T61p: 3 Beeps and Blank Screen =[ (Ticking timebomb)

[ctbear]

Turning on my laptop this morning, I heard one long and two short beeps and then a blank LCD. I can hear the hard drive spinning, and prior to the beeps, I still see the usual system check lights that light up (Z) before booting into Windows.

I didn't do anything out of the ordinary (didn't install anything or mess around with BIOS) last night when I turned it off before going to bed.

If anyone has ever encountered this problem or can help...I would be very happy if I find a way to resurrect my laptop from its coma.

Here's my post from: http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/mess ... ing&page=2


---------------------------------

When did everyone here purchase their T61p?


I bought mine summer 2007 for college...encountered severe delay issues and went more than a MONTH in college WITHOUT the laptop, then when it finally arrived, it booted up fine. Turned it off. Turned it back on: NOTHING. Called tech support, sent it in, and the replaced the motherboard. I thought to myself, maybe I was unlucky and got a bad mobo, well at least the repair service was fast.



And now today, I have woken up to the same nightmarish predicament that many of you have found yourselves in. I thought tech support replaced my mobo and so I was good to go. Legendary Thinkpad indestructibility right? I guess I was deceived...



My laptop was working perfectly last night. Before going to bed, I turned it off and unplugged the AC adapter as I do daily. Except, this morning when I went to boot up my t61p, it gave me 1 long beep followed by 2 short beeps (3 beeps) and a blank screen. I can hear the hdd spinning in idle..but nothing. Can't access BIOS or windows....



Thus, I proceeded to reseat my RAM dimms. NOPE

Attached external monitor. NOPE

Took the whole thing apart and reseated everything including CPU and wireless cards and hard drive. NOPE



So now, I am left with a very expensive door stop. And I thought that my T61p would last me through college and beyond...



Please, if anyone finds a solution to this problem post it. I too am out of warranty, and frankly, paying $500 to replace the motherboard (planar card) only to have it self-destruct 2 years from now is illogical. I not wholly blaming this on Lenovo as Nvidia is also the culprit.



At this point, I don't know what to do...It was working so wonderfully and perfectly until all of a sudden, this.

I've taken great care of my laptop and thus have monitored my stats closely.



Idle temp: about 50 C

Underload (3d gaming such as Team Fortress 2): usually 78C but have over the years climbed up to the 80s. (Highly suspect that my GPU was on its last leg)



Specs:

t7500

100GB 7200 rpm Hitachi HDD

2 GB (1gb x 2 Dimms)

wifi agn, bluetooth, wusb

Quadro 570M 256mb

[Harryc]

One long and two short beeps, and a blank or unreadable LCD.
1. System board
2. LCD assembly
3. DIMM
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 46018.html

[ctbear]

One long and two short beeps, and a blank or unreadable LCD.
1. System board
2. LCD assembly
3. DIMM
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 46018.html

Yes, I've referred to that already. It does not help my situation. After trying everything seemingly possible, I am still not able to boot up.

[richk]

Has it been apart? You can get that error with badly seated lcd cable

[jo2008]

I just had the exact same issue about 2 weeks ago.. after a whole week the NBD-repairman arrived and replaced the motherboard.

Did you by any chance also suffer from stuttering audio and slow responding system in general ?

My machine has been terribly slow for the last weeks and months. More annoyingly I cannot listen to music anymore when doing s.th. else at the same time (e.g. surf the web). THe audio drops out all the time. There's a thread devoted to that issue (http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/mess ... ing&page=1) which remains unsolved. The dead motherboard was the culmination of all the different problems I have with that Thinkbad.

Thought it was going to be better after the replacement but the story continues...

[ctbear]

Has it been apart? You can get that error with badly seated lcd cable

Yes, I have already taken the WHOLE thing apart and reseated everything, including lcd cable. I've triple checked and made sure everything was connected correctly and connections were clean.

[ctbear]

I just had the exact same issue about 2 weeks ago.. after a whole week the NBD-repairman arrived and replaced the motherboard.

Did you by any chance also suffer from stuttering audio and slow responding system in general ?

My machine has been terribly slow for the last weeks and months. More annoyingly I cannot listen to music anymore when doing s.th. else at the same time (e.g. surf the web). THe audio drops out all the time. There's a thread devoted to that issue (http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/mess ... ing&page=1) which remains unsolved. The dead motherboard was the culmination of all the different problems I have with that Thinkbad.

Thought it was going to be better after the replacement but the story continues...

Never encountered these problems. I've always taken great care of my laptop. Periodic cleaning and reapplication of thermal paste. Runs like day one.

The only change I've noticed is the gradual increase in LOAD temp. Over the years (2 years now..since purchase back in 07) the load temp increased from 70s to 80s...which makes me highly suspect the GPU as the culprit here, especially since its the same gpu core that belongs to the 8000s series from Nvidia that are faulty.

[ajkula66]

Chances are that your diagnosis is correct, and new planar will be required...

Good luck.

[ctbear]

My sad sad story

TO WHOM THIS MAY CONCERN:

Dear Mark,



Sorry for getting back to you this late...I have been out of the state for the summer.

Also, thanks for making the support and effort to lend a helping hand; however, I have already solved the issue through my credit card company with which I used to make the purchase of this laptop.



