Thinkpads Forum

Hi, I have two T500s that I bought a while back and they have both given me nothing but grief. I bought them because they took the same dock, batteries and chargers as my T61s and have WSXGA+ 16:10 screens, but have slightly better CPUs, native SATA in the ultrabay and much less expensive to upgrade to 8GM RAM. But they don't want to cooperate. I did get one to successfully boot up and re-equip itself with proper drivers from a T61 HDD, but now that system will not even turn on. With the price of DDR2 RAM at $60 or more for a single 4GB module, I'd like to get these working, especially since my wife wants one with a camera. These both posted to BIOS initially with no errors, although one refused to stay shut off.

System A: T500 MTM 2055-WFG T9400 CPU 4GB RAM, camera.
I believe this is the one that I got to boot with a T61 HDD, but now it will not turn on. It doesn't even recognize that a power supply is in it, i.e. the AC connected light and the battery LEDs do not light. I've tried the usual take battery and charger out, hold down power button, but it will not recognize the presence of either a battery or an AC power supply.

Any ideas?

System B: T500 MTM 2055-Y11 T9400 CPU, 4GB RAM no camera.
I believe that I FUBAR'd the system board on this one when flashing a BIOS update. I left the room and when I came back there was some sort of error message and that's the last time I saw the screen on it. With no RAM, I get the 1 3 3 1 no memory beep sequence. With a good module in the first slot, I get the one long two short which is the planar error. Am I right on this? I bought a couple new (well, new to me) planars and one with all the bottom plastics (MTM 2055-AS4).

Is the one short two long indicative of other issues besides the planar?

I believe that this one also has the issue of not wanting to stay turned off. I just saw a new post on that subject as well. any ideas on that?

If I had these T500s running, I wouldn't have gone out and got that T530. But at least it wasn't a T540. I saw a T440 and the keyboard / touchpad is a mess on those. Definitely a step down.

Update:

System A:
Still ignoring the presence of a battery and / or charger. Chargers and batteries are known good from my T61 6470 and 6460.

For a short while, if I took out both, held the power down for 20-30 sec, put a battery in, held the power button down while inserting the charger, the AC power and batt indicator lights both flashed for about 1/10 of a second. But it won't even do that now.

System B:
With the same known good Batt and charger, It still gives the 1 short 2 long beeps but it shuts off when I press and hold the power and when I insert the charger it does not try to turn on.

No suggestions? Just replace the mobos?

I'll get to it as soon as I finish with the T530s / W530s/

If you know soldering well, you can try transplanting the bios chip from the power dead one to fix the other.
The power dead one might be impossible to fix if you dont have the right tools. That one you might need a multimeter and trace whether you have 3.3, 5 and 10-19V on the motherboard where there should be. It is entirely possible you can have something as simple as a dead capacitor or mosfet or you can have a failed graphics or chipset