T60p standby crash - speaker sound gone?

[gaphic2]

Had a bit of a scare this morning. After waking my T60p from hibernate and using it for about an hour I closed the lid and it went into standby. An hour later, I noticed that the moon icon light was out.

Imagine my surprise when I pressed the power button - no effect. I plugged in the power - no lights, no nothing!

I removed the battery and the hard drive and began dismantling: palmrest, keyboard. At that point, I plugged the power back in, and yes, the indicator lights were back. I put the keyboard back and pressed the power button. The start-up sequence was ok, but there was a cracking sound through the speakers, and that's the last sound I've heard.

After putting the HDD back, I'm now running my weekly HDD full image backup (which I always do on a Saturday) and I did the daily incremental file backup yesterday, so I'm not worried about losing any data.

As for the sound, could someone suggest a fault finding procedure to find out what's wrong and what needs to be replaced?

[Harryc]

You could start by running PC-Doctor to see if it finds anything wrong.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... 56222.html

[gaphic2]

Thanks, Harryc.

No, Pc-Doctor does not report any problems.

I checked the headphone audio, and there is audio but almost inaudible at the maximum volume setting.
Any thoughts?

[Harryc]

Boot up a Linux Live CD and see if the problem carries over to Linux. Linux Mint is a good one because it will play MP3's out of the box.
http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

[gaphic2]

Burning the DVD now.

Weird, contrary to what I first reported, the audio jack does seem to be functioning at top level. I just can't push it all the way in, then the left audio drops away.

[gaphic2]

Mmm, no joy with linux. Couldn't get any sounds, not on the headphones either. Probably some audio driver missing?

Anyway, I'm fairly confident the speaker assebly is the culprit. I have another T60 standing by - acquired especially for these kind of emergencies. I've looked at the maintenance manual on how to remove it. There's some video around as well I think on how to strip a Thinkpad.

[Harryc]

Audio should work on a T60P out of the box on Linux Mint, it does on mine. No additional driver is needed. It is looking like a hardware issue with the T60P.

[gaphic2]

Yeah, I think it does. Well, I've found the videos, I've got the two patients standing by.

I'm going in. Wish me luck.

[gaphic2]

Hmm, posting this from the donor T60, I've re-assembled it in the meantime.
The speaker assembly seems OK, oddly enough.

So it's probably the mainboard on the other Thinkpad? Or a temporary glitch?
I'll put that one together in a minute and we'll see.

By the way, if you're doing your first complete strip of a Thinkpad, I can highly recommend the videos at http://www.lenovoservicetraining.com/io ... index.html

[gaphic2]

Nope, back on the original machine and still no sound though the speakers.

Still, the strip-down wasn't a complete waste of time. I managed to put back the ultrabay ejection lever, which had fallen out of the machine a couple of months ago. I gave the inside a thorough clean as well.

So what am I left with? Mainboard trouble or is it after all a software issue?
The only recent change was an install of Dropbox - could that be the cause?

[richk]

I assume you tried the mute button (next to the blue thinkvantage one) It is a toggle.

[gaphic2]

Yes, that's not it.

I swapped the hard drive over to the other T60 and yes, there was sound - so it's definitely a hardware issue.

Question is where? Are there any Thinkpad specific mobo diagnostic tools out there?

[Harryc]

You already ran it, PC-Doctor. It doesn't catch everything though. It sounds like you're looking at replacing the systemboard unless you can troubleshoot the audio circuit.

[gaphic2]

Yeah, looks like it.

I was encouraged by that double transplant today. I might get a used T60p and look into creating a Frankenpad that supports SATA II speeds. I've seen some threads dealing with that.

[RealBlackStuff]

Only the T61/R61/X61 can be BIOS modded to run HDs at SATA II speed.
The T60/p has a chip limitation to only SATA I and cannot be modded.

[gaphic2]

Yes, I'm aware of that. I was thinking of using a 4:3 14" T61 mainboard. It's been successfully done by several members here. Drawback is the GPU. Isn't the nvidia FX 570m 128 Mb a step back from an ATI Firegl 256 Mb?