T60: AC Power LED goes off upon pressing ON Button

[lawgilbert95]

I am faced with a rather perplexing situation, which I am unable to resolve, and hence, seeking any and all views / suggestions here.

Background:
I have a well-maintained 14.1" 4:3 T60 which I had properly put aside, for a few months. Prior, it was working fine. It was also shut down properly. Then, it showed no signs of any problems whatsoever, there was no heat issues, etc, completely problem free, as far as I knew.

Just yesterday, I took it out of storage, inserted the AC Power Jack into the notebook, and switched it on. The AC Power LED indicator lights up, BUT when I press the Power On Button, immediately, the AC Power LED disappears, followed by : NO fan sound, there was NO spinning from the HDD etc, just COMPLETELY DEAD.

I did a fair bit of troubleshooting, including removing all devices (including RAM, HDD, and DVD-RW), and discharged any remnants of static electricity (by pressing the power bottom on for quite a while, and I did this a few times), replacing the RAMs to check if the RAMs was dead or RAM slot problem etc

each time, upon reinserting the AC Power, switching AC on , pressing the power on button, the notebook REMAINS DEAD. In short, nothing has worked

I can hardly believe my "luck". It was working perfectly prior to storage.

Please help with any views / suggestions

IF in the worse case situation, the motherboard is dead or problematic, how do i trouble shoot to repair? or replace?
I do not have the FRU number as the sticker in the battery slot is missing. however, i do know the Type: 1952-DF7

Thank you all in advance for your help

[RealBlackStuff]

Did you remove the main battery as well?
That could be the culprit.
And also check the CMOS if it still has around 3Volt.

[lawgilbert95]

@ RealBlackStuff

Yes, I did remove the battery
Also, after all the static discharge attempts, I tried switching it on, with and without the battery. both ways, no success

What's with the CMOS battery? I do not have a volt meter
How does the CMOS battery affect the proper functioning of the T60?
Thanks for all your explanations

[axur-delmeria]

Looks more like a system board issue.

Regarding the CMOs battery: the battery is used not only to keep the date and time, but also to store settings on the CMOS RAM. If the battery voltage sags (drops temporarily but not yeat dead/flat), it can cause the CMOS RAM data to get corrupted without the system noticing, and may result in the system booting with potentially unsafe settings. Removing the battery will erase all the CMOS data, but the system will notice it (will give a 161 and/or 163 error messsage on boot) and load the default settings.

[lawgilbert95]

@ axur-delmeria
Thanks for your inputs, and noted your CMOs explanation

I did a replacement of the CMOs, with another similar model, taken out from another Lenovo IBM notebook, i am now in a more perplexing situation:

the AC LED indicator has now completely "disappeared" - ie. it doesn't even light up when I plug in the AC adapter, and switch on the mains.
following up with pressing the power on button yields zero results (ie completely dead)

[RealBlackStuff]

Remains the question: is that other CMOS maybe (near-)dead also?
If you remove all RAM and then try to boot (on AC), does it beep 1-3-3-1?
Have you tried another charger (and maybe also another wall outlet)?

[axur-delmeria]

In my book, if the AC indicator doesn't light up when the charger is plugged in, it's either a faulty LCD cable (which in the T60 also carries signals the indicators), or the board itself is toast.

[lawgilbert95]

@RBS
Yes, I have tried removing both RAMs, switched on AC power, it DOES NOT beep 1-3-3-1
Yes, I have tried multiple other chargers, and wall sockets. It DOES NOT work. The issue isn't with the charger nor wall socket
I am not able to ascertain if the replacement CMOs battery is also dead or near dead

@axur-delmeria
I am perplexed how the motherboard could be as suspected (ie toast), as, when and before I put it in storage, it was working perfectly fine, with no symptomatic issues whatsoever. It was stored in a cupboard, away from dust, moisture,etc

Is there anything else I can do, to troubleshoot and/or to repair it?
IF all else fails, and the motherboard has to be replaced, I do not have the FRU number, only the type number: 1952-DF7

[axur-delmeria]

Stuff happens. I had an Atom ITX board die on me while in storage-- it was wrapped in an anti-static bag, then put inside a cardboard box for an ITX board (different brand, but same size nonetheless).
Only discovered it when I had to test an IDE HDD-- said Atom board was my last one that had IDE ports.

[RealBlackStuff]

That T60 has the standard mobo with Intel GMA 950 GPU.
1952-DF7 : T2300(1.66GHz), 512MB RAM, 60GB 5400rpm HD, 14.1in 1024x768 LCD,
Intel 950, DVD, Intel 802.11abg wireless, Modem, 1Gb Ethernet, UltraNav, Secure chip, 6c Li-Ion batt, WinXP Pro

I have such a mobo (FRU 42T0116) for sale, see my website https://www.theboardroom.info/stock1.html

[lawgilbert95]

Since the last (Jan 2019) that I posted in this thread about my T60's circumstance, I have put it aside

Over the weekend, I took it out, plug in the AC adapter, and it came back to life, miraculously. However, initially, there were 4 singular beeps. I googled, and came to understand, it could be a RAM seating problem

Hence, I took both RAMs out, and put it back in piece by piece. It appeared that both RAMs need to be from the same manufacturer

This, however, does not explain the previous experience, which was that it was completely dead (not even the AC power LED light) after taking it out from cold storage

[zoltan87]

Since the last (Jan 2019) that I posted in this thread about my T60's circumstance, I have put it aside

Over the weekend, I took it out, plug in the AC adapter, and it came back to life, miraculously. However, initially, there were 4 singular beeps. I googled, and came to understand, it could be a RAM seating problem

Hence, I took both RAMs out, and put it back in piece by piece. It appeared that both RAMs need to be from the same manufacturer

This, however, does not explain the previous experience, which was that it was completely dead (not even the AC power LED light) after taking it out from cold storage

Glad to hear that your T60 is still alive, but I most certainly wouldn't use it for anything sensitive stuff/ work, that requires a reliable machine. I have a feeling that your T60 could drop "dead" again at any given day.

[sebastek]

Since the last (Jan 2019) that I posted in this thread about my T60's circumstance, I have put it aside

Over the weekend, I took it out, plug in the AC adapter, and it came back to life, miraculously. However, initially, there were 4 singular beeps. I googled, and came to understand, it could be a RAM seating problem

Hence, I took both RAMs out, and put it back in piece by piece. It appeared that both RAMs need to be from the same manufacturer

This, however, does not explain the previous experience, which was that it was completely dead (not even the AC power LED light) after taking it out from cold storage

I have a T60 as well, i recently bought it for cheap on the colombian version of ebay "mercadolibre". The system came with 2 different manufacturer RAM sticks: samsung and kingston. The thinkpad was working well for about 2 weeks on windows 10 and suddenly poof!!! it turned off completely dead, all indicators went off, removed all the accesories, including battery, change AC adapter, still dead. A day later comes to life again, but without sound, even the basic BIOS system beeps were missing. It turns out that after full disassembly that some mainboard components were bad, apparently some liquid enter the main board (previous owner) and damaged a capacitor that went short circuit and disabled a 5V line that fed the audio amplifier. I'm a electronics technician so i was able to repair it. I am goning to make a full post with pictures of the repair process soon, So, in your case, is a main board issue as well, it needs change or get diagnosed from a good electronics technician.