X61: Immediate Shutdown on startup

[bartio1975]

I have an X61 that shuts down immediately on start up. It happened a few weeks ago when I was working on my laptop and it shutdown. Then after numerous tries and swapping hard drives and still no success I gave up. After a few days, I was able to get the laptop up for a few hours and I was able to copy my data to an external HDD and after that the behavior continues. I'm out of warranty and don't know if it is worth spending a few hundred dollars on the post-warranty warranty purchase.
And when this happened, I could no longer start with the power button. The computer would start as soon as I insert the power cord and the BIOS screen would come and shutdown.
Any one else have a similar problem? I'm using my X220 now but would like to resuscitate my X61 for my wife.

[EOMtp]

... don't know if it is worth spending a few hundred dollars on the post-warranty warranty purchase.

Depends on how much "playing" with this you are inclined to do. At a few hundred dollars one could replace the whole computer with a similar one. However, one can also view spending that money on "warranty" as essentially buying the right to swap the non-working unit for a working one, which is the net effect of what will happen when you send the bad unit in for repairs.

If the motherboard is "ill", then you can replace it easily enough (+/- 10 screws and one hour) ... but take on that project only if you derive joy from such activities and without calculating your time in dollars:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=X61 ... m270.l1313

But first, please try the following:
Remove the battery, remove the hard drive, then power up. Does the machine stay on, or does it power off by itself? (Run the test using the power adapter from your X220.)

[bartio1975]

Thanks for your suggestion.

I tried removing the HDD and rebooting and the same behavior happens.

However today I tried something else. I removed the yellow battery under the keyboard and I was able to boot without the keyboard or the battery into Windows. I was able to connect an external USB keyboard and everything was good.

I became curious and plugged in my Thinkpad keyboard and it immediately shutdown. I rebooted again and after booting into Windows, I was able to plugin the yellow battery and it didn't shut down. On connecting the TP keyboard.. boom it shutdown. The power button on the keyboard does not work either since this issue first happened few weeks ago. I have to plugin the power cord to start the machine..

Could it could be the keyboard?

However if I try to restart my machine with the yellow battery connected and the TP keyboard disconnected, the machine still shutsdown at the ThinkPad startup screen.. Is it the BIOS? Or the keyboard? or both? If I order a new battery and a keyboard on eBay will it fix my issue?

Thanks.

[EOMtp]

I became curious and plugged in my Thinkpad keyboard and it immediately shutdown.

You do NOT want to be doing this -- plugging in the disconnected Thinkpad keyboard -- while the X61 is powered up! (Perhaps you got away with it once, but you probably won't get away with it a second time.)

Looks like you are on the right track to solving the problem. From your description, it sounds like the motherboard is likely fine. Whatever is going on, the keyboard appears to be involved. The yellow battery, often called the "CMOS batttery", is unlikely to cause the shutdown effect you describe. I would reconnect it and leave it connected. Removing it may have reset the BIOS beneficially, but there is no point in keeping it disconnected beyond resetting the BIOS.

There is really no good way to debug these matters without swapping out suspicious parts. If the machine runs fine with only an external keyboard connected, then the best move is to replace the X61's keyboard and see where that takes you ...

However if I try to restart my machine with the yellow battery connected and the TP keyboard disconnected, the machine still shutsdown at the ThinkPad startup screen..

This part is odd. Perhaps a reset of the BIOS to factory defaults will clear the issue. Boot without the CMOS battery, find the option in the BIOS to reset it to factory defaults, then see if reconnecting the CMOS battery still causes shutdown. I cannot account for how the CMOS battery is causing a shutdown ... but stranger things have happened!

Note: You can easily "borrow" your X220's CMOS battery if you want to test immediately the effect of a known good CMOS battery on the X61.

[bartio1975]

Thanks EOMtp.

So, I ordered a new CMOS battery on ebay for $2.99 and an Used but Original keyboard on ebay for $19.99 and put it back on my X61. Everything works fine like before the crash!

I'm glad I didn't plunk down $200+ to get Lenovo Post warranty care.. I think when I replaced my original keyboard from eBay back in early 2011, I must have bought a new OEM keyboard but not a genuine Lenovo (For $35 bucks you don't get original, now I know!). That might have caused the issue!

[ThinkRob]

I think when I replaced my original keyboard from eBay back in early 2011, I must have bought a new OEM keyboard but not a genuine Lenovo (For $35 bucks you don't get original, now I know!). That might have caused the issue!

I think that's pretty unlikely. While I've certainly seen plenty of keyboards relabeled to different (wrong) FRUs, I've never seen a non-OEM keyboard. Bay caddies, batteries, screens, logos -- all of those I've seen non-genuine parts for. But keyboards? Nope.

[bartio1975]

I got a new keyboard for sure on eBay. It might have been manufactured by the same company that manufactured the Genuine X61 KB but this could have been a QA reject or something. Or a very good knockoff. I know my keyboard came from HongKong.
I have heard stories of how some eBayers buy from the exact same company that manufactures the original but without the packaging for half the price or less!
When I checked eBay, the new ones that sell for about $30-45 bucks don't say Genuine or Original. The ones that sell for $80 bucks say it is Genuine Lenovo KB. And my KB worked fine for several months before my machine shutdown one evening. And my tests indicate it was the KB that caused the machine to shutdown and without it, it booted fine.

[ThinkRob]

$30-$45 isn't extraordinarily low for a keyboard of that generation. I've gotten numerous legitimate keyboards for that price in the past.

Also, there's more than one keyboard manufacturer for most ThinkPad keyboards and price can and will vary a good bit between the various FRUs.

[cros]

It sounds like your original problem was that the power button was either physically stuck-down or electrically always-on.

That would explain how the machine started by itself once power was applied and then shutdown soon after. The soft power switch on a PC simply sends a message to the BIOS/OS if it's momentarily pressed, but will go ahead and cut off power if held down for a few seconds.

Running without a keyboard (using the dock/slice power button instead?) took this bad switch out of the equation.