T40p won't boot

[unthunk]

Hi!

Last night my previously-trusty T40p locked up. Frozen mouse pointer, everything. I rebooted and a couple of minutes later it froze again. And a third time. I then booted into BIOS and ran the full test suite - all fine.

I then selected 'reboot' from the BIOS, and... nothing!

When powered on, the fan spins up, and I get 5 LEDs (num lock, caps lock, power, battery, sleep). Battery & sleep then go off, then battery comes on, then num lock and caps lock go off. And that's it. No beeps, nothing on the screen.

I've tried removing hard drive & DVD, reseating the DIMM, removing battery, and removing CMOS battery, all to no avail.

Any suggestions?

[SMA]

Wellcome to the forum.

Sounds like the GPU might have come loose.
If the fan keeps spinning after power on, then that is an indication of a loose GPU, but the final proof will be if putting preasure on the chip makes the ThinkPad boot.

There is pleanty of information about this issue on the forum already. Amongst others, there is a topic with a sticky on it, at the top of the T4x section.

[unthunk]

Thanks. I did see the GPU posts, but kinda ruled it out because I can't hear the hard drive chattering and no BIOS beeps. I assumed the PC would still boot with no GPU. Is that not true?

[SMA]

It seems to me, that with the GPU error, it is BIOS locking up during post.
The symptoms does differ, but usually BIOS does not come as far as to the point where the hard drive starts chattering.
Try putting preasure on the palmrest, to the right of the touchpad, during power on. Sometimes that keeps the boot going untill the preasure is released.
If that does not make any difference, then try pressing very hard on the 3 keys D, R and F during power on. Put preasure on all 3 keys simultaniusly and
release the preasure when the ThinkPad starts beeping.

[unthunk]

You are a genius, Sir (or Madam). The DRF trick has kicked it back into life.

I'm expecting a drive caddy to be delivered today, so I'm going to dump the hard drive contents before I do anything else (saving my data my top priority). After I've done that I'll put the HD back in and see if I can boot her up properly.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[RealBlackStuff]

Rather than waste a lot of time, you are lucky you have a service point for loose GPUs in the UK.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=73945
Sent it there to get it fixed, way cheaper than buying a new motherboard.

[poshgeordie]

Hi and welcome to the forums, albeit in not so good circumstances.

I'm the person mentioned by RBS who does the graphics chip repairs, and I've send you a PM with more information.

I do have to say that the symptoms you describe are typical of a loose graphics chip, and I think you've proved that with the temporary "pressing down" solution.

Regardless of what you decide to do, please bear in mind that pressing down on the chip too many times could dislodge some of the tiny solder balls on the graphics chip, and repair then becomes a lot more difficult and expensive.