Another X31 dead-what capacitors are used to fire it up? PIC

[fantomex]

Hello!

I have an X31 for 3 years and 2 months... one month after the warranty it died. It was dead for one day, i tried everything to get it back to life, last thing i did was using an oven at 60C (140F) for 60minutes to bring it back to life and surprise i managed to make it boot again. After this i decided to not turn it off ever again. Last weekend i took my X31 with me, but forgot the AC adapter thus i had to turn it off. After that it never come up again.

Symptoms are classic: After pressing the power button, the fan goes on, capslock, moon, battery, numlock flashes, then the power led stays on, the fan is still going up and down (regulator works), the computer gets warm as if it was going OK. However PC never enters the POST, thus never activates the LCD (tried even external VGA). I've seen 10 similar people with the same problem on this board.

I tried to dismantle the computer to parts and reassemble (well i haven't got to the phase of getting the mobo out yet =), i reseated DIMMs which was quite common problem on X31s, the power button (without power) trick, with/without AC/batt, unplugged the CMOS bat (did not tried replacement yet), i even tried to start the puter without anything including keyboard (used dock to poweron =)

After bringing it back to life last time the computer run for one month without any problem, one time I turned off it in XP by accident, i had to quickly remove AC and Batt, replug it and in 5 seconds i've been able to turn it on again. (the direct restart resulted in same problem as I am having now).

The problem must lie in the capacitors used to fire up whole thing as the computer is still able to work for weeks. Maybe if we could find which capacitor is used to fire it up and replace it we could finaly solve this problem =) (my guess is that the capacitor does not charge enough!)

Right now, i bought another X31 from ebay, will just switch RAM, HDD, WiFi, BMDC and maybe KEYB from the old one and hope that this MoBo won't die!

May replacing the CMOS battery help something?

[Executor]

I have the same problem with my X31 just now.
Bought it about a week ago off eBay. Today, it showed the same symtoms you described...

Please keep me updated if you find a solution!

Thanks.

[jtt3011]

Hate to say this, but sounds like a duff BIOS. I don't know about laptops in general, or the X31 in particular, in this respect, but desktop m/boards often boot up to Bios defaults, when the CMOS battery has run out.

I'm not sure, but is the BIOS code copied to memory during boot up, and then run from memory from that point? Perhaps someone can answer that?

JohnT

[fantomex]

i tried to replace the cr2032 battery today (bios battery) but no luck.

thing i am gonna try:
use the heat pistol to try to resolder any "cold connections"

possible causes:
cold connections
capacitor either overloaded or without enough power to "fire the [censored] thing up"
bios somewhat lost, crc failed... aren't the bios chips made from a memory that is "almost not forgetting?" like the memory cards today.

if everything fails i hope to get a x32 2ghz board from my friend for some decent price.

i guess the cold connection is the cause, because for the first time the oven helped =) (but i don't know if i actually didn't use the "press 10times power button trick" that time...)

[BobA]

Two PMs sent ..

Bob

[Executor]

If they're about a solution, I'd like one too
Didn't get any....

Btw, I hibernated windows instead of shutting it down the last time I used it properly. That's part of the problem, right? A lot of people seem to experience this error after hibernating their thinkpad.

Anyways. I charged my X31 overnight and it actually started today once I removed the AC!

It froze on the IBM startup screen though, but I managed to restart it a few times afterwards.
It always froze at some point. Often during windows booting, sometimes right at the IBM logo. I once managed to get into windows, but it gave me a bluescreen shortly after the desktop showed up.

I then decided to remove the battery and the cmos battery. Didn't help... I'm now back to yesterday's status. The fan would start, but the lcd wouldn't... led is glowing etc.

[godling]

I once managed to get into windows, but it gave me a bluescreen shortly after the desktop showed up.

I then decided to remove the battery and the cmos battery. Didn't help... I'm now back to yesterday's status. The fan would start, but the lcd wouldn't... led is glowing etc.

If you're BSODing in Windows that might be an indicator of bad RAM or HDD ... but shouldn't the x31 give an error code beep for that? I haven't had those problems since I've owned my x31, so I'm not sure.

