Thinkpads Forum

searched the forums here and didn't find any hits, nor did I find much on the 'net I didn't already know, or tried.

I've seen this on a couple T410 machines over time but I've never worried to much about it until now.

With a T410 laptop that has a fingerprint reader, what is happening 100% with this particular laptop is when I go to shut down my laptop, and it has powered off all the way, the green LED for the Fingerprint reader lights up and stays lit even after removing the power cord. And stays lit until you turn it back on again, or remove the battery.

I am pretty sure this is not normal to have a LED light stay lit when the machine is turned off and with the power cord removed (or maybe it is?). I have an image that I ghost down to my hard drives and I am fairly certain this is not an OS/software issue as it does not happen on other T410 machines.

Seems like this is this a hardware issue? Cable/palmrest/MB etc?

The last time I encountered this I removed the palm rest and replaced it with a palm rest that did not have a fingerprint reader (I moved the cable over from the old part). That made the light go away because the new palm rest did not have this LED light, but this certainly is not actually fixing the issue.....

Any one seen this?

Does the light stay constantly lit or does it blink? I know on my W530 that the fingerprint reader light would blink unless you disabled it by using the fingerprint software.

when the laptop is on and being used, the light is off. It's only when you go to shut down the laptop is when it turns on, and stays on

Have you tried looking through the options in the fingerprint software? I believe there should be an option to disable the light.

I have in the past but never found anything that turned it off. From memory though, MS has surprisingly more options for FPR stuff than the Lenovo software.

I haven't checked on this particular laptop though. I'll take a look after work tonight

I have the same behavior on my T410. It's never really bothered me.

brchan wrote:Have you tried looking through the options in the fingerprint software? I believe there should be an option to disable the light.

I have gone through everything the Lenovo software has to offer, however the light still stays on after powering down and removing the power cord

Sooner or later, these FPRs are giving grief.
Why don't you remove the palmrest, turn it over, then disconnect the FPR cable from the bottom of its panel?
Problem solved.
Besides, who needs such an aggravating FPR?

I love the FPR. So what if a green LED I hardly ever look at is on? IF it really bus you, take a small dab of black fingernail polish and cover it up. Or get all nuclear and disconnect the FRP cable. It's not like one single LED is going to impact the battery life of the machine.

well if it was laptop that I was going to use, I probably wouldn't be all that concerned about it. But I am cleaning this one up for resell and would like to NOT have the future owner asking me all kinds of questions about it, post sale, and being worried about it.

Thing is, at work we've seen supporting the T410 model (with FPR) for the last 4 years and didn't see this more than a handful of times. Replacing hardware usually got it to go away, but I remember it really baffling us at first. Outside of work I've seen this twice now. So to me, something seems amiss, either a hardware issue or possibly software (I'd lean towards hardware).

I haven't noticed it to drain the battery any, but for most normal computer related stuff, once you power down the unit and remove it's power cord, there shouldn't be a light still being lit up. Or if it is by design, then why aren't the other 98% of the machines I see doing this? Never noticed this on any other previous T models (T43, T60, T61 etc)

Having just finished bringing my first T410 back into useful service (eBay purchase came without a hard drive), I too noticed that the green LED on the FPR remained lit when the system was powered off, or in my case, put into hibernation. Figuring that it's basically the system trying to keep power alive to the FPR, I temporarily solved the situation by momentarily removing the battery and then re-installing. I know it's a pain to do this every time that you shut the system down and don't want the LED staring back at you but that did the trick.

While my T410 was in hibernation, I slid my finger across the FPR and the system powered up to the Windows login screen. A second finger-swipe and I was back to the Windows 7 desktop. I thought it was working as it was designed to do. Since there didn't appear to be any settings in BIOS, I looked through the FPR software. Deep in the Fingerprint Software (Control Panel/System and Security/Lenovo - Fingerprint Reader/Settings/More Settings) there's an option "Enable indicator lights on sensor". In my case from a clean install, the option was selected. I unchecked it, saved everything and then hibernated again. No green LED this time. Also, swiping my finger across the sensor did not wake the system up either. So brchan is correct; there's an option to turn this "feature" off.

yeah I know where the settings are. Maybe I'll try to uninstall the FPR software itself to see if that does anything. FWIW, on the last 2 machines I've seen this on, it's been happening when there is no fingerprints saved and/or actively being used

That could be the problem as my T410 has registered fingerprints. In fact, this is the first time I've ever used the FPR system on any of my laptops.

As part of the preparation of this T410 for my family's use, I deleted all of my registered fingerprints via the Fingerprint Software utility and the green LED on the FPR is no longer lit when the system is off. I'll try to keep an eye on it and see if the LED ever lights up again.

If it's of any use, my BIOS version is 1.34 and Embedded Controller is 1.13. I looked at the BIOS revision history (i.e., README file) and I didn't see any notes concerning the FPR and associated LED.