Another dead X31? Please help/advise

[LordFoo]

This past Friday afternoon, I did a full shutdown on my X31 but left it plugged in to charge. When I returned on Sunday, it wouldn't start up, exhibiting the following symptoms regardless of whether it's running of AC alone/AC+battery/battery alone:

- Pushing power button causes fan to start spinning, 3 leds flash (AC and two to left), and then only AC led remains on
- Battery LED shows normal behaviour
- Black screen on boot
- No POST beeps
- If left on for several hours, battery drains fully (i.e. as normal)
- Problem doesn't appear to be backlight/inverter, as I can't see anything on the screen under bright lights, or when connected to an external monitor
- Bootup isn't completing as wireless network interface never comes up
- All behaviour identical regardless of what components are connected (tried removing wireless/modem/hdd/memory)

I suspected that this may be a power management problem, and tried the battery/power button fix as recommended in this topic (i.e. letting capacitors drain), but with no luck:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... highlight=

All that I can think of is that the BIOS or mainboard is dead.. if anyone has any advice/suggestions other than mainboard replacement, I would greatly appreciate it.

Oh, and naturally, this occurred less than 4 months out of warranty

[RS_003]

What does it do when you attach an external monitor?
And press the external monitor combination?

Maybe a dead screen / invertor / backlight combination?

[LordFoo]

No display on external monitor either with the fn button combo -- this made me believe that it's not a problem with the LCD/backlight, as this shouldn't interfere with startup on an external display.

Upon closer inspection, I don't think it's doing anything boot related, as I'm not able to hear the hard drive spinning up... also, I'm running linux, so the OS would automatically bring up the wireless interface if it was booting successfully, which it doesn't.

The thing I don't get -- why is the battery draining in a "standard" amount of time if the CPU is idle?

[RS_003]

No display on external monitor either with the fn button combo -- this made me believe that it's not a problem with the LCD/backlight, as this shouldn't interfere with startup on an external display.

Upon closer inspection, I don't think it's doing anything boot related, as I'm not able to hear the hard drive spinning up... also, I'm running linux, so the OS would automatically bring up the wireless interface if it was booting successfully, which it doesn't.

The thing I don't get -- why is the battery draining in a "standard" amount of time if the CPU is idle?

Well with the LCD of it should take much longer.

My old X40 could make 12 hours with the screen turned of.
So an X31 should be able to make ... well? 6 hours or so? (if batts in good condition)


Have you removed the cmos batt and let it standing for about 2 or 3 hours. and pressed power again? (without the main batt)

[LordFoo]

I had tried the no CMOS battery/no battery/no AC discharge thing overnight, so I guess that's about 6-7 hours.. no luck.

Thanks for the help though - any more ideas?

[RS_003]

I had tried the no CMOS battery/no battery/no AC discharge thing overnight, so I guess that's about 6-7 hours.. no luck.

Thanks for the help though - any more ideas?

Gee, that does sound bad...

Well... there are some other things we can try.
But it are long shots.

Remove alle items.
So, hdd, batts, and so on. and press the powerbutton for like 15 secs.

Or:

Insert AC and press power.


Or...
Replace the ram...

If that isnt it, i suspect (but dont know for sure) its either motherboard or cpu related.

[LordFoo]

Gee, that does sound bad...

Well... there are some other things we can try.
But it are long shots.

Remove alle items.
So, hdd, batts, and so on. and press the powerbutton for like 15 secs.

Or:

Insert AC and press power.


Or... Wink
Replace the ram...

If that isnt it, i suspect (but dont know for sure) its either motherboard or cpu related.

Thanks again for the advice.. I tried all of this and no luck. The hdd works in another laptop, so I know it's not that.. I figure it's something related to power management or cpu/motherboard, as you've suggested. Oh well.. maybe I'll start looking for a new machine, as I don't think it's worth putting the money into this one for a new main board.

[smugiri]

I have an X series machine as well and I had something similar happen tonight.

Try this:

- remove battery and disconnect AC
- press and hold power switch down for 15 secs.
- repeat the press and hold about 10 times

The idea here is to fully discharge all residual charge in the system by repeated running power cycles.

Replace battery and try to reboot.

My specific problem was caused by a USB dongle for a wireless mouse shorting the power pins on the USB on each insert/removal. Needless to say, this mouse in now in the trash.

[The Spirit of X21]

Were there any power surges in your neighborhood as a result of bad weather over the weekend? Do you keep it plugged into a surge supressor? I'm thinking that maybe if you didn't that your machine could have been damaged that way.

I see that you get a black screen on boot, but have you tried booting from an external CD-ROM with, say, a GPartEd CD or another distro?

[LordFoo]

Thanks to everyone for the help.. I tried the power cycling thing and it was still no go. As I mentioned before, the hard drive is ok.. I tried booting from USB as well but it doesn't even get to that point, so I don't think an external cd would help.. think it's time to give up?