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Power button lights for one second, no fan, no boot ... shorted USB 3.0

X200/X201/X220 (including equivalent tablet models) and X300/X301 Series
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Fusion
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Power button lights for one second, no fan, no boot ... shorted USB 3.0

#1 Post by Fusion » Sat Oct 14, 2017 11:11 am

I have a “dead” X220 i7 board, which blinks the power LED for 1 second when plugged into power or power button pressed. No fan spin.

I’ve narrowed it down to a probable short on one of the 3V3 lines. I added external 3V3 (soldered a wire on) and when I power both the adapter power and external source, 300mA are drawn from the external source, or 1W. The only thing getting warm is the USB 3.0 controller chip next to the 3.0 port.

Is this a known problem? Do these chips die when someone shorts the USB plug? I don’t see a duse anywhere near 5Vusb. No other parts look or measure as faulty. I replaced the main 5Vusb capacitor just in case.

Any help is much appreciated.

Edit: I have pretty much ruled out any shorts. All parts look fine, no blown fuses.
Last edited by Fusion on Mon Nov 13, 2017 8:20 pm, edited 4 times in total.
ThinkPad X220, i7-2640m, 16GB RAM, 120GB Kingston SSD, Intel HD3000, 12.5" WQHD, MacOS Sierra 10.13.2
ThinkPad W500 4063-VA4 CD2 Penryn 2,80GHz, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, 15.4" WUXGA, FireGL V5700, Win7u
ThinkPad R60 9461-DXG P-CD2 1,83GHz, 2GB 667MHz, 100GB HDD, ATI X1400@512MB, XP2 Pro

Fusion
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Re: USB 3.0 controller problem

#2 Post by Fusion » Sat Oct 14, 2017 3:34 pm

It seems that the problem goes deeper. I have tracked the voltage inputs backwards and found that while some voltages (most 5V and 3V lines) last the 2 or so seconds that the LED is on, others like VCCCPUCORE are not present at all. Going down the rabbit hole to find what's causing this.
5VUSB30 is never present probably because the USB3 port is never enabled due to a problem that happens before it can be enabled.
ThinkPad X220, i7-2640m, 16GB RAM, 120GB Kingston SSD, Intel HD3000, 12.5" WQHD, MacOS Sierra 10.13.2
ThinkPad W500 4063-VA4 CD2 Penryn 2,80GHz, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, 15.4" WUXGA, FireGL V5700, Win7u
ThinkPad R60 9461-DXG P-CD2 1,83GHz, 2GB 667MHz, 100GB HDD, ATI X1400@512MB, XP2 Pro

Fusion
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Re: USB 3.0 controller problem

#3 Post by Fusion » Sat Oct 14, 2017 7:46 pm

So it looks like BPWRG is never present on R902. VCC3B is present for a few seconds, but powergood is never there. VCC3M and MPWRG are working correctly.
Measured on a good board, there should be 3V3 on both sides of R902, but since BPWRG stays low, something switches all power off (except 20V input).
Not sure where to go from here. All fuses are fine, resistances to ground are the same as on the good board anywhere I measure.
ThinkPad X220, i7-2640m, 16GB RAM, 120GB Kingston SSD, Intel HD3000, 12.5" WQHD, MacOS Sierra 10.13.2
ThinkPad W500 4063-VA4 CD2 Penryn 2,80GHz, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, 15.4" WUXGA, FireGL V5700, Win7u
ThinkPad R60 9461-DXG P-CD2 1,83GHz, 2GB 667MHz, 100GB HDD, ATI X1400@512MB, XP2 Pro

Fusion
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Re: USB 3.0 controller problem / More likely power issue

#4 Post by Fusion » Fri Nov 10, 2017 7:18 am

Tried swapping the BIOS chip from a good board yesterday, still no go. I did notice that the good board without the BIOS chip acts the same (power LED on for a second), although the bad board acts as if there's no BIOS chip because it doesn't get power (I can see 3.3V for a split second).

