T60 dead over night, indicator lights go off on power up

[wulfman]

hey everyone,

I just moved to Tanzania two days ago, and while I was settling down my T60 stopped working over night. It was in stand-by over night, but all lights were off in the morning. When I reseated the battery and the power brick, the charging / power connected symbols came up, but as soon as I pressed the power button, everything went dead.

Cleaned the whole thinkpad today to rule out ants & dust, but just ran out of ideas.

any suggestions?

cheers,
w.

[RealBlackStuff]

This is ajkula66's favorite:

Remove the battery, hard and media drives. Unplug the adapter. Press the "power" button ten times in a row, holding it down for ten seconds each time, and thirty seconds the last time around.
Plug the adapter - but nothing else - back and try to power on.

BTW: are you running DC from the mains by any chance, instead of AC?

[wulfman]

I tried that trick already yesterday, did not work. however, after the thinkpad was disconnected from everything (battery/AC) over night, it worked for about 5 seconds (long enough to show a post screen), then failed again.

maybe of interest: once the T60 fails, I have to disconnect every power source before being able to "start" it again, otherwise there is no reaction at all.

I tried using either a regular power brick, the smaller travel power brick or a fully charged battery, and combinations thereof, with no result.

I'm connected to a stablized AC source, another thinkpad is working fine with both the power supply units.

thanks,
w

[RealBlackStuff]

Remove both RAM modules. Then try to boot.
If there is any life left in the motherboard, it should beep 1-3-3-1.
If not, your mobo is probably toast...

If it beeps, insert 1 RAM module, then try again. Do the same with the other module. Alternate slots.
Good luck.

[wulfman]

I already took it completely apart, without any changes or beeps. I thought the combination of dust, ants & high humidity might have caused problems and tried to clean it as thoroughly as possible, but nothing changed. removing the wlan-card etc didn't change anything either... tough luck, I guess.

mfg
wulfman

[RealBlackStuff]

I noticed your looking for another T60 in the market forum.
Where you are right now, you may be better off with a Panasonic Toughbook.
Doesn't have the trackpoint, but is otherwise ideally suited for your African environment!

[wulfman]

probably true, and thanks for the advice. I'm only going to be here for 4 months, and mostly in somewhat protected settings. my older T23 did just fine a few years back (except for some tiny ants running around on the reflecting background of the display, creating mobile dead pixels, among other issues). given how much a T60 is going for at the moment, I'm not too worried if I have to replace it again in a year or two. and the missing trackpoint is kind of a deal breaker.

mfg
w

[wulfman]

for future reference & anyone unlucky enough to have the same problem: don't despair.

as I said, I completely took the T60 apart the day after it went dead (completely meaning "I had the bare system board in my hands"), and cleaned everything - no change, 2 days, 5 days later - nothing, even with the "press power button to release static electricity" trick.

about two weeks later I reconnected the battery and the power brick (more out of boredom than anything else), and surprise: it worked again. on first boot it gave some error, and I had to enter the date & time - but otherwise it has been running just fine for the last few days.

[edit] just noticed - apparently the set start-up password / fingerprint was also deleted and had to be entered again.

maybe whatever African insect crawled in before was finally too dry to cause a short, or something just had to discharge.

mfg
w