T61p has lights but won't start up

[davidhbrown]

So, I've booted the computer, seen the first Lenovo splash screen, then I turn away... and when I realize it hasn't started up I turn back to see a black screen. Now when I press the power button...

the battery light lights briefly on orange with green wall power light, then briefly numlock+capslock+system-on lights are on green, the optical drive seeks, and there's a faint pulse of air out the exhaust port. Then another click from the optical drive and system-on and battery light are green.

After a second, the system-on light turns off and the cycle repeats, then stays on.

No beeps, nothing on the screen; backlight does not appear to be on.

Same pattern with AC power only (through dock), or AC+battery with the appropriate power lights.

I have tried...

() Removing the HDD
() Removing the optical drive
() removing the SD card
() checking the lithium batter: is 3.2V good enough?
() pressing the power button 10x within 30sec with battery removed
() holding the power button 30 sec with battery removed
() Leaving it disconnected from power overnight (6h) to see if maybe I'd get lucky with a self-resetting fuse or some such.
() trying non-dock AC power

Of course, the warranty expired about one month ago

Edit: Forgot to mention... the build date is 08/08 so it probably had a fixed NVIDIA GPU to begin with and besides that, I had to have the main board replaced twice for SATA issues, and I think the GPU comes along. I do recall verifying that the final board revision was one of the "good" ones, but this was a while ago...

[RealBlackStuff]

Looks like replacement #3 is required.
Depending on how long ago they replaced the mobo the last time, they could still have slipped a "new old stock" board by you!
Call them up, following the instructions from this 'sticky' thread in the T6x forum: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=93357

[davidhbrown]

Hmm... thanks for the thought. I suppose I should give that a try before just parting it out for whatever I can get for the innards and accessories.

EDIT: Finally called Atlanta today. Very helpful, but without the 1-long, 2-short beep codes, the machine is not eligible for that repair.

I also realize I read the code wrong... I bought the system in March of '08, so it couldn't have been an 08/08 build... there's a bit of a scratch going through the last digit which must be a 3. The last board replacement was in August, so it's quite possible I never did get a fixed board. It has been running rather hot, even shutting itself down once or twice.

I am grateful it waited until I was about halfway through copying files to my W520 before giving up the ghost! The far side of this weekend would have been even better, but a week earlier (before the new machine arrived) sure would have been worse!