Odd beep Code X60

[Bruce Guttman]

I did a little searching and reading and couldn't find the answer so here goes:

I got an X60 1709-h6u on Ebay.

When I got it I plugged it in. Battery flashed orange (probably toast) and the thing started to fire up. In the middle of startup it hung.

I manually turned it off and tried to restart. Now I get a 1-4-1-1 beep code. Can't find this in the HMM. Tried reseating the memory with no luck. Also tried starting with no battery. Same error code.

Left it plugged in for an hour and the battery light continued to flash orange, so I am pretty sure this battery is toast.

I suspect it has some problems and I'd like to rehab it to use as a travel machine.

All suggestions (short of the "circular file") are appreciated.

[rkawakami]

If you can, try this:

- with only one memory module installed, power up the system and note the beep code
- move the module to the other memory slot, power up and again note the beep code

Did you get 1-4-1-1 in one slot and 1-3-4-3 in the other? If so, join the club as a recent Z61p does exactly this. I'm using known good modules and consistently getting the 1-3-4-3 code with the bottom slot and 1-4-1-1 in the top slot of the Z61p. I thought I had this figured out when I found a small piece of debris across two adjacent contacts in the top memory slot but cleaning it away did not help. I inspected both slots as much as possible and tried to clean them out but no success. If it wasn't a memory slot problem then I thought maybe it was a result of a faulty BIOS update. The way I read your description, it sounds as if your system turned on without pressing the power button. My Z61p did not do this, but it was advertised as a parts system on eBay with a known beeping issue. If no memory is installed, it does beep the proper 1-3-3-1 sequence. I also removed the battery, did the "press and hold power button" thing (which BTW has never worked for me) and tried starting the system without it, but no change. When the battery is installed and a charger connected, the LED is solid green. It has been verified on my other Z61p as having about 75% charge left.

The one thing that I did which made any sort of difference was to remove the CMOS battery. I also shorted the terminals on the battery connector on the motherboard to ensure that all voltages were discharged. When I got the system and first tried turning it on, I had to press the power button TWICE before it would fire up. The first press briefly flashed the status LEDs, much like the Blink Of Death on the T2x series. However, an immediate second press got the Z61p going. After I removed the CMOS battery, only a single press was needed.

At this point I figure the only thing I could do is replace the motherboard.

[Bruce Guttman]

Thanks for the suggestions, Ray.

I swapped the memory module to the other socket and still got 1 4 1 1. Put in a second memory module and still got 1 4 1 1

I opened the beast up and disconnected the CMOS battery. connected the keyboard and pressed Start a few times including one long (15 seconds) press.

Plugged in and got 1 1 1 1. CMOS battery was disconnected. Plugged it back in and got 1 4 1 1

While I was open I watched the CPU fan and saw it was turning.

So I'm still where I was. The regular battery is horked. Do I need a special CMOS battery for this thing? I have a pile of T2x, T4x/R5x batteries lying around. I was thinking maybe replacing the CMOS battery would help.

also, I noted that the thing has a WWAN card. Can I export this to my T60p if I can't get the X working?

[rkawakami]

The HMM for the X60 says the backup battery is FRU 92P1210. That's different from the T2x and T4x systems if I remember correctly. However, without looking at the battery connector, I can't say for sure that one of those would also work in the X60. If the connector is physically the same AND the polarity matches, then I don't see any problem.

I did not change the CMOS battery on my Z61p. Nor did I measure the voltage . I'll test it out tomorrow and see if it makes any difference, although I doubt it will.

[Bruce Guttman]

CMOS battery tests 3v outside the system. I see it's different from the T4x/R5x series. It's also different from the X40 that I have to cannibalize for spare parts (it's a 1.4GHz processor and works, but I have no use for it).

Are there points where I can test voltages on the board? I am using a power supply that works on my T60s so I assume it's providing enough voltage and perhaps there is a problem somewhere in the voltage divide circuits to condition the power supply voltage to match the battery voltage?

I have a new CMOS battery en route just in case the battery is really bad.

[Bruce Guttman]

Progress has been made!

I removed all memory modules and hard drive, did the "hard reset" with the CMOS battery out, and put in a known good 512 MB PC-5300 module. The system booted to BIOS!

So I put one of the two 1 GB modules that were giving me the 1-4-1-1 error. Booted to BIOS again!

I examined the other module and it seemed to have something on the finger area, so I cleaned it with a little alcohol and wiped well. Put it in place of the 512 MB and it still booted to BIOS!

I put the thing back together (but left out the main battery) and installed the hard drive that came with it. System required Date/Time set, but that's OK. It's set for tomorrow just because that was easy. I enabled the Memory Test and rebooted.

System came up and the hard drive started. It's apparently got Windows 7 (or is it Vista?). The system said it failed to boot last time (yup, it got half way and gave the 1-4-1-1 error when I first got it). Tried to recover, but wasn't able in two tries. First one gave a BSOD but I couldn't grab the failure.

So now I think I'm going to wipe the drive and put on XP (my OS of choice).

I ordered a new main battery. If it refuses to charge, I may have a blown fuse in the charging circuit (thanks for the fuse listing elsewhere).

I appreciate the help.

[dmdsoftware]

Interesting discussion here. I thought I was the only one with machine like this.

