T61 Won't boot and gives beep error

[kd3yt1]

Stepdaughter just called and stated she left her laptop in her car overnight and it was quite cold last night. She is going to law school in Vermont. When she turned it on, all she got was a series of 4 beeps - 4 beeps four times. Did the usual search on here and got a link to IBM showing what beep error codes means and it said this series of beeps are caused by "System Board (Security Chip)". Does this indicate the system board is fried or would it just be the Security Chip??

[richk]

First, warm it up and try again. They don't like really cold (or hot). 4 sets of 4 beeps generally cannot be fixed. I would try to unplug it and remove the battery. (If you feel like removing the palmrest and keyboard, also disconnect the CMOS battery.) Push the power button several times (5???) holding it for 10 seconds on the last time. Hook it back up and try again.

[kd3yt1]

Richk,
Thanks for the quick reply. Question: When you are pushing the power button, is this with the battery out and should it be plugged into the power adapter? Or no power at all when pushing button. I have to tell her to do these things by phone as she is 11 hours away!! I do not think she would be comfortable taking keyboard and palmrest out to get to cmos battery. I did suggest she have the college IT dept look at it on monday.

[richk]

No battery, no power. You are trying to completely drain everything of power for a full reset. The power button drains any capacitors which may be holding power.

[kd3yt1]

If the above does not work, could I get her back up if I talked her into disabling security chip in bios??

[richk]

No. 4 sets of 4 beeps = dead board

[beeblebrox]

No. 4 sets of 4 beeps = dead board

No, board ist ok.
You need to reset the security chip. Technically quite easy to do.
You can google for the schematics to build it yourself and download the software.
There are folks here on the forum who can do this too, but you should better provide some ID to show that you are the owner of the notebook. Same with professional firms. They will do it with a quick data logger, if you can prove ownership of the Thinkpad.