X41 Tablet system board woes :(

[T41Tablet]

Hello all, first post here.

I have had some major headaches with my X41 Tablet 1866-5GG

I was experiencing a problem at boot time on my tablet. I would get Keyboard Error 0211 press F1 to enter setup. At that point I couldn't do anything more, also when the error did happen I could not access the BIOS before the error appeared. Rebooting it lead to the same problem, but it wasn't always constant. About 1 in every 10 boots the laptop would boot and there was no problems when it did. As far as I could tell the keyboard was correctly connected to the system board, also no keys were stuck as far as I could tell. It got to the point after a while were I could never get past the error message and the keyboard would not work at all.

According to the hardware maintenance documentation from IBM/Lenovo, I am supposed to run the PC-Doctor interactive tests - couldn't do that as I could not boot to anything.

I decided to buy a replacement system board, so I looked in the hardware maintenance documentation, for my 1866 5GG model, and it told me to go for FRU 39T5521. I found a refurbished board on ebay that seemed a reasonable price and purchased it.

When I received it and took out my original system board I noticed it had a FRU 39T0381. Strange I thought, but according to the hardware maintenance documentation I purchased the correct board.

So I replaced the old board with the new by following the hardware maintenance documentation guide. The only thing I can think of that I didn't do was to attach the modem internal cabling. As far as I know I did every thing else by the book.

Unfortunately, when it was all assembled again on power on I got a blank screen followed by 2 short beeps. Hardware maintenance documentation tell me it is either the memory or the system board. I realize I may have been sold a duff board, but hope that I haven't.

Any advice on where to go from here, or common installation errors that I might have made? Where is a good place to buy a replacement board? Or any ideas on the original 0211 problem?

Thanks....I really miss my tablet, it so light and Windows 7 has improved it so much.

[sjthinkpader]

Welcome to the forum.

If you put back your old system board, does it still give you that 0211 KB error?

[T41Tablet]

I might try that today. I left it in the corner for the last few nights, to think about what it had done to me.

edit: I was just thinking, the power supply for all main board types would be the same throughout the X41 tablet range would it not?

[sjthinkpader]

Yes, the T41t can use all the AC adapter up to T43/R52/X41.

[T41Tablet]

Great news. I got it to work. I seem to have not connected the LCD panel correctly though as it is always blank. The video (and everything else for that matter) is working fine through the VGA port.

So glad to have it back up and running, even in this state! Must crack open the lid and get the LCD going again....

Happy Days!

[419nickjd]

Hey everyone, I have the same problem with my tablet. It of course won't boot when it gets this "0211 keyboard error". It was only doing it ocassionally and was having other strange problems like intermittent non predictable system hangs so I took all of the removable parts out that had connectors and cleaned them with a contact cleaner pen. This didn't help, it does the exact same thing. The only thing that would seem to coincide with the system error was the weird hangs. When it was becoming unresponsive (which wasn't often for a while) I would reboot and get that stupid keyboard error. I think it was always like this; it wouldn't give the keyboard error if it otherwise was working fine, but the keyboard never would stop working. I noticed this trend and didn't think it could be just a coincedence.

Just yesterday I couldn't get it to boot after multiple attempts of lame things like taking the battery out etc I just tossed it onto my bed, not realizing there was a book there. So it got a nice hard knock which afterwards it booted

I still have a couple months of warranty left, but I'm in Germany! I don't know if it would be worth my time trying to have them service it here, if it's even possible.

[sjthinkpader]

Welcome to the Forum.

Take a look at the X41 Trouble shooting Guide, page 14.
http://www.msm.edu/Documents/Education/ ... ooting.pdf

[T41Tablet]

Hey everyone, I have the same problem with my tablet. It of course won't boot when it gets this "0211 keyboard error". It was only doing it ocassionally and was having other strange problems like intermittent non predictable system hangs so I took all of the removable parts out that had connectors and cleaned them with a contact cleaner pen. This didn't help, it does the exact same thing. The only thing that would seem to coincide with the system error was the weird hangs. When it was becoming unresponsive (which wasn't often for a while) I would reboot and get that stupid keyboard error. I think it was always like this; it wouldn't give the keyboard error if it otherwise was working fine, but the keyboard never would stop working. I noticed this trend and didn't think it could be just a coincedence.

Just yesterday I couldn't get it to boot after multiple attempts of lame things like taking the battery out etc I just tossed it onto my bed, not realizing there was a book there. So it got a nice hard knock which afterwards it booted

I still have a couple months of warranty left, but I'm in Germany! I don't know if it would be worth my time trying to have them service it here, if it's even possible.

If it is under warranty then get it in to IBM asap for a free fix.

[419nickjd]

Hey everyone, I think I figured out what was causing this stupid and system incapacitating error. I read other laptops had problems with keyboard screws being too long or overtightened and damaging it. Well i tried taking out all the screws and it let me go into the bios. I was just messing about, not really sure what I was planning on doing but I was just pressing keys to see if I could make it stop working again. Well, with all the screws removed... the keyboard was loose of course. Few or maybe none of the grounds were contacting. The moment I pushed the keyboard far enough to contact a ground on the arrow keys, the keyboard stopped working completely. (the keyboard was still snapped in place, so it wasn't like the threaded brass posts were shorting something they shouldn't have). Sooo... assuming the circuitry doesn't like sudden changes in grounding or there is a slight potential between some parts I cleaned all the grounds. Now it booted perfectly and is working fine. I noticed quite a bit of corrosion where the grounds met from rubbing and slight movements due to typing on it so much. I had a contact cleaner pen that worked perfectly. So... I guess we'll see if that fixed it!