Charging not working... Any theory? (solved)

[wrybread]

Ugh, my w530 suddenly won't charge. Symptoms:

- works fine off battery

- doesn't do anything when I connect a charger. Doesn't detect it, nothing

- same problem with multiple chargers

- same problem with the battery removed

I imagine the power port has an issue but it looks fine, inside the case at least.

Any theories by chance?

[atagunov]

No reaction to any of the chargers? Hmm... We would hope it would at least start charging the battery right?.. That it would at least switch on the battery led when you connect the charger and Thinkpad is off?

- how many chargers and which ones have you tried?..
- at the risk of seeming stupid - the wall socket you plug your chargers in definitely has power, does it not? Is that confirmed with some kind of another electric appliance?
- you've also got that mod adding a 1.5k resistor inside W530, is that not right? Have you tried removing it, e.g. undoing the mod? Is there definitely definitely most definitely nothing wrong with the socket and the wires inside Thinkpad? I guess it wouldn't hurt to measure the points where the wires are connected to on the motherboard with a multimeter to confirm there is 20V there when you connect the charger; we're not laptop repair specialist but this simple test we certainly can do

And you've been running off 90Wt chargers for a while, is that correct? I'm asking because I also just purchased a W530 with i7-3720mq/K2000M myself and have been considering doing exactly the same mod.. The mod looked so safe for the Thinkpad.. Not so safe for the charger but still.. It seemed that the worst that could happen would be the charger delivering lower voltage/not delivering any voltage at all/breaking down.. Hmm.. So back to question 1 - have you tried undoing the mod and connecting the original 170W charger?

So it seems the worst thing Thinkpad could have been exposed to would be lowered voltage.. Not sure if that has potential to damage anything.. Okay in absolutely worst case I can imagine charger breaking down and delivering something erratic on its output: noise, voltages above 20V, who knows.. Hmm... It's worth measuring the charger with a multimeter too I'd say... Though measuring the points on mobo with charger connected should be about as informative.

[wrybread]

Well shoot, looks like a part in the power jack came loose (the metal plate that slid out of the housing below). Luckily I have a donor laptop.

[wrybread]

And we're back! It was indeed the power jack. I swapped it out and now running perfectly.

Unfortunately the donor laptop was a T530 so my new power jack doesn't allow 170w power supplies. Any tips on shaving the pins off from the jack on the 170w?

Not the biggest deal to me since I use the 90 watt power supply almost exclusively, but since I might want to swap that power jack at some point I came up with a little mod:



By drilling a hole in the plastic case above the single screw on the bottom of the power jack I can remove the power jack without removing the bottom case (which requires removing the screen and lots of other things). Now I just have to remove the keyboard and top case and heat sink, which is relatively easy. On a sidenote the heat sink compound badly needed replacement anyway, so that was a bonus.



I'm so glad the issue wasn't something electrical caused by the 90 watt power adaptor mod:

https://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtop ... 0&p=854470

[wrybread]

Actually one odd issue: I swapped the touchpad with the one from my T530, which always seemed to work better than the one that came on my W530. But now I get an error when starting Control Panel -> Mouse (in Win10) that says "Unable to connect to the Synaptics Pointing Device Driver, if you have installed another device..." and basically tells me that it's not detecting the touchpad. It works though, I just can't use advanced features like scrolling with two fingers.

I reinstalled the T530 version from here:

https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/prod ... 20Keyboard

Still no luck though.

Any advice by chance?

[wrybread]

Nevermind on the touchpad, got it installed with Lenovo System Update.

Does anyone know how the T530 and W530 touchpads differ? Apparently they're different, since the drivers aren't compatible. And I was really having trouble with the touchpad that came on my W530 touchpad, at least compared to the T530 touchpads I've used, which I've always loved.

[atagunov]

I'm so glad the issue wasn't something electrical caused by the 90 watt power adaptor mod:
https://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtop ... 0&p=854470

I'm so very happy for you that you have solved your issue And that it was not your 90Wt mod which I'm looking to replicate. In my case the diff will be I'm going to always keep graphics on "Integrated" in BIOS and thus hope to end up with lower peak power consumption.

Does anyone know how the T530 and W530 touchpads differ? Apparently they're different, since the drivers aren't compatible

Re the Synaptic error the error message actually yields some search results online, here's one random article.. Pls. let us know if something like this helped..

I'd guess that Lenovo was just getting them from different suppliers and it's possible to get two W530 with different touchpads and for that matter two T530-s with different ones. Can you help with some marking or driver names? Which do you like more? Which one do you like less?

Unfortunately the donor laptop was a T530 so my new power jack doesn't allow 170w power supplies. Any tips on shaving the pins off from the jack on the 170w?

I'm also interested in how to shave off those irregular protrusions on W530 adapter - since I have got one now and would like to keep all 90W+ adapters at home interchangeable: T520, T530, W530, X220 and hopefully X2100 at some point..

[wrybread]

Yeah, phew, that would have been a real shame if it was caused by the power supply mod.

By the way you mentioned using a resistor for that mod, I just used a straight jumper. Commercial Vantage always reports that I have the 135w power adaptor connected, which is apparently acceptable to the W530 gods. Just open the keyboard and put a jumper between the blue wire and I assume any of the ground wires but I used the one farthest to the right. With a little finesse a standard jumper fits right in.

