Thinkpads Forum

My X60S sometimes fails to boot. Sometimes it's fine for weeks, other times it fails twice in a day or two.

The effect is the same every time - press the power button and the battery and power-plug LEDs turn on for about half a second then they go off; nothing else happens, no screen, no backlight, no HDD spin. Subsequent presses of the power button achieve nothing at all.

Remove and replace the battery and you get the same one-off light show and then nothing more.

By experiment/accident I have discovered that if, having failed to get it going, I leave the battery in, and remove and replace a memory stick (either of them), the machine instantly boots with no need to press the power button.

Yet the Microsoft bootable memory test ("Microsoft Windows Memory Diagnostic") reveals no errors after 12 hours, so it probably isn't the memory itself.

Any ideas, anyone?

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

It sounds like your system has something similar to what has been called the "Blink of Death". That problem affected some of the earlier A2x and T2x systems and is recognized by the flashing of the hard drive LED for 1/10 second when the power button is pressed. Best guess to the root cause of that issue is a power controller is detecting a fault at power-up and shuts down. That your system spontaneously boots when re-seating a memory module is not something that I've heard about before. Removing and replacing the module when it appears that the laptop is still somewhat powered up may be asking for trouble (damage to the memory).

You could try the famous "power system reset" trick: Disconnect the AC adapter, remove the main battery, push and release the power button 10-20 times, with the last push being held for 15 seconds or so. Replace the battery and see if the system powers up. Even if this procedure does get the system booting again, the problem will eventually return (as it does now). The only solution that I can recommend at this time would be to replace the motherboard.

Thanks, Ray, but...

Best guess to the root cause of that issue is a power controller is detecting a fault
at power-up and shuts down.

... that's the odd thing - it doesn't shut down, it seems to wait till it is happy with whatever it thinks is wrong with the RAM.

Removing and replacing the module when it appears that the laptop is still
somewhat powered up may be asking for trouble (damage to the memory).

Indeed. Next time I'll try the RAM out trick with no battery. Bet it doesn't fix it, though (and RAM is relatively cheap).

You could try the famous "power system reset" trick

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I have done that, and many variations on the same theme

Have you tried a different keyboard, i.e., a different on/off button? If you have an UltraBase, then connect the X60s to the UltraBase and use the on/off button on the UltraBase. The issue may be as simple as a defective/intermittent button.

Thanks, EOMtp, but I am utterly certain that it is not the button. I spent a long time proving that to myself both by physical testing (I'm an electronics engineer and have the necessary kit and understanding) and by logic: remove and replace battery and the switch again 'works' just once.

Just in case, there is a better memory tester here: http://www.memtest.org/

Thanks, RealBlackStuff - I suspect the MS one is "as good", but I have just started the MemTest-86 one running and I'll leave it going for a few days. Bet it finds nothing

pellefsen wrote:I spent a long time proving that to myself both by physical testing (I'm an electronics engineer and have the necessary kit and understanding) and by logic: remove and replace battery and the switch again 'works' just once.

Perhaps you are correct, but absent the requisite test I am not convinced! Test an on/off button on a different "path", i.e., via the UltraBase.

There are multiple explanations why reinserting the battery changes the initial conditions. None of them eliminates the keyboard on/off "path" as the problem.

The only proof that the keyboard's on/off button and its "long arm" are not the cause of the problem is that a different on/off button behaves identically. Empirical evidence is more conclusive than "logic". You do not know how the on/off button on the UltraBase will behave. That's the logical next test. Perform it, if possible.

I don't have an UltraBase, so I can't do that, but I will connect a takt switch directly onto the mobo (not through that nasty connector) just to satisfy us both...

I'd like to add an observation to this discussion, even though the thread is very old.

My X61 tablet (7769-A67) intermittently fails to start up in much the same way. After I push the power button and the disk drive bezel light starts to flash, the machine completely turns off. No bezel lights or response to the power button until I remove both the AC adapter and the battery. After replacing them, the bezel lights once again show power and battery, but the same thing happens again when I press the power button. Eventually, after many attempts, the machine will boot up and will be fine.

What I've observed is that the position of the screen is a factor. When it is turned around in tablet mode, it never fails to start up. Sometimes when using the machine with the screen in normal position (perpendicular to the keyboard), it will suddenly shut off (not shut down) when I move the screen relative to the base (i.e. tilt it forward or backward). BTW, I have no problems with flashing LCD issues like early SXGA+ screens had, and the LCD is glued to the bezel.

Could the problem have something to do with the switch that senses when the screen is moved from regular position to tablet position? I have no idea where this switch is located. It must be somewhere inside the hinge assembly? Does anyone know where it is and how to access it? The Thinkpad maintenance manual doesn't show it anywhere (at least not that I've been able to find).

UPDATE--
I find that I can start the machine with no problem if the angle between the screen and the keyboard is less than about 80 degrees. With the screen upright or tilted back, it won't start (it shuts off seconds after the power button). If the machine is on and I tilt the screen back, it shuts off. Any ideas on what's going on?

Sounds more like you have a faulty LCD cable.
One or more wires inside the cable are probably just "hanging on for dear life".
They only make proper contact when the screen is in a certain position.
A (round) tablet cable is contorting a lot more than a flat cable in a non-tablet laptop.