Thinkpads Forum

I use some headless X20 machines around the house, plugged in at various spots for various purposes. They all run just fine without any LCD attached at all. I run ubuntu on each, and as long as they can connect to a network to which I can connect to the machine, I can administer and utilize the machines as-is.

I thought I could do the same with the X60, that it would power on and function without a LCD attached. I tried to hook up a headless X60 (no LCD assembly attached, including no LCD cable) and try to use an external monitor on it, but nothing showed up on the monitor. I tried pressing fn+f7 several times, but still nothing showing up on the monitor. There are no beeps etc, but I can see the system powering on. I don't know how far its getting on startup, since the hard drive doesn't have an OS on it right now. If I take the memory out, I can hear the POST beep errors, and still nothing on the external monitor.

Is there a trick to this on the X60? On the X20, I can just plug in the VGA cable and boot it up, or at worst, hit fn+f7 to toggle to the external monitor.

You can set which screen is your primary LCD in the BIOS.

RealBlackStuff wrote:You can set which screen is your primary LCD in the BIOS.

interesting!

Now to figure out how to navigate to the "sweet spot" in the bios to toggle the "sweet setting", if indeed that is what is needed.

I'm thinking now, perhaps I even left the power on password on this laptop. That would make sense, why it seems to get "stuck" (no beeps, and no loading of OS).

I'll try entering the password, and see if I can get it booting up in ubuntu. Last night before going to bed, I set up a ubuntu image on a hard drive and slid it in. It loads the command prompt, so as long as I give it enough time between key presses, I should be able to log in and run commands that will put it on the network, if it is indeed booting up properly without a LCD.

It took 45 mins, but I finally got it working completely on the external display.

Sure enough it was the fingerprint/password prompt it was stuck on. I swipped my finger and then the hard drive started loading and ubuntu command prompt showed up a second later, and also on the external display.

I know I had to get rid of that power on password and toggle the screen setting so I can fully use this on external display only. That's the part that took 45 mins, as I had to figure out the key presses, and then re-enact them. The other X60 didn't have a fingerprint reader, so I wasn't sure if once you enter the bios, whether it would ask for fingerprint reader or password. I know you can hit escape at the fingerprint screen (power on screen), which I was doing for the first screen but after 10 attempts, it wasn't navigating right.

So once I pulled the fingerprint scanner cable out (hoping it would disable that darn thing), I was able to get it done on my first attempt.

Here's the sequence if anyone needs it:
1)hit hinkvantage button after about 1 second from powering on (doesn't hurt to hit it more than once),
2)enter password, hit enter
3)wait 3 seconds then hit F1
4)wait 1 second, then enter password, hit enter
5) you should be at the bios home screen, hit enter to go into config
6)hit down arrow 8 times to navigate to display, hit enter
7)hit enter to select display type
hit down arror twice to select both, then hit enter
9)hit F10 to save, then hit enter

It should remotely momentarily and fully be displayed on the external monitor.

Thanks to RealBlackStuff for alerting me to the bios setting. Thanks to my sleeping on it to realize in the morning "oh darn it, power on password?"