T42 Laptop got hot & battery drained while turned off!

[aileen97]

Hi All,

Am a newbie in aces, one of my first posts.

An odd thing happened to my T42 tonight where the battery was drained to absolute zero, while it was turned off.

What was so alarming was my laptop was incredibly hot when I pulled it out of the case! That really scared me, and I hope I haven't fried anything.

Scenario: I was at a coffeeshop, plugged into AC power. I did a typical and complete Shut-down, and stuck the laptop in my Targus backpack, just like always. Got in a car to drive my hubby to the airport, put the backpack behind the car seat. MIGHT have been a little squeeze pressure on the backpack, as it was in the back of the seat - ie the seat might have pressed into the backpack. After about 1hr, I heard the alarm go off inside of the bag. About 20mins after that, I was home and pulled the laptop out of the backpack.

Wow, I've never felt it so hot. I put it in it's docking station, and turned it on immediately, hoping the fastest way to cool it down was to get the internal fan going. The hottest part was the battery itself (I think). It was all hot enough to even heat the backpack pouch it sits in. I was surprised to see the battery at zero (it was 100% when I turned it off).

Does anyone have any idea what/why this might have happened?

Any idea on any sort of damage that might have happened, and how I might check for that? It all seems to be working fine at the moment.

So grateful in advance for any insights!

Aileen

[FTC]

Hi,

Something very similar happened with my T40 on at least 2 occassions in the last year, but with the difference that I was hibernating the machine instead of shutting it off.
I was fortunate enough to see it 'in action' once. What happened is that for some reason even if I thought the machine was hibernating correctly, it waked up again spuriously very few seconds after it supposedly had completed hibernation and was shutted down... being closed in a carrying case did afterwards help considerably to become very hot.
After that experiences, every time I hibernate or switch off the machine I wait around 5-10 seconds to make sure it will stay off... before placing it in the case.

[aileen97]

Hello FTC,

Now that I think about it, I'm not positive I shut-down. Maybe it was in hibernation after all. I was in the middle of work projects, so that might be the case.

When I started it up again, it booted up as if it had been a complete shutdown, but perhaps that is bcs the battery was drained to zero.

Thanks much for the insight on the hibernation front. I'll start doing the same.

Curious, is this a bug? I see some posts on odd behavior during hibernation.

Aileen

I'll keep watching this post to see

[RonS]

Just a thought...


Is is possible that, while hibernating, you moved the laptop which activated the hard disk Active Protection system, which prevented the hiberation from completing. Then the movement in the car kept the AP going, and your poor computer just kept trying to hibernate to a locked hard drive?

[FTC]

Hi,

In my case the active protection theory is impossible just because my machine is a T40 which do NOT have APS. However, I got the impression when this happened that the problem was originated because I closed the lid *a bit too early*, causing thee logic in BIOS confusing the lid open/lid closed states...

[aileen97]

I'm thinking hard to recreate sequence of events at the coffee shop.

When I either went 'standby' or 'shutdown', I might have closed the lid pretty quickly. I was moving onto a follow on project, and needed to clear the table space, as my colleague arrived.

So it could have went into an incomplete hibernation mode.

I'll now follow FTC's method, take a conscienous minute to make sure the T42 is in complete hibernation, before shutting the lid?

Does that mean from the 'standby' option, I can't close the lid until I hear the beep that indicates it is in complete hibernation?

(Kind of a pain, but if that is what prevents this alarming heat-up & battery drain of the laptop, I'll certainly do it)

As to APS, this newbie is not even sure if I have that - but I might. The T42 is less than a year old, purchased last July/2004.

Thanks for the tips.

[aileen97]

PS. just read RonS's post again.

We sat in the coffee shop on another project for quite sometime (2-3hrs), thus outside of moving from the table to the laptop case, the laptop did not move for at least that amount of time.

Hwvr, if APS is the feature which detects a laptop 'falling off a table' I did move it frm the table to the backpack case on the floor. I didn't drop it tho, just place it down there at normal human speed.

Aileen

[danny_isr]

thats why i have those beeps setup , so i can hear when it's actually entering stby after closing it. not sure if you got that on T42 or not.
but if you do i think its a good idea to set it on.

[JHEM]

Aileen,

The primary thing you want to do is go into power settings and set it to "Do nothing" when the display is closed.

After that you can select Standby (Fn+F4) or Hibernate (Fn+F12), which ever you prefer, slap the display shut and pack the unit in the case without worries.

You also want to ensure you have "Wake on LAN" turned off on your wired ethernet port.

Regards,

James

[aileen97]

James,

Thanks for this info.

I've changed my Power setting as you suggested.

Cannot find the wired ethernet port setting hwvr. Can you let me know where to find this?

What exactly is this setting doing, just for my education.

Thanks again.

[Leon]

It's in your BIOS under Network..... It allows the TPAD to wake up when it receives a special packet over the LAN...

[aileen97]

Leon,

Thanks. Sorry to be such a newbie, but is this how I access the BIOS?

Turn off the computer.
Turn on the computer.
While the To interrupt normal startup, press the blue Access IBM button message is displayed at the lower-left area of the screen, press the Access IBM button.
Double-click Start setup utility. The IBM BIOS Setup Utility menu will be displayed. If you have set a supervisor password, the IBM BIOS Setup Utility menu appears after you enters the password.

Or is this setting elsewhere?

Thanks.

[Leon]

Yes, but quicker to just press "F1" while powering on.

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