Another T40 that will not start

[micl9]

Hey All,
I have read thru a bunch of the threads and had some PM discussions with underclocker, but I want to see if there is anything I missed before I bite the bullet to start repairs... Or decide to part out.
I bought the T40 in my sig about 2-3 weeks ago. Really nice shape. Had to replace the HDD as the original was kicking errors. Did a full recovery from the CDs and everything was fine. During the course of upgrading memory from 512 to 2GB I had some issues where 1 of the new sticks would not boot. No beeps, black screen, pwr and batt lights on, fan running. Tried this stick in both slots same thing. Using my existing 512 and the functioning 1GB stick everything worked fine. I got an additional 1GB stick and it did the same no startup. Should find out soon if this memory works in another machine.
Up until now the machine ran great - 4 hours on battery - 1-2 days on ac, ran fine and never shut down for about a week plus.
Set my wife up with a docking station and an extra monitor (running with internal LCD and an external LCD monitor as an extended desk top). This was fine for another week. Laptop was on over night and the next day it was off and would not power up at all, completely dead. Pulled the battery and it started fine and booted to windows. After ~5 min, dead again. Pulled the battery and replaced with different one. Booted and then after ~5 min dead again. Went thru this a few times until it got to the point that it would not start - exact same conditions as when I was trying to get the RAM to work, No beeps, black screen, pwr and batt lights on, fan running.
After reading thru this forum I tried the pwr key push and hold, push 10x etc. Still would not start. Pulled all RAM, HDD, DVD, etc. Tried to start - no beeps, same lights and fan noise. Ok so no beeps means dead mobo. Not happy as this is (was) a really nice laptop.
So next day I tried the power button and I got the "no RAM" beeps. So I popped my original 512 and HDD back in and booted to windows! But it soon died as above. Tried again and it died during XP load and then would not start.
All during these shutdowns the laptop was sitting on a table.
I tried pushing on the GPU to see if it would start with no luck.
Graphics have never acted strange.
Also tried when hooked up to an external monitor with same bad results and a 2 blank screens.
As this seems to be heat related (maybe?), tonight I will try another forum suggestion and put some fresh thermal paste on the CPU.
The laptop has a 2007 date, so I assume towards the end of the T40 production run - Did IBM NEVER fix this issue?

Anyway I apologize for the long narrative and rehashing what I am sure is a very known issue, but I could not find any experiences that are exactly like what I am seeing.

I would greatly appreciate any help

[sojourner]

Hi micl9, welcome to the forums (albeit, wish it was under better circumstances)!

You've already taked with underclocker, he's quite experienced with these things so I HOPE someone can help. Your T40 sounds like a nice TP and hopefully you'll get it working.

first thoughts:
- being you think the issue may be heat related, and you live in NC (and it's winter), take the TP outside for a while, give the mobo a chance to get cold then start it up. If it works the LCD will be quite dim (they don't like the cold).
- when you fire it up, quickly do a complete diagnostic check with PC-Doctor
- before you do any of this strip the PC of any unnecessary adapters (BT/modem, WIFI, no dock, no USB acessories, only one good stick of RAM, etc. The idea is to eliminate as many variables as possible because sometimes bad hardware (other than the MOBO) can cause these issues too.

From your description, if it isn't accessory hardware causing the issue I think either a bad / broken trace, cold solder joint or bad component is the problem, all of which are likely fixable.

Lastly, because you think the issue is heat related, it wouldn't hurt to take a GOOD look at the electronics inside (even under magnification) and see if any components look burnt, or even smell 'funny'. Also, Radio Shack might still sell a cold spray for troubleshooting electronics. I've used it to cool suspected components and narrowed down the culprit that way, works good!

[ajkula66]

Furthermore, I sincerely doubt that you're reading the date correctly...by 2007 T40s were long gone...

[micl9]

Thnaks for the replys guys!
@ sojourner
I will try chillin it

@ajkula66
doh!
so the 03/07 after the S/N is not month/year?

[ajkula66]

July of 2003 that is...

[micl9]

Well I tried cold.
It actually seemed to help as she booted to windows and ran for a few minutes as I tried to run PC Dr. Then I realized the fan had stopped! About that time it locked up and I did a hard pwr down. Seems the fan runs until windows starts - AFAIK I don't have any windows settings that would affect that.

One additional gem of info - the touch pad is dead. Took me forever to figure out how to get the touch point working when I first got the laptop. Turned out a bad touchpad will not allow the touch point to work either. Disabling the touch pad in BIOS fixed it. Well what I was getting at is that whatever killed the touch pad may have done more.

I give up for tonight....

[sojourner]

well, you are making progress!

few more things I'd try:
- disconnect touchpad from mobo
(if you need to use a mouse try a USB mouse, otherwise it's best for now to simply use KB commands)
- switch RAM to other slot
- let laptop chill a little further before trying again (in the hope of longer run time)
- consider buying an aerosol can of "Component Cooler" (Radio Shack #64-4321) and using it

BTW, didn't mention in previous post to be sure to insulate the WIFI and BT antenna leads once they're disconnected. This will insure they don't short something on the MOBO (that's really important).

Just curious, are you sure the CPU heatsink is installed and working properly? Reason I ask is because from everything you've said it sure seems there is a thermal related problem. Whether it's CPU related?? Voltage regulators?? Do you have a different CPU to try? Curious too, have you removed the palm-rest and rested the KB in a way it will not short anything but you'd have access to the MOBO? That would allow you to 'feel' components for excess heat, see any smoke, spray component cooler, view the fan, etc., all of which can aid as you troubleshoot.

