T20 problem

[Milek]

I have IBM thinkpad T20,and I have been having problems with it for a couple months.
i was just listening to music,when it suddenly died,the power on light stayed on,cpu fan was working,cd rom as well,but nothing else.I turned it off,but when I tried to turn it again on,nothing happend,the display stayed off.
I left it for a couple days,then tried to turn it on,it turned on ,started windows normally,and worked for about 20 min.Died again,with very same scenario.
What do you think about this,I have heard some stories about the blink of death.Could be that?
Is there a problem with the mother board?
Any advice or experience will be helpful.
Thanks

[RealBlackStuff]

Sounds very much like the BOD (blink of death).
See this: http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=48835

[sncdrvr]

I would replace the Bios battery and see if that will allow you to boot into the IBM splash screen. Then reset the date/time and boot into Windows. Bios battery is the small coin cell battery also known as the RTC(real time clock) or CMOS battery. If its dead then your machine will not boot to the splash screen. Not sure about the T20, but on the T30 its located under big battery pack and a CR2032 3volt coin cell battery will make a suitable short term substitution if you detach the wiring(pigtail) from the old battery and attach it to the new with tape. Origonal IBM batterys have spot welded solder tabs that can be carefully cut/snapped from the battery with a knife and tightly taped to the new. Or strip some insulation off, then tape. *Observe polarity!* The proper long term fix is a fresh new OEM IBM Bios battery. Stay away from the cheap batteries on EBay because they use glue on copper tabs and the pigtails are not the best. Look for welded on tabs and IBM Fru#. They cost a little more but are well worth it.

[Mike Blake]

Sncdrvr wrote:

Bios battery is the small coin cell battery also known as the RTC(real time clock) or CMOS battery. If its dead then your machine will not boot to the splash screen. Not sure about the T20, but on the T30 its located under big battery pack

Yup, that's exactly where it is, I have one right here on my computer table with the battery out, as it happens.

[RealBlackStuff]

The CMOS battery has absolutely nothing to do with the OP's problem.
It could well be that that battery is old, but that has no influence on being able to boot or not.

[sncdrvr]

Guess I have more problems than thought on latest T30 I'm building up from parts, it wont boot without the bios battery in place. Hadn't installed palmrest yet, had battery pack and power supply plugged in, wouldn't boot. Noticed I did not have bios battery plugged in. Plugged it in and was able to boot to bios. Now I'm wondering if flashing the bios and embedded controller to latest version will fix problem, or if there is some defect on the system board perhaps between the power supply circuits and the bios or embedded controller chips. Bummer!

[RealBlackStuff]

OT:
T30s sometimes have a RAM slot problem, i.e. only the upper slot works. Can most of the times be repaired by resoldering the memory contacts (all 200 of them per memory slot!).
T30s also sometimes have a GPU problem, where the external (analog) monitor-output works fine, but the internal (digital) monitor-output seems dead. Usually you will need a new mobo in this case.
Latest T30 Bios is 2.10 and embedded controller program is 1.07. Always load the BIOS first.

To test any laptop, take out all the removables (hard disk, CD/DVD, modem, wifi card, USB devices, PCMCIA cards, bluetooth, what have you).
Then start with 1 RAM module, add a 2nd one, then modem, wifi, CD, HD, USB, PCMCIA, BT, all one at the time and reboot after each addition. Somewhere it will start giving out to you.