NEW X61 won't boot, no screen, beeps

[noetus]

Well, I just got my new X61 tablet delivered today (well ahead of 7/25 estimated ship date - thanks Lenovo) with the SXGA+ screen and other goodies, and one of the first things it did when I was starting Windows for the first time was blue screen... it did this while Windows was doing the hardware evaluation part of the first-time boot (the very last stage I believe).

It successfully restarted but Windows made me add a second user account (wouldn't let me over-write the old one, and seemed to insist on setting up a new user account as if I was starting up for the first time) but apart from this glitch everything seemed fine and I've been happily playing with it all day.

Until I got another blue screen, right after unplugging an external DVD writer.

And then another, while in the beginning process of making recovery CDs. And after this third one, the machine won't start anymore. When I press the power button, the power light comes on (and the caps light flashes), but then it emits these little beeps, four in a row then a pause, then four in a row then another pause, and so on. The screen stays dark, and does not flash or show any signs of activity. I've tried unplugging the machine and removing the battery and waiting a little bit, but it doesn't make any difference.

So, I guess there is a hardware fault with a brand new machine. Time to call Lenovo. Anyone else had a similar experience?

[noetus]

Apaprently the four beeps is error code for bad planar board (motherboard), as confirmed talking to the tech guy at EasyServ and on these forums when I did a quick search.

So my choice is now either to send this in for repair via EasyServ, or return it for a replacement via Lenovo Sales. Does anyone have any advice about which would be better? My concerns are:

(1) How fast it would be to get repair versus getting replacement. The wait times on these machines is about 3 weeks. Would I have to wait the usual time for a replacement, or will Lenovo put me ahead of the queue for a replacement for a faulty machine? And it seems there is no guarantee that EasyServ will actually have a replacement main board on hand for such a new model of Thinkpad. If they do, the repair would probably be the quicker option, but if not, it could be a wait - quite a wait, judging by some experiences related on these forums. It seems like a bit of a gamble either way - does anyone have any advice?

(2) If I get a replacement machine, it might differ in some small but important respects, e.g. screen (manufacturer and possibly dead pixels - it is the SXGA+ tablet screen and the one I got had zero dead pixels, but seemed a little 'sparkly' and not terribly bright, but maybe this is normal for the SXGA+ tablet screen) and keyboard (to be honest, the keyboard has a slightly 'cheap' feel compared to the T60p I have and T42p and T42 I have recently owned, though in other respects the machine seems solidly built). This seems a gamble also - the replacement could be better, or worse, in these small (but nevertheless important) respects!

I will call EasyServ on Monday and ask them if the can check to see if they have replacement boards on hand (the guy answering the phone late on a Friday night didn't seem to know so much) and I will also call Lenovo sales on Monday and see if they can tell me how long a replacement would take.

In the meantime, has anyone else had a similar experience or has some insights on which would be the best course of action? Thanks!

[ryengineer]

Do not deal with EasyServ and get a new replacement. Talk to the sales department and be in a concerned mood and mention about your horrid first impression about lenovo, hopefully they'll escalate your case more promptly.

I also hope someone else would throw more light on your post and concern, fully; I am going for errand.

Btw you got Chicony keyboard with that X61.

[noetus]

Thanks ryengineer, I think that's my instinct too, but what's the rationale? And is there a non-Chicony keyboard for the X61?

[smvp6459]

Thanks ryengineer, I think that's my instinct too, but what's the rationale? And is there a non-Chicony keyboard for the X61?

That's my instinct too. You could have a great repair experience, but ezserv could just as easily break other parts of the machine as they replace the motherboard. It just isn't worth it. Given how new the machine is, I wonder how many boards are available to use as replacements - it might take longer to repair than to get a new machine as a replacement.

[Antioch]

DO NOT DO EASYSERV! Get a brand-new factory produced machine.

It'd be better to wait 3-4 weeks for a completely new machine then risk sending it to easyserv. Your machine may come back working properly, but it will be, in some way, messed up. There may be a scratch on it, the screen might be loose, there might even be a screw inside the machine loose (happened to me and it shorted the [censored] power supply - so I had to send it BACK to ezserv...). The point being, ezserv is a last resort - right now you still have the option of getting a brand new machine made my robots, robots who do it with precision. Take the robot! =)

[noetus]

OK, well from these comments I can see the rationale now! If I go with EasyServ, and even assuming good results with them, I am paying for a new machine and essentially getting a refurbished one. And there is no guarantee of good results with them.