I bought a scrap X61 of eflea that was marked as working but defective screen and untested (yes yes, how can it be working but untested, so I bought knowing pretty well it might need some work) So I expected the worse, but I really only wanted it for parts anyways. It has a similar enough issue.

The first time I powered it on, I got into the bios fine, everything looked fine. I then installed some RAM and a hard drive with linux installed. It froze on boot up, so wasn't sure if it was the image or the laptop, but when I turned it off and back on, just would get the beeping. I swapped around the memory, tried different memory, swapped out the HD etc. Nothing but dead or the beeps. I did the hold the power down trick etc. Nothing.

Didn't really care that much since I didn't have an immediate need for it, so it stayed on my work bench for weeks. Then one day I thought I'd try it again, and it booted to BIOS (no HD attached, known good ram installed). But it didn't last, like the first time. By the time I powered it off and back on, it was doing the beeping again.

So I attributed it to a bad motherboard or overheating. I was pretty sure I pulled CMOS battery out several times. I'm siding on that it's probably most likely a motherboard power issue, because if I leave it for hours, there is no resurrection, but if I leave it without power for days/weeks, it'll power back on to tease me before it acts up again.

I wouldn't mind trying some troubleshooting. Right now I'm using it as a paperweight.

[Bruce Guttman]

If it's beeping like mine did: 1, 4, 1, 1 and you know the memory sticks are good, see if cleaning the memory sockets will help (and look for corrosion on the contacts).

If there is no memory it should beep 1, 3, 3, 1.

I'm actually typing this response on the X60.

I now have a few things to clear up:

1. I have a Sierra WWAN card in it and I loaded the Lenovo-supplied driver but it gives me an error that no driver is found. Is there anywhere else I can find a driver?

2. The temperatures reported by SpeedFan are running fairly high: 50-60. Is this normal or do I need to do a fan transplant? I can feel a gentle warm breeze from the grille.

The hard drive that came with this thing had Windows 7 "sorta" installed but it gave a BSOD and died. Reboots, tries to load, and BSOD. So I decided to go back to Windows XP (an old friend). I couldn't get the XP CD to see the drive until I remembered to set the interface from AHCP to "compatible". I loaded Ubuntu OK under AHCP, but the Windows XP disk wouldn't cooperate.

[dmdsoftware]

If it's beeping like mine did: 1, 4, 1, 1 and you know the memory sticks are good, see if cleaning the memory sockets will help (and look for corrosion on the contacts).

If there is no memory it should beep 1, 3, 3, 1.

I'm actually typing this response on the X60.

I now have a few things to clear up:

1. I have a Sierra WWAN card in it and I loaded the Lenovo-supplied driver but it gives me an error that no driver is found. Is there anywhere else I can find a driver?

2. The temperatures reported by SpeedFan are running fairly high: 50-60. Is this normal or do I need to do a fan transplant? I can feel a gentle warm breeze from the grille.

The hard drive that came with this thing had Windows 7 "sorta" installed but it gave a BSOD and died. Reboots, tries to load, and BSOD. So I decided to go back to Windows XP (an old friend). I couldn't get the XP CD to see the drive until I remembered to set the interface from AHCP to "compatible". I loaded Ubuntu OK under AHCP, but the Windows XP disk wouldn't cooperate.

50-60C are the appropriate temperatures for the non-L chips that are in the X60.

Windows XP isn't compatible with AHCP (until you load a driver that supports AHCP either during the setup (start driver before install) or after the installer, you can install the appropriate Windows XP driver available on the Lenovo support site), hence why you needed to select compatible.

[Bruce Guttman]

I'm nearly all done getting this X60 back into operation.

I found a Web Site (blog) to install the Sierra 5720 driver(s) which said to expand the .msi file manually and then use the Update Driver to install all the bits and pieces.

I have had some odd behavior and maybe somebody can tell me what I'm doing wrong.

Twice while typing my display has gone blank; almost as if I had turned off the LCD backlight.

I must have hit a combination of the Fn key and some keyboard key. When this happened I couldn't figure out how to get the display back and had to shut down and restart (and everything works fine).

Is there a Fn toggle with one of the letter keys (not Fn-F7) that will cause the screen to blank?

[rkawakami]

There are three other Fn key combinations that will essentially turn off the display:

- Fn+F3 will turn off the display but leave the system running. Display can be turned back on simply by moving the Trackpoint or pressing any key; this includes keys such as Shift and Ctrl.
- Fn+F4 will put the system into standby. You can return it to normal operation by pressing the Fn key; any other key press is ignored. From your description, this is the one you probably entered by accident.
- Fn+F12 will put the system into hibernation (i.e., it's off).

[Bruce Guttman]

Hi Ray, and thanks.

When it goes into standby I get the crescent moon LED. In this case I did not. The power, battery, and WiFi LED's stay lit.

I tried pressing and holding Fn (the normal exit from Standby) but that did nothing. The HDD LED flashed indicating a lot of disk activity.

Next time it does this I hope I will have an opportunity to let it continue to a dead stop. While I was busy doing something I didn't have time to let it come to rest. When Fn didn't bring it back I simply shut it off.

Note that the way I type I sometimes find the palm of my hand is on the Fn key and possibly on Shift, Window, Ctrl, or Alt. These are the combinations I'm mostly concerned about. I'm nowhere near the F keys.