Thinkpads Forum

Okay, so I had pre-ordered a 14.1" T61 back before they came out, two summers ago, and I haven't had a _single_ problem until about a month ago, when I turned my laptop on, went to get breakfast, and came back to find the display completely distorted. Troubleshooted myself, realized it wasn't a graphics problem, so I sent it in to Lenovo. Although it took over two weeks (they had to back-order the display), I just got it back this Thursday, and everything has been honky dory since.

So today, I was using it earlier, working on some code for a job interview, nothing computer intensive. I ended up going out with my girlfriend for most of the afternoon, and just came back--to find out that when I started my laptop, it would power on, and power off immediately, in an indefinite cycle. I had to remove the battery to stop it. The weird part is, its not even POSTing--the system doesn't even have enough time to power on the display. This is so bizarre and I've honestly never heard anything about it.

So while I will send it in, I just want to see if anybody else has been having these problems, or if mine is just a lemon 1.5 years in the making...

Andrew

If I were to guess I'd say the power cycling is heat related, possibly due to the technicians not installing the CPU heatsink correctly. It could also be some other power related anomaly on the new board. Might be loose RAM too, try re-seating it. If that doesn't work I'd send it in.

I have seen similar behavior in a couple of R61s. These were both 14" wide-screen. Those MBs are identical to those in similar T61 models. These would start the onp-off loop as soon as they were plugged in. I spent a faire amount of time playing with them and could never figure out what was wrong. I don't think it was heat, because a bad sensor wouldn't cause the "automatic" turn-on.