the USB connections if you have any (you can do it earlier, but why tempt fate)
I thought I might be able to skip many steps and when this happens, just take out the battery and try to boot that way - but that doesn't work - something about the various other steps seems to help.
As you may imagine - figuring out that chain of motions was tons of fun. It reminds me of medicine men accidentally curing someone and assuming it was the dance they just did that was the cure.
Meaning that I suspect none of that is needed and it might even be a timing issue - don't know.
I have a new X60 and these things are fantastic, so I am in the process of migrating everything over to it. But I still want to use this T60p as essentially a docking station since it still works, it just no longer likes to travel.
I had taken the T60p apart and put it back together a few times - tightening screws and reseating the RAM, hoping that would help - and it seemed like it did, but then this just happened again this morning.
So if anyone has any suggestions as to what might cause this, or what sort of fix it needs - please speak up, I'm very curious.
Worst possible fix is "send it back to IBM" - I use my laptops 12-20 hours a day, every single day. Once I get the data off of this one, I can probably send it back - but I would much rather find a fix that doesn't involve total motherboard replacement every year (note that this problem here is not the same as the one I had last year).