T43 - Multiple beeps on power-up, black screen

[Vinic]

Current Symptoms - Short and Sweet:

T43 powers up, screen stays black.

3 beeps, pause, 1 beep, pause, 4 beeps, pause, 3 beeps.

Then, enjoy a nice black screen as the fan purrs.

Very, very, VERY occasionally (as in twice in about 500 boot attempts) it will boot up without any problems. But then, it's subject to Issue 3 (see below).


The History

Here's a list of all the issues that have arisen over time with this T43, in the order they've hit.

Issue 1. The Fan
The first "issue" that arose involved a slightly noisier fan, almost like a somewhat less annoying version of a baseball card in bike wheel spokes. When the fan would speed up, it would become very loud, but during normal running, it was only just noticeable.

I opened up the case, and gave the fan a good look, blowing out any dust and possible debris with compressed air. The problem remained. The laptop's warranty had just ran out, and as a poor college student, I ignored it's cry for help.

Issue 2. The Screen - Part 1
Then suddenly, a few months later, a new development: the screen (and the system) would freeze sometimes when I moved the laptop. Didn't matter if it was plugged into a power outlet or not, and no circumstances seemed to dictate when it happened. Sometimes, if I moved it, it would freeze. Overtime, it would happen more and more often. I kept it docked at this point.

Issue 3. The Screen - Part 2
Then the real fun began. Same freezing issues, but now, when it froze, the screen would go insane, and the speakers would emit terrible digital screams for help. The first two images on this site are close the types of 800x600 works of art I'd be seeing. As I would move the laptop around, the screen would change.

Issue 4. The Blue Screen
Then one day, on boot the laptop hopped into a blue screen. Not the Window's Official Blue Screen of Death, but another Window's-generated monstrosity, a blue screen mentioning something with the harddrive not being bootable. I wish I took a picture of the screen at the time it cropped up.

At this point, I doubted the harddrive was the cause of all the trouble -- I assumed the freezing tripped up the filesystem at some point. To prove it, I installed Fedora. Fedora installed without any problems, and I was quickly in business.

Then, Issue 3 returned. Excellent!

I'd been doing research on all the issues for a while at this point, and it seemed that temperature was linked to the problems -- overheating. At this point, I was no longer the poor college student I once was, and quickly installed a new fan. The noise issue vanished, but the freezing issue remained.

My guess is the previous overheating issues caused physical damage to the motherboard.

Issue 5. The Beeps
Then, one day, the current problem began, seemingly for no real reason:

T43 powers up, screen stays black.

3 beeps, pause, 1 beep, pause, 4 beeps, pause, 3 beeps.

Then, enjoy a nice black screen as the fan purrs.

Very, very, VERY occasionally (as in twice in about 500 boot attempts) it will boot up without any problems. But then, it's subject to Issue 3 (see above).

---

At this point, who the hell knows what the specific issue is; there's probably more than one. My guess is overheating has been the cause, and at this point I need a new motherboard.

The laptop's been sitting around for months now, collecting dust. Once or twice a month I long for a laptop, and try booting the thing up, resulting in the current issue. I've been Google searching and browsing Thinkpad sites (including this one) for almost a year now, and I have never, ever seen anyone with all of the above issues, or really ANY of the specific issues -- only similar problems with apparent solutions that I have tried, which don't work.

My research has determined I am the only person in existence to receive this beep sequence.

[ajkula66]

First of all, welcome to the forum!

The exact model of your long-suffering T43?

I agree that I've never heard of such a beep sequence...

[Vinic]

Thanks for the welcome. "Long time reader, first time writer."

The exact model of the T43 is 2686DHU. Only hardware change is a replacement fan, straight from IBM (ie, Lenovo), the same model as the noisy perpetrator.

[richk]

One thing I always do is turn it one with no memory. One of the first thing it does when starting up is to check for "no memory" (1-3-3-1 beep sequence) If you have 2 memory chips, try with one, then the other.

[Vinic]

With or without any RAM, it's still the same beep sequence: 3-1-4-3.

I finally found some other people with the same beep sequence. Looks like it's a mobo issue.

[rkawakami]

Looking at the photos you posted, I'd have to say that it's probably related to the loose video graphics chip problem. The video corruption appears to be the same type as when the graphics memory is not addressed properly (repeating patterns of lines or blocks). If you can, put some pressure on top of the ATI chip as outlined in this post:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 212#233212

It's from the sticky at the top of the T4x conference, "t42 shuts down when i move it". It's quite a long thread but the gist of it is that the ATI chip breaks one or more solder bonds and that it is sometimes possible to either press down on it (post-it notes between keyboard and top of chip) or re-flow the solder.

[Vinic]

Well I'll be [censored].

I haven't had ready access to a decent double-E lab since I quit my intern position, so I've never had a real chance to re-flow the solder -- I read about that idea a while back.

I just booted the baby up while shoving my thumb down on the chip, and sure enough, I was greeted with the IBM logo.

I'll stick some thick paper above the chip and force the keyboard back on. I'll report back with the results after some testing. Thanks for the idea, rkawakami. I'm slapping myself here.