Power On Problem on the Thinkpad A3xx series

[moosberger]

Power On Problem on the Thinkpad A3xx series
Has anyone ever found a sure solution to the problem that pressing power on does not start up the laptop. The problem seems on the A Series of Thinkpads. All kind of solutions have been offered, i.e. push power on button 20 times, remove battery, short the USB connector etc. But I have so far not found a sure way to turn it on. The most promising solution was to remove battery and power cable and let it sit for at least a few hours to days! But even this only works sometimes.
Once running, I just let it run, but you can't get around to an occasional reboot.
My suspicion is that ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interface) is not working properly.

[ajkula66]

What you're looking at is a far more complicated issue than it initially seems.

There are numerous gremlins that tend to show up on our aging A3x units, and some of them are quite puzzling.

My suggestion has always been the same: never turn the machine off, just shut the screen down. Don't let it go to sleep either.

BTW, I have no clue where you ran across the "short the USB port" suggestion, but it's a very bad one.

Good luck.

[moosberger]

I agree, this is a very complex problem. But I don't understand why it was never addressed either by IBM nor Lenovo. Some of their design Eng. could at least have shed some light into the problem or offer a solution, even if it requires a soldering iron (which I think would be the case).

Short circuit the USB has not given me any problems, even if I left it plugged in when I started the A30. It did seem to help restart sometimes.

Unfortunately I can not find this blog anymore which proposed this solution, it was mentioned that some capacitors are getting overcharged which then prevents the re-start ?? It was a very interesting forum, with very detailed discussion on this topic, down to which chip is responsible for this problem.

The solution to leave it running is limited since you can't get around to reboot it sometimes (often SW installation or other maintenance requires a boot). I also have the problem that the hard disk never shuts down, tried all kind of power saving settings. (It shortens the live of the HD unnecessarily). This is the reason why I suspect a problem with the ACPI. When you look at the ACPI Specs you know you are dealing with a very complex problem.

[ajkula66]

mooseberger wrote:

The solution to leave it running is limited since you can't get around to reboot it sometimes (often SW installation or other maintenance requires a boot).

What I was referring to was not getting away from re-booting a running machine, but shutting it down, leaving it off for a few hours and then turning it on.

I also have the problem that the hard disk never shuts down, tried all kind of power saving settings. (It shortens the live of the HD unnecessarily).

I have experienced this, but not with all hard drives. A couple of Seagates kept on running regardless of what I was doing to shut them up. On a larger scale, the issue at hand might have something to do with AV software one is running...I may very well be wrong on that one...

All of that said, hard drives are inexpensive to replace and easy to locate. Not so with A3x (especially "p") motherboards...

My $0.02 only...