[micl9]

few more things I'd try:
- disconnect touchpad from mobo
(if you need to use a mouse try a USB mouse, otherwise it's best for now to simply use KB commands)
- switch RAM to other slot
- let laptop chill a little further before trying again (in the hope of longer run time)
- consider buying an aerosol can of "Component Cooler" (Radio Shack #64-4321) and using it

Will try that tonight

BTW, didn't mention in previous post to be sure to insulate the WIFI and BT antenna leads once they're disconnected. This will insure they don't short something on the MOBO (that's really important).

Actually forgot to disconnect these, will try that tonight. Thanks for the heads up.

Just curious, are you sure the CPU heatsink is installed and working properly? Reason I ask is because from everything you've said it sure seems there is a thermal related problem. Whether it's CPU related?? Voltage regulators?? Do you have a different CPU to try? Curious too, have you removed the palm-rest and rested the KB in a way it will not short anything but you'd have access to the MOBO? That would allow you to 'feel' components for excess heat, see any smoke, spray component cooler, view the fan, etc., all of which can aid as you troubleshoot.

AFAIK heatsink is installed correctly, I have not removed it. Does seem thermal (or capacitive) but it did work fine when I first got it.
No extra CPU...
I have not removed palm rest - but did have keayboard up to see fan (not running!).
Surprisingly the heat sink did not get that hot when it booted into windows and ran with no fan for 3-5 minutes.

[micl9]

Weird
Was able to boot into windows and run pc dr, actually Lenovo tool kit
No issues where reported when it started up. I tested RAM, CPU, Mobo, and GPU - all passed.
But again fan turned on with the power up and turned off after IBM screen when XP started. It NEVER turned on again. Was powered up for over 5min. Running in my 39 or 40 deg garage.
Shut off for an hour or so in the garage and it will not restart. Weird because everything was definitely cooled back down.
I also tried to get to the per XP diagnostics, but I no longer get the white background menu screen. I only get the option to go to BIOS, select boot drive or shutdown.
I know I had the white boot screen on my original HDD. I used the recovery CDs to restore the new drive, but I do not recall if I ever had to go thru the white screen to get to BIOS with this new HDD.

I will wait till tomorrow and try installing and running speedfan.

Question: what temp sensor drives the fan?

[sojourner]

Glad to see it was running again! Considering all you've said, the diagnostic being ok, I cannot help but think there's a problem in the power section of the MOBO, an intermittent component failure due to heat. If it starts again after sitting in the garage for hours, I'd go buy the component cooler spray from radio shack and narrow down exactly which component it is before it fails completely.

Went looking for a schematic or even a block diagram of the MOBO but found nothing! Was surprised. Did manage to find these however:
http://rushdie.mine.nu/pics/t43_up_yupwsp.jpg (likely power section)
http://dbhome.dk/sma/t41/t41_block_01_v1.1.pdf

Regarding the fan ... it's likely ok, just not staying on because it's so cold; or, are you running battery? That'd explain it too (CPU would really be throttled down).

Regarding software, not familiar with 'speedfan' but NHC (Notebook Hardware Control) is very nice, gives numerous temps, controls fan, voltage etc.

Let us know how you make out.

[micl9]

Well 2 days have passed an I have not had anytime to further debug my T40. Really frustrating was had no power weds night and I wanted to test with the ac adapter connected.
I have decided to admit the inevitable, that my mobo is bad, and have ordered a T42 (red dot) mobo from George.
I will update my progress post swap.

One question - post swap, do I consider this a T40 or T42 when updating drivers and recovery CD?

[micl9]

Well everything went great with my T42 swap out and I now have a really nice T42. Thanks again to George

My T40 carcass was lying around and I decided for grins to drop it into my dock. It fired right up -AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
So right now it is running Prime95 for about 40 minutes.
Can you guys recommend a good stress test for the GPU?

Ok after tinkering around it is up and running off a HDD - original test above was running off the CD (UBCD for Windows)
HERE'S a pic of my testing.
When running just Prime95 CPU temp stabilized at 70°C, when running Prime 95 and Lenovo Sys Tools Stress Test it dips down to ~62°C periodically. Seems to coincide with one of the stress tests.
I have pushed down on the GPU with no ill affect.
Hardware wise everything is removed except 512MB RAM, a 60GB HDD, DVD ROM (same parts as when it was not starting) and the battery (diff than before but had tried 3 differnt batts before). Big difference is the keybd, palm-rest and LCD are not installed. These parts where transplanted to my T42 and it works fine. Oh and that "bad" touchpad, I took it apart and cleaned it up with contact cleaner. Works fine now.

Ok stress tests have been running for over 2 hours now, may run it over night if I don't chicken out.

[prajkuma009]

Hi Mike,

I know I'm way too late to be in on this conversation, but I just got a T40 for repair from a very close friend of mine. I seem to be having the same issues as you are.

The only difference is that I've got the fan spinning, but the display keeps going off randomly. I've managed to recover the hard Drive using the Access IBM tool.

The first few minutes seem to go great, but then my mouse pointer freezes up and so does the touchpad. The keyboard doesn't work either.

I'm seriously considering buying another mobo, cos I need to fix this for my buddy - there's no financial benefits for me from this.

Do let me know if and how you managed to fix your problem.

PN

[micl9]

Well after playing around with the base in a docking station for a few weeks and having no issues, I bit the bullet and bought a doner T42 here on the forum. Slowly added parts and tested for a couple of days each time with no issues. Now I again have a complete T40 that runs great and has the added benefit of a processor upgrade (from a 1.6GHz Banias to a 1.7GHz Dothan).
I guess I got lucky and the old unplug EVERYTHING and replug solved the problem.

Now to decide do I give it to my 9 yr old or sell it.