Most of the 3V3 lines and VCC CPU/GPU core show voltage only momentarily. The 5V lines are alive for 3 seconds or so.
ThinkPad X220, i7-2640m, 16GB RAM, 120GB Kingston SSD, Intel HD3000, 12.5" WQHD, MacOS Sierra 10.13.2
ThinkPad W500 4063-VA4 CD2 Penryn 2,80GHz, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, 15.4" WUXGA, FireGL V5700, Win7u
ThinkPad R60 9461-DXG P-CD2 1,83GHz, 2GB 667MHz, 100GB HDD, ATI X1400@512MB, XP2 Pro

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Re: Power button lights for one second, no fan, boot

#5 Post by RealBlackStuff » Fri Nov 10, 2017 8:30 am

I had a similar problem recently with an T420.
No matter what I did, the motherboard wouldn't start, so in the end I put it aside and went on with something else.
A few days later I tried it again, still no luck.
And then it dawned on me: I had not yet fully reset the motherboard by removing the CMOS battery!
Removed CMOS, held down the power button for about 20 seconds, plugged CMOS back in, and BINGO, everything worked again!
When I went into the BIOS to set Date/Time I also went to Config/Power and set the "Power on with AC attach" to Enabled, just in case.
Which means that as soon as you plug in the charger, the motherboard (should) start.
In the end there appeared to be nothing wrong, just a BIOS hiccup!
Lovely day for a Guinness! (The Real Black Stuff)
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Re: Power button lights for one second, no fan, boot

#6 Post by wujstefan » Fri Nov 10, 2017 8:50 am

... and I had something pretty similar recently, and with X220. After reseating everything and getting to the point where I wanted to swap mobos (cheapest thing possible) because it did not work, it just started working - just like that. And works until now.

These systems seem extremely chimeric; these are good-to-go machines but the rate of mobo failure (of any kind) makes it hard to live with.
Too many thinkpads not enough time!
(stable under reduction)

Fusion
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Re: Power button lights for one second, no fan, boot

#7 Post by Fusion » Sat Nov 11, 2017 4:40 am

I have tried all the common tricks including the CMOS battery. This problem is unfortunately a bit deeper, just can't pinpoint what could have failed.
Btw. I have a few i3 and i5 boards and they all boot without CMOS battery, albeit with an error upon startup.
ThinkPad X220, i7-2640m, 16GB RAM, 120GB Kingston SSD, Intel HD3000, 12.5" WQHD, MacOS Sierra 10.13.2
ThinkPad W500 4063-VA4 CD2 Penryn 2,80GHz, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, 15.4" WUXGA, FireGL V5700, Win7u
ThinkPad R60 9461-DXG P-CD2 1,83GHz, 2GB 667MHz, 100GB HDD, ATI X1400@512MB, XP2 Pro

Fusion
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Re: Power button lights for one second, no fan, boot

#8 Post by Fusion » Sun Nov 12, 2017 2:07 pm

Swapped the EEPROMs i3/i7 today after reading up on the problems in the past, but still no good.
ThinkPad X220, i7-2640m, 16GB RAM, 120GB Kingston SSD, Intel HD3000, 12.5" WQHD, MacOS Sierra 10.13.2
ThinkPad W500 4063-VA4 CD2 Penryn 2,80GHz, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, 15.4" WUXGA, FireGL V5700, Win7u
ThinkPad R60 9461-DXG P-CD2 1,83GHz, 2GB 667MHz, 100GB HDD, ATI X1400@512MB, XP2 Pro

Fusion
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Posts: 135
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Location: Czech Republic

Re: Power button lights for one second, no fan, boot

#9 Post by Fusion » Mon Nov 13, 2017 8:18 pm

So it turns out it was indeed the USB3 controller chip. It is internally shorted to ground.
After removal, the power button doesn't light up. I now have permanent 5V and 3V3 on some power lines.
Can anyone confirm that the laptop cannot boot without the chip in place?
ThinkPad X220, i7-2640m, 16GB RAM, 120GB Kingston SSD, Intel HD3000, 12.5" WQHD, MacOS Sierra 10.13.2
ThinkPad W500 4063-VA4 CD2 Penryn 2,80GHz, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, 15.4" WUXGA, FireGL V5700, Win7u
ThinkPad R60 9461-DXG P-CD2 1,83GHz, 2GB 667MHz, 100GB HDD, ATI X1400@512MB, XP2 Pro

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Re: Power button lights for one second, no fan, no boot ... shorted USB 3.0

#10 Post by nitrocaster » Mon Nov 20, 2017 5:10 am

Is there any activity on SPI bus?
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