T60 Shut Down/Restart when I try to bring it out of Standby

[alexd]

I have a T60 with Windows XP. I have been using the computer for about 18 months. I have flashed the most recent BIOS (December, 2008) to try to remedy the following problem and it still occurs.

The computer will go on standby properly (as indicated by the crescent moon LED icon) when I shut the lid or use the shutdown->standby prompt in Windows.

However, when I try to bring the computer out of standby by opening the lid, pressing the silver power button above the keyboard, or pressing the Fn key, the crescent moon LED goes away and the computer restarts.

After the BIOS part of startup, I get the error message "0176 System Security The System has been tampered with. Press F1 to Setup."

Then, I can go into the BIOS by pressing F1 and entering my password or I can press escape to continue loading Windows. Everything else works. The problem is that I can no longer use standby without restarting the machine.

What's going on? This seems to have happened spontaneously when I closed the lid last night and I've restarted many times as well as flashed the new BIOS to try and fix it.

[ryengineer]

What kind of settings have you applied in ThinkVantage Power Manager? Do you have Power Management drivers installed from lenovo?

Not sure if you've set it on purpose for your thinkpad to not to come out of standby automatically when you open the lid because you can set it to work this way otherwise if deliberately done then just ignore my suggestion.

[alexd]

Thanks for your suggestion-

I'm familiar with this setting but I've also been unable to bring it out of standby using any other method (power key, Fn key, etc).

I've updated all the ACPI Power and Power Management drivers as of yesterday. I double checked that the BIOS version was the latest and I also updated the video drivers.

The fact that this System Security Error pops up right after POST on startup (started happening at the exact same time the standby problem arose) makes me think it is the mainboard. What do you think?

IBM would charge $1000 for a new mainboard. I am planning on buying a cheap T30 or T42 to get me by while they are testing it. Does this sound like a good idea?

[ryengineer]

Yes, it can be mainboard also; according to HMM error code 0176 corresponds to the following two possibilities:

1. Run BIOS Setup Utility, and save the current setting by pressing F10.

2. System board.

snip....IBM would charge $1000 for a new mainboard. I am planning on buying a cheap T30 or T42 to get me by while they are testing it. Does this sound like a good idea?.....snip

Are you out of warranty? If not then IBM shouldn’t ask you for any money for the replacement, on the other hand if you're then don't have your thinkpad repaired from IBM for $1000, you can buy the system board way cheaper online from somewhere and replace it yourself.

Buying a cheap thinkpad in the meantime is a good idea only if you’re out of warranty.

[alexd]

I am out of warranty so I'm thinking IBM recertified direct from IBM.

T42's with fairly good specs are running ~$550 plus tax/shipping with a 3 month warranty on hardware software. Similar machines are available from third party vendors such as TigerDirect for about the same price but with longer warranties although I'd rather buy direct.

I didn't save the current setup but I did run the BIOS setup utility...I think...I downloaded the aforementioned program and it flashed the BIOS and I restarted.

Do you think I should send it into IBM to do "diagnostics" on the board? I'm pretty handy so if you say system boards are available and user-serviceable for less than the $1000 or so replacement charged by IBM I would definately do this. Where can I find these?