[atagunov]

By the way you mentioned using a resistor for that mod, I just used a straight jumper. Commercial Vantage always reports that I have the 135w power adaptor connected, which is apparently acceptable to the W530 gods. Just open the keyboard and put a jumper between the blue wire and I assume any of the ground wires but I used the one farthest to the right

Gods of Thinkpads have mercy on us! How is that possible?.. Was there even a 135Wt adapter ever produced with the round barrel plug? I always blindly believed this page saying

65W adapters have 10K resistance, confirmed.
90W adapters have no connection, confirmed.
170W adapter has 1.5K resistance, confirmed.

And indeed I was able to measure 10K on my 65W adapter and found no connection present on 90W. Ah.. apart from no connection there is also short connection! Wow, is it actually this simple? I was going to put in 1.5K to mimic 170W, but if there is a 135W option it's even better

Update: here people are indeed talking about 135W, W510 and short connection. Bravo! You've made my day! I never realized this option existed (even though you told us before in your prior thread) It feels as good to learn this as having a huge decaff at 8pm

[wrybread]

I'd guess that chart is missing one entry (this is just my guess, unconfirmed):

135W adaptors have full continuity (i.e. a jumper)

Part of my reasoning for using a jumper instead of a resistor is that the resistance won't change depending on which power adaptor I have connected. If you install a 1.5k resistor and then use the 170W power supply there will be 3k of resistance... I don't know if that would disturb those Thinkpad gods or not, but with a straight jumper the resistance never changes.

As far as the different touchpads, I'll post an update after living with this T530 touchpad for awhile, but I was having a lot of problems with the W530 touchpad that I just removed. Pointer jumping around, random click and drag behavior, just constant issues. I tried lots of different settings in UltraNav, couldn't improve it. Some details here:

viewtopic.php?f=70&t=132284

So far the T530 touchpad is working beautifully, as they always have for me before using this W530, but I'll post again after a few days. (And this is my first W530 by the way).

Windows Device Manager reports that I'm now using Synaptic Driver v19.0.17.142. I didn't look to see what it was using before with the W530 touchpad. Odd that whatever version of Synaptic Driver I had wouldn't detect the T530 touchpad though...

Also, I just changed the heat sink compound on one of my old T530s, and wow did it need it, was even worse than my W530. Was no longer even gummy, was mostly solid. Note to self: change the heat sink compound on any future new-to-me 530's right away.

[atagunov]

I was having a lot of problems with the W530 touchpad that I just removed. Pointer jumping around, random click and drag behavior, just constant issues

I think it's a common issue on *20 and *30. I probably had seen pointer jumping on X220 under Linux. I believe the issue is known to show itself when running on AC, the common wisdom seems to suggest it does not occur when running on battery. Which may be why many of us don't notice the issue - for me for example plugged = docked, and docked = external mouse. I also believe the common wisdom had it upgrading BIOS was the cure. The folklore even had it 60W and 90W chargers yielded different behavior.. No personal experience with fixing this. I think I can't even reproduce this anymore somehow.. Might be a bug in EC (embedded controller) firmware.

[wrybread]

Interesting about the issue only appearing when plugged in. Hmm. It was intermittent I think, would be interesting if that was when it was happening the most.

I'm running the latest bios though.

Edit: and to confirm, it's not happening with the T530 touchpad even when plugged in.

[wrybread]

Well I used the touchpad all day pretty intensively, both plugged in and on battery, and don't think I had a single pointer jump. Phew.

Unfortunately the bad touchpad doesn't have any markings on it to differentiate from the good one. Hmm.

[RealBlackStuff]

170W barrel protrusions: viewtopic.php?p=856886#p856886

[atagunov]

170W barrel protrusions: viewtopic.php?p=856886#p856886

Thank you very much, RBS! It seems X-ACTO knife is the tool.

Yes Dremel has some kind of milling round-ball bit but I struggle to imagine how one would use it here.

Funnily enough I read about X-ACTO countless times - and owned this kind of a tool once - but I never knew that the name actually referred to that tool.

I myself was thinking about the engraving tools - those small hand-held chisels for cutting wood surface - but I don't have one handy and purchasing one just for this job seems like an overkill

[heilong]

170W barrel protrusions: viewtopic.php?p=856886#p856886

Thank you very much, RBS! It seems X-ACTO knife is the tool.

Yes Dremel has some kind of milling round-ball bit but I struggle to imagine how one would use it here.

Funnily enough I read about X-ACTO countless times - and owned this kind of a tool once - but I never knew that the name actually referred to that tool.

I myself was thinking about the engraving tools - those small hand-held chisels for cutting wood surface - but I don't have one handy and purchasing one just for this job seems like an overkill

A Torx TX30H (a tamperproof Torx T30 with a hole) screwdriver does a great clean job. I used a hobby/craft knife to remove most of the material, followed by T25H, T27H, T30H bits. Final result looks super neat and is a good tight fit. This way I can use the 170W adapter with both W530, X220, X230 and the UltraBase docking stations.