thinkpad won't turn on

[nukage]

Alright, yesterday I acquired a 'broken' thinkpad A31 (2652 d3u) from a cousin hoping i could get some use out of it. They didn't really tell me what was wrong with it, they just kind of gave it to me, and they said it sometimes works, sometimes doesn't. They also said it had been dropped before. I was thinking i'd just throw linux on it and use it as a second computer.

First thing I did was turn it on, it seemed to boot fine and start up windows XP. Logged in as the default user, then walked away for a second. When I came back, the machine had shut itself off. I tried starting it again, with no luck.

When I press the power button, the battery and power lights flash quickly then go dark again. The LCD does nothing, but there are no fan or HDD noises either. Also, after you do this the battery doesn't charge. You have to unplug the AC cord and plug it back in for the charging light to come back on. It hasn't started up again yet.

Tried running it without the battery and just AC cord, no result. Tried taking out hdd, ram, optical drive, with no results.

Anyone have any ideas? It doesn't even beep or post or anything. But it apparently is an intermittent problem. I'm thinking it's probably the system board, which makes it pretty much useless (unless anyone wants to buy the parts). The thing that stumps me is that it booted when I first tried it, and how the owners said it sometimes works.

Any ideas as to what could be wrong, or how to troubleshoot this?

[tfflivemb2]

It sounds like it might be overheating. I had the EXACT same symptoms on a Dell Inspiron 4150, tha ti just got working again, by applying AC5 to the processor, then slowly getting it up to being able to run without shutting off (AC5 takes a little while to really work). It has now been running for 10 days without shutting off, and not getting over 62degrees C.

EDIT: You are going to need MobileMeter to measure the temp....and the Hardware Maintenance Manual to show you how to get to the processor.

[rkawakami]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

When I press the power button, the battery and power lights flash quickly then go dark again. The LCD does nothing, but there are no fan or HDD noises either. Also, after you do this the battery doesn't charge. You have to unplug the AC cord and plug it back in for the charging light to come back on. It hasn't started up again yet.

Remove system power (battery and AC adapter) for a week or two and then try powering up again. This sounds like a problem that appears to be quite common with T2x systems. Normally called the "blink of death" or "overcharged capacitor" problem, reference these threads:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=29104
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=32888

I'm not aware of any of the laptops with this type of problem automatically shutting down by themselves, unless you have set up Windows' power management features to do so. My suspicion is that there is a partially broken solder joint somewhere on the motherboard.

As far as troubleshooting, what you have tried so far is good. I would also try re-seating the CPU. The memory module(s) is(are) probably okay since if that was the only thing that was wrong, you would at least be able to get into the power-on self-test (POST) or get beep error codes.

[tfflivemb2]

OK, I just reread your post....has it ever come back on again?

The issues leading to the lights flashing, tend to lead me to believe that it is an overheating issue, rather than the "Blink of Death" or "Overcharged Capacitor" problem. Since it would boot sometimes, then it wouldn't...and when it did boot, it would shut off on its own; furthermore, you would have to remove the AC adapter and plug it back in to charge the battery.

If it won't restart at all anymore, then the CPU might be shot...or worse case scenario...the systemboard is dead.