Dead motherboard after successful BIOS update in X301?

I did a BIOS update. Went smoothly and was working fine. Suddenly it's stopped booting. Just a blank screen. Is this indicative of a dead motherboard?

 

try to reboot it again, also you want to take the cmos battery off for a couple of minutes and then replug it back.

 

Tried both. I just got this thing today, hope I don't have to send it back.

 

maybe you should send it back.

 

Looks like it. But now I'm weary of getting another X301. Looking at the the lenovo's forum, looks like others had an issue of it taking 10min to boot after a bios update. For them pulling the cmos battery fixed the problem. Since the volume of this model was so low, I'm a bit weary of lack of support for it (esp now that they've axed the entire line) and parts expense if something breaks out of warranty.

I was planning to make a decision on whether to go with the X301 or keep my T400, but I haven't even gotten the chance yet.

The size/weight difference between the two is just ridiculous though making it really apparent how porky the T-series has become since the T60.

 

what you read on forums should be taken with salt.   when things are going great, no one posts about their positive experiences.   when things go wrong however (as they have in your case), you can expect to hear about it.

i've owned an X300 and two X301s and none of them have had any issues whatsoever.   in fact, i'm so happy with my X301 that you'll probably never hear about it.

i've updated two X301 BIOSes in the last month and both went perfectly fine -- one with an SU9400 and one with an SU9600.   i see zero reason to assume there is some sort of failure pattern happening.   logic always prevails over paranoia.   don't be paranoid.

regarding parts prices increasing on older models, it tends to be the exact opposite.   sure, some parts are expensive but typically things don't increase just because a system has been discontinued.   you have to keep in mind that enough spare parts are kept on-hand by IBM to service systems for at least five years since that's the maximum warranty one can purchase.

regarding your specific issue, call support and work it through.   if it can be fixed then you'll have it repaired in a couple of weeks.   who knows, it could be something simple that tech can work through on the phone.

 

erik you're spot on about potential reliability of these models. That was an impulsive post out of frustration.

As for warranty support, it doesn't have any and there won't be an option for it either. This seems to be some pre-production unit. It's got only one label on the bottom with a model number that I don't think exists (2774-AOU). The serial doesn't come up in Lenovo's site either. And it came with BIOS 0.03. A lot of hardware wouldn't install until I upgraded it.

I'm a bit weary of the screen in the X301. The contrast is not nearly as good as the led LG panel in my T400 and it's a little grainy which other users and some reviews have complained about with the X300 and X301 (I believe they use the same TMD model), although some people don't seem to have the graininess.

 

if it's the one that recently sold on ebay then yeah, that's a demo unit and probably should have remained an internal asset.   these systems occasionally get sold or given to employees and then wind up in public.   because they aren't ship-level systems, you wind up with a few issue -- as you've discovered.   it's the risk one has to take when buying demo or pre-pro units.

on the display, go into the intel display control panel and find the color control button on the left.   move the contrast slider for all channels from 50 down to 40.   move the green channel gamma to -5 and the blue channel gamma to -10.   save the changes and exit.   at 100% brightness the display should now look quite respectable and be closely corrected for color cast.

if the above doesn't compute then i'll take some screenshots when i get a chance -- possibly tomorrow.

TMD's thin panels seem to have some nasty contrast settings from the factory and began in the ultralight panels on the X60s/X61s.   the X300/X301 isn't any different but TMD's design shortcomings were exacerbated with the LED backlight in the X30x.