T400 won't boot -- blank screen

[Mahatma]

how odd.

my t400 was working fine. I put it into hibernation, moved it few feet, and tried to start it up, and nothing!

the hard drive light becomes dim green, but the screen never shows information

if I put a boot CD in, it grunts and spins a time or two, but won't boot from that either.

f1 doesn't invoke bios

i tried it with the battery in, and with the battery out. I've removed all cards, and connections.

never had this problem before -- is there anything to try?

sorry for the odd caps here -- i'm using my backup x60 who's keyboard needs to be replaced

any suggestions will be appreciated before i run to a repair place.

cbk

[Mahatma]

i tried removing the RAM. without any ram i got an error code (beep) and with one of 2 replaced it still didn't work

[FTC]

Hi,

This happened to me twice before.

Try this first :

Remove battery. press 10 times the power on button and the last time hold it down for 30 secs.
put battery back on and try to reboot.

And this second (most likely will be needed if the CMOS memory is corrupted)

Remove battery
(if in doubt for the following consult the HMM which can be downloaded in the lenovo site)
Remove the 4 palm rest holding screws and the palm rest
Disconnect the yellow backup battery wait 30 seconds and remount it.
Screw back palm rest and insert battery.
It should work now.

If it still does not boot, it is a hardware problem => call for service.

Now, why does this happen ? I *think* this is caused by hibernating-closing the lid too quickly while still connected to the network ... but not sure yet.

[Pete Lambert]

I had exactly the same problem. After restart, all of a sudden my Lenovo R400 didn't boot up anymore. First I thought, well maybe it's caused by the new memory I inserted, so I removed it. But still, stuck with a blank screen and leds on, fan works, but no bootup or beep codes. Tried an external LCD, but blank screen, too. I already thought my system board or graphic card died, now right after my warranty ended
But thankfully I found this thread here with the post by user FTC, which saved me a huge amount of money I guess. Your second tip worked great for me, thank you You & the board rock

Cheers,
Pete

[FTC]

Hi,

Glad it helped. The same thing happened 2-3 times again since my original post 2 years ago. Always fixed by removing battery (and backup battery), so still not fully identified the cause, but definetly this is still something that can happen to this machines (CMOS corruption) in very specific scenarios.

[Michelle]

After updating the BIOS (which, ironically, were supposed to fix this problem I didn't have before), my T400 will not boot unless the machine is either on AC power or the battery has more then ~50% charge left. The bootup sequence will start, the BIOS will post, but just after it gets through the boot loader the machine will just power off. Attempting to boot after this first occurance usually ends in it crashing at BIOS.

The battery light is always green, and after plugging into AC power, the battery shows a significant charge (40% on the lastest crash) once the machine actually boots. Attempting to re-update the BIOS gives a "You already have the newest BIOS" message, and I can't find the old version of the ant other website.

[Coburner.de]

THANK YOU FTC ! Thanks to this I got my hibernation&batterydischarge-bricked R500 working again .

YOU ARE THE MAN !

[mililani]

I just want to vouche for this. I had this same problem. This is the second time that VMWare has screwed up my HD. After trying to install VMWare workstation, my T400 froze for a long time during the installation process. I had to turn off the computer and restart. The T400 went through the boot screen but then shutdown. After I tried restarting it, I just got a black screen with no BIOS prompt or logo screen. After rebooting many times, taking out the hard drive, testing the HD on another computer, etc..., I turned to the Internets.

So, I removed the CMOS battery and the memory. I plugged it back in and turned on the T400. It sat there with a black screen again. Shoots. Finally, after 10 seconds, I heard the error beeps! Thank god! Then, I plugged the memory back in and the CMOS battery, and now I'm able to see the logo and BIOS setup screen!

You the man, FTC! Thanks for that!

[x120e user]

Thanks for the advice, all. I had a similar problem on my X120e; after the 'starting windows' screen everything would go black - starting up with the battery removed (on AC power), then putting battery back in and restarting seems to have solved it. -Aaron

[jfontecc]

FTC - I cannot thank you enough - you saved me at least $450! My next step was to buy a refurbished thinkpad from lenovo...

I purchased a used R400 6 months ago, and it worked fine and THEN - it was dead. No matter what I tried or internet suggestion I used, the computer wouldn't even try to boot (not even BIOS). Although I'm a computer programmer and work in an IT department (and consider myself pretty savvy), I couldn't find anything helpful on this problem. In addition, 2 guys I work with who work with advanced desktop support as their job and maintain all sorts of computers, including thinkpads, had pretty much given my computer a death certificate!

All I can say is you are the best - the fact that you found this out AND took the time to share - so glad there are people like you in this world!

[MikeCL]

I'm looking at a T400 on ebay and I wonder if this is the issue? The seller describes it as being it boots to BIOS on occasion but not every time it powers on.

[birajsam]

First to say hallo.
Cheers FTM for shering your knewledge.
I have same issue with my t400.
I was looking for new MB and I look this post it's work for me.
All best.

[Qing Dao]

I just wanted to say thanks for this. I had the same issue happen on my girlfriend's T400. The first try didn't fix it, but then I tried again later but pushed the power button while both batteries were removed. It then booted up perfectly.

[grandsyeux]

@FTC - worked like a charm! Thanks a bunch.
For those somewhat less tech-savvy (such as myself), here is a photo showing where to dismount the battery. There is a small easy-remove connection that you gently remove (I used pliers because my fingers were too big to grab the plastic piece Don't pull it by the wires! Good luck.


http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/ab77/g ... acd3zg.jpg <-- 2MB 2592x1936 image

Admin edit: Removed GREAT, BIG, HUGE image. Please limit images to <50KB and no more than 800x600.

[AdvRider]

Alas, the fixes here have not worked on my X120e. I encountered this black screen on boot problem for the first time today and have spent a few hours troubleshooting, to no avail. Not sure if I'd left the laptop in Sleep mode or powered off on last use, which was like two days. The X120e is my backup computer.... have had it a few years, but it has maybe 50 hours on it total.

I tried unplugging the backup battery, that didn't work. Then I tried removing the backup battery and the memory, as mililani outlined here...

So, I removed the CMOS battery and the memory. I plugged it back in and turned on the T400. It sat there with a black screen again. Shoots. Finally, after 10 seconds, I heard the error beeps! Thank god! Then, I plugged the memory back in and the CMOS battery, and now I'm able to see the logo and BIOS setup screen!

With backup battery and memory removed, plugged in AC power and turned on the X120e. I heard the "error beeps" and thought yay, this is going to do it. One difference -- mililani heard the error beeps in 10 seconds, my error beeps started immediately on pressing Power.

So powered off, reinstalled backup battery and memory, powered back up -- still the black screen.

I'd welcome any thoughts or suggestions anyone has. If I can't figure it out I'll bring to a shop to plug into an external monitor (don' have one) and see if all is intact with BIOS, hard drive etc. I suppose it could be a screen hardware issue, though that would surprise me as it was working fine, and being used under very gentle conditions. Thanks all.