Fingerprint reader stopped working

[Czechnology]

I've been using the fingerprint reader with practically no problems since october.
Recently, it has just suddenly stopped working. I thought restarting will do the trick, but unfortunately, no luck. No recent driver updates.
Any idea what could have caused it and what can be done with it?
(running on T400 as in my signature)

[truk]

What OS?

[Czechnology]

Vista Ultimate (32b)
as preinstalled by Lenovo (yeah, I wanted a fresh install but can't get my hands on a vista DVD)

[stubblyhead]

I'm having trouble with the fingerprint reader on my T400 as well. It works perfectly most of the time, but if I lock my computer and leave for more than about 10 minutes or so, the dialogue box asking for your fingerprint goes away and I'm left with nothing but my wallpaper and the mouse cursor. Pressing escape will not bring up the normal Windows authentication, and trying to swipe my finger anyway has no effect either. I basically have to reboot my computer to get out of this. I would love to reinstall the software and see if that helps, but that requires an administrator account. This is a company machine, and we just don't do that here. I'd like to try to resolve this without going to see our desktop support guy, as he is difficult to deal with. Anyone else experience this and know a way around it?

[truk]

There has been a known problem with the readers, you should both update your bios' to the latest version if it's not.

[Czechnology]

Does anyone have a schema for the T400? Where is the CPU located? In my old T43, I can remember that the left side of the keyboard used to heat, on the T400 it's the right palmrest (just slightly left off the fingerprint reader).
I'm asking because my reader started working again - while watching a film, I've heard the new-device-inserted and device-removed windows sounds and there it was again. Seems like some hardware problem that may be related to the heat produced.

[truk]

CPU is well away from the reader. The hard drive sits under the reader and heats up a bit. I don't believe the problem is heat myself, but I haven't had it.

[Czechnology]

ah, silly me sure it's the hdd there... Well, get's pretty warm. Anyway, no idea why this problem happened

[morgandog]

Mine only works for logon after a restart, and after that I get a 'fingerprint reader unavailable' error and need to use the password. If I didn't have a million other problems with my T400 this one would bother me more.

I'm running Vista 32 as factory installed.

[Mecke]

There has been a known problem with the readers, you should both update your bios' to the latest version if it's not.

Works for me.
Thanks