Dead screen/vid card/ThinkLight

[Joseph Davis]

I just went to turn my T61 on, and no bueno. Numlock and Capslock lights up briefly, the drives and CD drive spins up and down, as does the cooling fan, and then it just sits there. Screen does not come on, external monitors do not work, the ThinkLight won't turn on or off.

I recently (two months ago?) replaced the cooling fan assembly for the CPU/GPU, and am pretty confident everything went together correctly. I'm a little unfamiliar with a laptop's innards, vs a desktop, and was wondering if anyone had tips for troubleshooting the unit?

Thanks!

[Harryc]

Try the power button trick -
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 24#p497224

[Joseph Davis]

Power button trick didn't work. I'm going to try again, plus reseating the RAM, after dinner.

[craigmontHunter]

Try connecting another monitor, see if the video cable is loose/broken. Also, does it have a Nivida gpu? there was something about them stopping working. search the forums to see if you have the symptoms.

Good luck

[RealBlackStuff]

When you replaced the cooler fan, did you also apply fresh thermal paste between CPU and cooler?
If not, your motherboard OR the CPU may have died from overheating.

[Joseph Davis]

I've tried two different external monitors, both known good, neither work. I refreshed with arctic silver when replacing the fan assembly.

[Joseph Davis]

I got off my butt and opened the T61 service literature today.



I reseated the RAM, and she booted right up! That's a load of stress off my shoulders. I really appreciate everyone's help, all the same! It's nice having a responsive forum to solicit and bounce ideas off of.