Thinkpads Forum

I use my transnote once or twice a week. It is in hibernation in-between uses and plugged in. It also has a new CMOS battery. The system battery is not new but still ok. The HD is also fairly new (a couple of years old; not the original that came with the transnote). All the Windows patches are up to date.

Two days ago, it refused to start up.

Pushing the power button caused the HD LED to flash once. Then nothing. No beep, the HD does not spin up, the screen does not power up.

I swapped the power supply (after checking that the cat has not chewed through the cable!) and suddenly it started up. Everything's fine until today. The problem has returned.

Both power supplies work. I tested them both with a (still running strong) T21. So the problem seem to be the transnote itself.

Any ideas as to where to start looking for the problem?

My guess would be that there might be a loose contact either between plug and socked or where the soket is connected to the systemboard.
I had taken my Transnote to pieces some time ago, but I can't remember if it is plugged in or soldered on the board.

What doesn't fit in here is that it won't start up on battery. I suppose that the power circuitry might be similar to that of the t43p which I sorted out some weeks ago.
One loose contact could disable the both available power sources.

When was the last time you ran it from battery?

You could try wobbling around the plug a bit constantly trying to start it.

Hmmm.... Cat chewed it?

Possibly, the wires shorted for a moment during the chewing. The power supply would undoubtedly be more forgiving of such abuse, but the laptop... another story. The short circuiting of the wires could and probably has damaged the power circuit inside the laptop.

My 2 cents...

Joe

Thanks for all your thoughts thus far.

No, cat did not chew anything. I checked. Even sat him down and asked...

I will open up the unit and have a look at the power connector to the motherboard. Thanks for that tip DarkMark.