SOLVED - T500 Won't Post - Flashing battery light

[SudoHacks]

Hey Folks, Hoping for a little advice to get my T500 back up and running.

It was running like a top a couple of days ago. When I went to look something up, I touched the touchpad and the screen didn't come up. Then I noticed that the battery light was flashing. Strange, it was plugged in. It kind of looks like it's stuck in a reboot loop, but doesn't even get to Post. The orange battery light will flash 3 times and then the Power and Battery lights will flash green 1 time, then back to three oranges.

I've tried pulling the power and battery, holding down the power button for 30 seconds, then reconnecting without any success. I have another T500 that doesn't like to start, I have to pull the power and battery, but then it always starts back up. I have also tried to boot it up with power connected but no battery.

I haven't seen this situation before. The only thing I was able to find that could be relevant is maybe the solder point broke where the power outlet comes into the laptop? I did drop the power brick a couple of days ago, maybe that jigged something? Switching to the power brick on my working T500 didn't seem to make a difference. I will also try switching the batteries to see if it will boot with a fully charged battery.

[cadillacmike68]

Is Lenovo using the lights as diagnostic indicators now? If so, take a look at the HMM, and that might help you zero in.

[SudoHacks]

Thanks, I took a look but nothing terribly enlightening there. Just the regular low battery and charging statuses.

Green: The battery is charged between 80% to 100% of the
capacity, and being discharged between 0% to 80% of
the capacity.

Blinking green:
The battery is charged between 20% to 80% of the
capacity, and being charged.

Orange:
The battery is charged between 5% and 20% of the
capacity, and being discharged.

Blinking orange (slow):
The battery is charged between 5% to 20% of the
capacity, and being charged.

Blinking orange (rapid):
The battery is charged between 0% to 5% of the capacity.

[SudoHacks]

In the spirit of due diligence, and for anyone searching a similar problem...

In the end it seems the charger was dead. When I tried a different charger, it wouldn't start up right away, but once I let the battery charge for a while then I was eventually able to start it back up. I guess when the battery gets severely drained like that, it needs a little time to charge back up before it can facilitate a startup.

Also I did remove the and test the CMOS battery, so it's possible that action allowed me to get further into the boot as well...