This is the method that I would also recommend EVERYONE else who has a similar problem with their thinkpad to follow. Call your credit card company with which you used to make the laptop purchase. Most credit card companies will have an extended warranty coverage (+1 year after manufacturer's warranty has expired) on purchases up to around $10,000, YMMV. Explain the issue you have with your laptop and notify them of the faulty Nvidia gpu present in the laptop, which is the main problem that's causing all of these issues (esp the 3 beeps). You will get a full refund of the price that you purchased the laptop. Firstly, they will most likely send you a prepaid box with which you will use to send your laptop into your credit card company's own diagnostic center. There, they will evaluate the problem with the laptop and conclude that a repair is not the best possible solution to a defect.



The above is the BEST route to use. I suggest this because after sending my laptop to a plethora of 3rd-party repair shops, one after the other concluded that the Nvidia GPU is indeed defective, a conclusion I easily arrived with myself yet one that Lenovo consistently denied on the phone. Sending in your laptop and paying an exorbitant fee to have it repair will only "buy you another time-bomb" which will inevitably fail in the near future. Afterall, Lenovo will just replace the motherboard with the same defective gpu soldered onto it. There is no way to "fix" this defect.



The heart of the problem lies with thermal bumping that plagues the G84M core and all other cores in that same family. (Note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nvidia_Quadro) The Quadro 570M is based off of the notoriously failing 8600M gt, both of which use the same faulty G84M core. Nvidia, at first, attempted to hide this issue from the public, and until only recently, they have come out truthly to admit the issue. It seems from everyone else on Lenovo forums that this problem has finally caught up and showing its face. The number of users with this very same problem will only rise as time passes because these defective GPUs have reached their failing point through the many power cycles of typical laptop usage.



This is where I lose faith in LENOVO/THINKPAD products. Many other OEMs, including Dell, Sony, and HP, have issued a public notice to all their laptops containing the defective chips. Yet, Lenovo has done nothing. Other OEMs sought to "remedy," though only TEMPORARILY, the overheating and prematurely failing chips with BIOS updates, even though these updates do NOTHING but merely elevate the fan speed to max RPM, hoping to keep the chips running cool enough until they are out of warranty at which point you are basically left with an expensive doorstop. Yet, Lenovo did not even try to acknowledge the problem. Nvidia even agreed to pay back part of the costs for OEMs to repair/replace the defective chips ( "The chipmaker said in July it was taking a one-time charge of $150 million to $200 million to cover expenses relating to the glitch." Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10063844-37.html ). Thus, OEMs have discounted or even issued free repair notices for laptops affected. Even so, Lenvo insists that we pay the $450+ repair fee without acknowledging the issue at hand. To make it worse, Lenovo has quietly gone and replaced all their laptops with AMD/ATI radeon branded gpus, effectively isolating and cutting support to the older laptops containing Nvidia chips.



This whole ordeal has truly tainted my perspective on the quality, indestructible, and "customer-always-comes-first" characteristics that were previously only held by Lenovo/Thinkpads. Afterall, that is the only reason I purchased my T61p. I wanted a reliable work machine that will last me through college and beyond, never expecting that it will suddenly fail one random morning when I go to turn it on. Now that I am searching for a new laptop to purchase, I am very hesitant about buying another Lenovo. Don't get me wrong here...I blame Nvidia for the issue that has caused my laptop and many others to suddenly perish. However, the fact the Lenovo did nothing to step up and address the issue makes me very worried about their dealings with any possible future issues if I were to purchase another product from them.

[Obx]

I found this thread via a quick Google search after getting the same 3 beeps and symptoms

Same spec Thinkpad T61p with Quadro 570M
sold as an ex rental that was shelved, machine had about 1 year usage according to the HDD SMART log,

I used the machine for less than a year up until now (with only occasional use, 2-3 days a week)
(bought 2nd hand from ebay for low poly 3D and code/text editing because of the High res/non glossy screen).


So its dead, its not POSTing as per the op's description, I tried the usual tricks, removing the Ram/HDD etc... its dead Jim.
Thought this thread might need a bump if anyone else is thinking of getting one from ebay, avoid!

[Cigarguy]

Machines from this generation using Nvidia GPU are known to be prone to failure. It's a ticking time bomb and the fault is entirely with Nvidia. You sounded like a classic victim of a baked MB of eBay.

[TuuS]

Machines from this generation using Nvidia GPU are known to be prone to failure. It's a ticking time bomb and the fault is entirely with Nvidia. You sounded like a classic victim of a baked MB of eBay.

Unfortunately there have been quite a few ebay vendors selling failed boards and/or laptops. Forced overheating of the chip will often make it work for a little while and on ebay it only has to last for a couple weeks and if it lasts 4-6 weeks they buyer cannot even leave feedback.

This is very sad because the actual failure rate isn't nearly as high as it would appear and most of these laptops are still working even 7+ years later so anytime I hear of a newly purchased laptop failing soon after it was sold on ebay I suspect the gpu was tampered with, but it's a hard thing to prove. There are methods of testing these boards and I can usually spot one that's been reflowed or baked, but it's more art than science and not conclusive. Generally a chip with fractured circuits will generate heat spikes since the high resistance from the electricity crossing the fractured circuits usually results in heat, but this has to be tested while it's still working and the test itself is likely to accelerate the repeated failure.

I'd also not consider the SMART date to be conclusive since you have no way of knowing it was the original harddrive and most corporate laptops are retired without their HDD.