So I will press for a replacement from Lenovo on Monday, or simply return it and re-order (prices are slightly cheaper now, too). My only worry is that something else will be up with the replacement - buzzing noise, or other thing I've seen reported on this forum!

[Antioch]

To be honest, many of the TPs I've seen over the years come out of the factory in good shape. I've never seen a TP with a bad pixel (and I've seen atleast 20 different machines). You should be fine, dont worry =)

[proaudioguy]

Of the millions of thinkpads sold you will only see the complaints and issues posted about on the net. People that are not having any issues do not post. They just use the machine. There are hundreds of companies that use Thinkpads for the entire fleet. They have IT depts, that want the least trouble. I take a complaint about something broken now and then with a grain of salt.

[pongtablet]

My X61T has the same problem as yours. My X61T has 512 MB of Ram, 80 GB hard drive, MV-MT screen, and vista business. When it was boot up for the first time, it showed me the blue screen. The message was about "physical memory dump" or something like that. So I turned it off, and booted it up again. Blue screen again. Then I thought the problem would be concerning with the RAM. It might be not enough. So I changed it to 2GB RAM which I ordered it while I was waiting for X61T. I turned it on again, and it gave me 3 or 4 boot-up options: safe mode, safe mode with network (or something else, I'm not sure), normal mode, and maybe something else. I chose normal mode. It passed to information screen that I need to fill up my name, computer name. Afer that, it was processing something. The hard drive light kept on all the time. I wait and wait and wait. Nothing happened. I shut it off. And turned it on again. It took me to the information screen again. And I needed to fill up my name, computer name agian. This time, it successfully took me to the desktop screen. However it showed me a window that told me something wrong with some files. I can't remember their names. After I closed this window, it kept popping up 2 or 3 times. I closed it until it stopped popping up. After that, I couldn't do anything, but I could move the pointer. Next I shut it down, and go to the recovery mode by hitting the thinkadvantage (the blue button) button. I chose the full recovery. It took so long time. Hard drive light kept on all the time. No sign, no progress bar that gave me any idea that it was recovering. I shut it down again and turned it on. This time, the operating system was error loading, and I couldn't go to the recovery mode any more. So I called the lenovo, they gave me phone number of IBM technical support. I called them. After they tried to analyze my problem, they thought the problem would be the hard drive or Ram. They gave me case number and hung up the phone on me. I thought they would send me another hard drive and Ram. Today I called them again to see how was my case. They got my case number, but I found that they did nothing to my case. They transferred my call to 2 or 3 persons. Finally, the last person to whom I talked agreed to send me a new hard drive tomorrw. Huh, I hope it will come soon.
P.S. Sorry about my English langauge. It is not my first language. There might be a lot of mistakes in this message. Thank you for reading it.

[ryengineer]

If you get a message with "Error loading operating system" then your notebook will turn on again.

Do this:

1. Turn on the notebook.
2. If you see Error loading OS error press power button to shut it down.
3. Turn it on again, it should boot to Windows now.

If it works then the BSOD solution is:

766416U wrote:
For me this fixed the timeout / BSOD problem:

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/i ... 025783.htm (iaStor not iaStorV)

* Disabling APS didn't fix it (tho may have eliminated other BSODs)
* Didn't need to uninstall Turbo Memory Driver

Remember to install the Intel Matrix Storage drivers and perform the above procedure.

As far as Error loading OS error is concerned you simply need to go back to factory state.

This problem seems vaguely similar to the Windows XP having the 'NTLDR is missing' messages that used to happen on all NT based OS's.

If you know how to use the Recovery Console in Windows, try this:

1) Load the Windows Vista CD into your drive, let the machine boot into your CD-drive.

2) When the text based Welcome screen comes up, press R to go to the Recovery Console.

3) In the recovery console, type in your administrator password that you set when you first booted up the machine when it arrived.

4) On the recovery console, type in fixboot [drive], where [drive] is your system drive. A lot of people who don't have experience in this don't do this well and actually crash their own machine...

Oh yea, if you don't have the Vista CD, I think you better boot into the ThinkVantage utility and backup all your files then reload your machine...