Thinkpads Forum

When I turn on my 770ED, I can hear the fan turn on, then it turns off after a little while, on the little display screen thing the sound icon just keeps flashing, and there is slight noise. Sometimes it would work but not it doesn't work at all. Please help. Thanks.

Maybe I should expand a bit, the screen doesn't come on anything. Nothing happens, but that light icon on the little lcd display keeps blinking.

My 770ED does that on occasion. When it does I remove the Enhanced Video Adapter and then it will boot. After it goes thru a normal boot cycle I shut down and reinstall the EVA. Usually it'll work but sometimes I have to repeat.

Is the EVA the little thing under the battery that has the three little ports?
If so, I removed that, but it fixed nothing.

I don't know what would cause that.

Three things to try, though.

1. Can you get into the Easy-Setup (BIOS) screen by pressing and holding F1 while the memory count is displaying? If yes, then you could try running some of the tests that are available there.

2. Can you boot up with a floppy disk (if you have a floppy drive to try it with) or with a CD?

3. Can you boot up with a different hard drive (if you have a different one)?

Also, what OS are you running? To me, it sounds like an OS problem, not a hardware problem, but it is hard to say -- especially since you don't seem to be able to get anywhere with it. If you can boot up with a different device, then I'm sure the problem is your OS or your hard drive and not some other piece of hardware.

Phil.

The boot screen doesn't even show up.
It just turns on all the lights and crap flash on.
Nothing ever appears on the screen.


Edit: It kinda looks like it's going into standby mode or something.

These are some real basics to get rid of more general issues:

1. unplug the AC power and remove the battery
2. plug in AC power and wait at least 2 minutes before powering on the TP
3. power on TP

If you still can't get anything on the screen, go back to No. 1 but after that disconnect the BIOS battery for at least 5 minutes. (The BIOS battery could be near the RAM modules, at least that's where it is in my TP 600X)

After 5 minutes connect the BIOS battery again and wait another 2 minutes.

Go to Nos. 2 and 3.

If you still don't get anything on the screen, remove the CD Rom and/or any floppy drive or USB or PCMCIA cards you might have connected and try again. After this, the only thing that is left is bad memory or bad motherboard, in which case you would have to try with new memory before deciding to get yourself a new motherboard.

Good luck!

I've tried all that stuff.
But it's still not working.
If it was working 2 days ago, do you think it'd be the RAM or the mobo?

Well... if none of the other stuff worked, it's either onboard memory or added memory modules or the mobo.

I would say... remove the memory modules or just switch them (if you have 2 installed). Otherwise, the mobo has a problem or is just plain dead.

But none of this should be a hindrance to get into EasySetup (BIOS)...

hmmm...

Are you sure you waited enough before powering on?

Once the BIOS battery is connected, the chips operate on this power source, alone, to read the mobo configuration and store any changes that are necessary. And that takes time. If you power on in the middle of this process, the BIOS or mobo chips are still confused because they haven't been able to get their configuration stored properly.

I did it, let it sit for a lot longer then the time you said too.

Do you think it could be possible that the BIOS battery is dead?

When you reconnected, you had to reset the time and date, right? Have you had to do it since then?

It could have just been that the CMOS had to be cleared. Replacing the CMOS on a system this old might be a good idea, since there has been a problem. The other option might be to order a CMOS battery, just in case it is infact the problem.

I havn't been able to reset the date and time, nothing ever shows up on the screen.

marcus16 wrote:I did it, let it sit for a lot longer then the time you said too.

Sorry, thought that when you said that "you did it", that you meant that you got it working.

It could very well be the CMOS, as they are such picky creatures. I have had CMOS batteries cause some very strange symptoms.

tfflivemb2 wrote:

marcus16 wrote:I did it, let it sit for a lot longer then the time you said too.

Sorry, thought that when you said that "you did it", that you meant that you got it working.

It could very well be the CMOS, as they are such picky creatures. I have had CMOS batteries cause some very strange symptoms.

Yeah I can see how you misunderstood that
I'll try getting a new CMOS battery.

That'd be a gret idea. You would be very surprised at the kind of trouble a bad CMOS battery can cause.

Huh, I tried the who CMOS battery out thing again. Didn't work, so I hit it twice, not to hard, and it worked.

But now I can't reset the date and time because I can't remember my password

Ahhh! Now it's doing it again! Could this all be happening because of to many incorrect passwords?

If so is there a way to clear my password? I see there are some jump pins under a cap in the RAM area.

If you only had a power on password you should be able to jump some pins and clear it but if you have a supervisor password set, you're out of luck then, unless you can remember your password, or at least that's what my understanding is.