X201 Water Spill, Boot now takes minutes

[zzkoto]

A while back I spilled water on my X201 + dock. I dried/cleaned everything out as well as I could without completely taking it apart, and after two days I booted it up. Now whenever it boots, it takes upwards of two minutes to even get to the Thinkpad Splash Screen, then after that it boots normally into Windows 10. I even swapped the SSD/Ram to make sure and the problem still persists. Battery isn't the issue, nor is the dock.

Odd thing is that apart from the long boot times, the machine functions just as well as before the spill. Ports all work, keyboard/trackpoint functional, no noticeable slowdown. Just the obscene slowdown.

Anyone have any idea? I posted this over on /tpg/ some time ago and while a user had the same problem, they had no fix. Someone mentioned something about my keyboard connector being the problem?

Thanks!

There's no sound in the video, but whenever it boots and the LEDs all flash and then only the power LED/other stays on, there's two small whirr sounds. Not unlike a HDD, but I'm running an SSD in it.

Here's a video of the boot:
https://webmshare.com/play/6jo4z

Specs:
Windows 10
i7 620M @2.67
8gb Ram
Lenovo 3680RA3
Some Intel 150gb SSD

[dr_st]

Have you by chance disabled AMT/ME in the BIOS before you spilled the water?

[zzkoto]

The AMT was off in the BIOS before the spill, and when I checked now it was still off. I just tried experimenting with it on/off and the boot still takes minutes.

[shawross]

When something odd is happening especially regarding the Embedded Controller it is prudent to give it a reset.

Remove mains and the battery then hold the power button for 30 seconds. If you have threshold charging activated you might need to start this after the restart.


Welcome to the forum

[RealBlackStuff]

Check in BIOS if you have any specific settings made, note them down, then press F9 to set all defaults, F10 to save them and reboot.
Any better?
Don't forget to re-set your settings.

[zzkoto]

Thanks for both of your replies - but even after resetting the Embedded Controller/BIOS, the boot time is still as long as ever.

Could be a hardware problem? I already tested with different RAM/SSD, with/out battery or mains, etc. Sometimes the keyboard won't respond during boot either, and that was happening even before I made this thread. External keyboard has similar results.

[shawross]

Could be a hardware problem?

Most certainly yes it could. Your X201 appears to be waiting for something or is bogged down by something or yes it is a hardware fault.

It can be difficult to diagnose and if it is a mobo problem you may have to live with it.

The X201 series are known to have Intel ME problems and my X201 also has a fault if I activate Intel ME. Intel ME is the first thing that runs when you start your X201. My X201 also struggles at times with WIFI connection if I disable WIMAX.

So the X201 is certainly known to have issues. All you can do is maybe check what runs on startup via msconfig. Also as RBS says you can check your BIOS and maybe play with some settings like disabling everything you aren't using. If you have problems you can always reset defaults so you can't really get into problems there.
What BIOS are you running? If you are feeling game then you could update this if it is required.

[zzkoto]

Bios version is 1.39 (6QET69WW), if that matters.

Yea, I've taken the X201 apart and cleaned as much as I could to see if I missed any spots, and no change. Reset the BIOS and then changed some USB/Boot settings, nothing. Reset the CMOS, checked all of the keyboard/fingerprint connections, cleaned the fans, etc. Starting to think it has to be something with the motherboard maybe. Guess some water must of seeped around the keyboard through the back/exhaust.

Didn't know that the X201 had a lot of problems with the IME, hopefully the X200 I'm buying will be better in that regard?

I can live with the long boot times, performance/sleep/hibernate works normally. I'm just confused as to why the boot takes so long to reach the splash screen.

[shawross]

The I core series bios of the X201 had a significantly different bios compared to the X200 and I haven't heard of too many problems with the dual core systems bios.

Lenovo released a Security Advisory last year and there was a firmware update and the X201 was affected. I am not sure how long you have had your machine but this might warrant cross checking.


https://support.lenovo.com/th/en/produc ... /len-14963