-J

[fantomex]

we're discussing a situation WHEN YOU DON'T GET ANY BEEPS - thus x31 doesn't enter POST. Seems like my new MOBO is on the way... hope it will work =) Pity i won't teste the resoldering with a hotair gun =)

[Executor]

i reseated DIMMs which was quite common problem on X31s

I gave that a try a few minutes ago. And it worked! Thanks

At first, I started with only one of the two 256meg modules inserted in the opposite slot..
The laptop started perfectly normal on the second try, but XP was a little slow with only 256megs, of course.
So I added the second module to the remaining slot and it still boots flawlessly.
In conclusion, the only thing I did was switching the positions of my ram modules.

Windows seems to boot every time now.

So what does this mean for my X31? Since it's quite a common problem.

[fantomex]

for me it meant that one and half year later this no longer worked =)

[fantomex]

So it's definitely not a problem. I am currently running a X32 2Ghz 2MB L2 Cache mobo in my X31, it also features GLAN (which i am unable to test, as the cabling around are only 5E)

only thing i dunno how to recreate guid and ibm type, so the automatic support is not working =) (but there are almost no upgrades anymore anyway)

So my current mobo is:
System board assembly, Intel Pentium M
processor 2.0 G (with security chip,
Gigabit Ethernet)
39T0332

I am now experiencing a problem with cooling the system down, but that is prolly, because i didn't use the thermal paste properly (i did not use any =)). but thanks to centrino tech i can clock the proc down till i get some. any suggestions on special pentium m paste?

can anyone tell me what are their average temperatures, when running their pentium m processors in x31 in full speed.

termal sensor program here:
http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~schmitzr/tpfcserv.zip (366KB)

something to make the processor busy:
SuperPi

btw:
1.4Ghz vs 2.0Ghz (2MB L2) or in correct terms on SuperPi 1M
Pentium M 1400Mhz vs. Pentium M 755 (2Ghz/2MB):
65s vs 43s
that's a good performance upgrade for an x31

now only cool it down and upgrade to sxga =)))

[rek]

You can change the model/type data in the BIOS with the IBM ThinkPad hardware maintenance disk (HMD). It involves finding a recent version of the disk (it can sometimes be found via Google, on those driver-download type sites), and having a USB floppy drive to boot up from it.

I've had to do it once after some warranty work on an X60, where the tech forgot to update the BIOS details and I had the same problem (update auto-detect/warranty lookup wasn't working). Sorry, I can't find my HMD disk, or the instructions I used to use it

I don't think there's much of a muchness when it comes to thermal paste performance; the main difference is that the "better" pastes do not dry out in the long term (i.e years). The standard white silicone grease seems to work well enough, but if you want "the best" then I believe Arctic Silver is it.

[fantomex]

yes, as for the thermal paste it looks that there's not much difference. but i expect, that some paste is always better than no paste (or the residuals left on the cooler-fan from the last mobo). the things u should definitely care more of when choosing paste are:

* some thermal paste are aggresive against aluminium, could be used only with copper
* some thermal paste are conductive
* properly cleaning and installing the paste will give you much better results

there's a recent test i found, but unfortunately is in czech... but the graph should be understandable by everyone.


[Degrees of Celsius, lower is better]

by now i switched to "computer hardware control" software and undervoltaged clocks. also it's adjusting the stepping much better. (steps by 200 from 600 to 2000mhz) - now average temp. is 51C, but still after 100% CPU on 2GhZ i can get to temperatures around 90C after 1-2 minz, which is really too much! but i am used to use pc in bed (which also degrades the cooling system quite a bit =)

Moderator note: Added PIC note in original subject line. Please keep images ~50KB

[chrisp]

The problem must lie in the capacitors used to fire up whole thing as the computer is still able to work for weeks. Maybe if we could find which capacitor is used to fire it up and replace it we could finaly solve this problem =) (my guess is that the capacitor does not charge enough!)

May replacing the CMOS battery help something?

Has someone solved this big problem WITHOUT changing motherboard? Have you found the capacitor? Is it a right supposition? I tried to keep the power button pressed and then to press it 10 times without batteries, but had no result. Please, if someone knows anything more, help us!

[rk62]

Chiming in with the same issue and wondering if anyone has found a solution that doesn't require a new mobo...tried the power cycle trick, no help.

It started for me when I noticed that Vista hibernation was drawing significant battery power (that XP didn't on the same machine)...one of the suggestions at http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=48423 was to remove the battery for a couple of seconds after the machine went into hibernation...after that, no boot. Thanks.