R61 7738-A52 - Won't start, LED goes out when pressing power

[Insomniac1971]

Hi, I got an old 14.1" R61 which worked fine - but after being on the shelf for about 6 months it now has problems that it won't start. When attaching power cable I see power and charging LED's, but if I press power ON both LED's turn off.

I have been lucky to get it started by leaving it charging for 6 hours, and then it would power ON.

What is causing this and is it something I can replace myself?

Is it the 02K6572 CMOS battery that is drained? Normally that should just give an error on the screen.

I have 3 batteries, where one is less than 1 year old, and on all its the same thing.

Hope an Expert can answer this:)

JBJ

[RealBlackStuff]

Switch it off, remove battery and charger, then hold the power button down for 20-30 seconds to discharge any capacitors and reset it.
Then just attach the charger and try to switch it on.
If OK, switch off, attach also the battery and try again.

[Insomniac1971]

Hi, Thank you for the answer but I already done this several times - to reset capacitors/remove static electricity.

The problem is that it will not work until the laptop has been charging for several hours. And next time it's on the shelf for a month or 2 I have to do these things again. I never had this problem with my T61 and my R500.

And can't remember having this problem before it were on the shelf for 6 months(1st time since I got it).

And if I turn it off and leave it for a couple of days then it work fine. Only over longer period it won't.

I left it here in the house(Denmark) when I were in the Philippines from december 2015 to end of may 2016(Cold period), and forgot to take out the battery. Then when I returned, I plugged it in(idiot) without letting it heat up to room temp first.

So question is if by doing so, I blew something?

[RealBlackStuff]

Maybe you just "blew" that one battery?
Any problems with another battery?

[Insomniac1971]

It's the same with all my batteries.

Could it be that the CMOS battery got blewed and that is causing this? I had that on an Acer Travelmate, but here I got error on the screen and after replacing the CMOS battery it worked and it still working.

[RealBlackStuff]

Remove the palmrest and keyboard, to get at the CMOS battery.
Remove it, then try again to start, it's a possibility.

[Insomniac1971]

I don't have time to do this now, so I will just take my hdd out and put in my external cabinet - Then on monday order new CMOS battery and then replace it - I'm pretty sure now, thats the cause.


Thank you for your input, sometimes its good to bounce ideas of someone else:)

I Will post update here when I get the new CMOS battery:) Should be thursday:)


JBJ

[thinkpadcollection]

I just had a generic memory module die while R40 was resting on shelf.

Cheers, thinkpadcollection

[Insomniac1971]

Ok, I had time yesterday:

Took it apart and changed the Cmos Battery with a new one - nope
Took it totally apart and changed thermal grease(fell of like dust) with artic silver - nope
Removed modem and wifi - nope
Removed the CPU and looked at it - nothing to see
Re-inserted CPU and tried to start - nope
Removed everything that could be removed from Motherboard tried to turn ON - nope
Removed and tried both RAM seperately - nope

Nope = no reaction except for the Power LED flashing and no reaction from the fan

Conclusion: Dead motherboard or CPU - don't have a CPU to try with.

@#¤%&"*§

Anyone in Denmark that want to pick it up for spareparts can get it for 400 dkk incl. orig. charger and 1 year old 11.1V 6600mAh battery and 2 old ones - 14.1" Widescreen, 2GB Ram, DVD-CDRW, Danish keyboard, Touchpad, HDD caddy + rubber spacers(minus HDD).

I'm not shipping it unless buyer pre-pay and pay for shipping.

EDIT: I tried the above without the battery inserted, and later with battery but without powersupply - nope

Haven't tried without any of the 2 ram modules - as suggested by RealBlackStuff - will do so tomorrow

[RealBlackStuff]

One last question:
if you remove all RAM, but everything else is in place, then try to start, does it then beep 1-3-3-1?
If not, you have indeed a dead motherboard.

[MikalE]

Could it be a bad switching circuit from internal to external power combined with a bad battery?