R31 Random loss of power - Please help

[seb_1212]

Hello. I have an IBM thinkpad R31, and I have only had it for a year or so, (I didn't buy it new however) and I was very happy with it, until it developed a problem where it will randomly lose power. It doesn't shut down, just on then nothing.

It used to only do it occasionally, and used to work ok if I just ran it off battery, but it has got to the stage where it is unusable. I think the problem may be with the motherboard or a power connector somewhere, but I'm hoping this is not the case.

It has dual channel ram, and I have tried using it with each stick individually in case some of the ram is damaged, but this does not solve the problem. (However it does seem to slay on longer with only half it's ram, although this could be purely coincidence.)

I'm also fairly sure its not a software related issue because it often does it before it even reaches the OS, while is still in various stages of booting.

Help would be very greatly appreciated on this issue, as I am out of ideas except the motherboard being at fault...

Thanks in advance,
Seb

[phool@round]

Welcome to the Forum seb_1212!

I'm going to ask some basic questions just to get a little more information because it could be one of several things.

If I understand right, your laptop will power up sometimes and it freezes at random times as well?

Do you hear any strange noises or no noise (spinning) from your hard disk when this happens?

Do you hear your processor fan when you boot up? How about when it locks up at random, do you hear the fan then?

Is your power jack on the laptop loose? Are you using a genuine IBM power brick or is it an aftermarket one?

If you do get it to boot up I suggest running PC Doctor to see if it can help pinpoint the issue. Here is a link with a couple of extra patches for R31's; PC Doctor + Patches
You can remove all the peripherals like the ultrabay, mini-PCI card, the CDC card, and any PCMCIA cards to see if it's one of those. It could be power, heat, hard disk, RAM or firmware. I'm not familiar with the R3X's enough to know their particular quirks but I've given you the basics to get you started.

Here is a link to the manual for your laptop; ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/pc/pccbbs/mo ... 2r2913.pdf