Help My Z61t Died

Yesterday morning I shut my laptop down as usual and when I went to turn it on that evening nothing. I thought that's odd but maybe the battery died so I plugged it in and viola nothing. When I say nothing I mean absolutely no response to the on button. I am going to double check voltage from the AC adapter but it seems unlikely that both the battery and adapter have stopped working at the same time. I'm wondering if there is a fuse on the power that may have blown although if there is it is pretty well buried and most of the time fuses blow for a reason. So I'm wondering if anyone has had a similar experience or some insight into the possible cause/fix?

Thanks

 

Usually, most people would generally jump to the conclusion that the motherboard has given up the ghost.

However, my personal experience has taught me that it helps to troubleshoot from the least complex upwards - if only to save yourself the time & trouble of lost productivity.

For eg, start from swapping the socket-to-adaptor cable. If that revives your ThinkPad, then therein lies your problem - that was what happened in my case. Otherwise, escalate to the adaptor and swap it with a proven working device, if not start checking your fuses (as you mentioned), etc and try other sockets in your house to see if it works.

 

It's definitely possible. You'll need to find the fuse and replace it without damaging the motherboard, which can be tough. You might want to post this over on ThinkPads.com. They're a bit more techy over there when it comes to the hardware side. Good Luck.

 

Thank you Thinkpad.Forever & Zaz, I will probably do a little more troubleshooting and post over on the Thinkpads.com, & start thinking about replacements

 

if you plug in the power, does your LED lights come on??

If you take out your ram modules, all the battery and AC adapter, press your power on button ten times, in 30 secs interval.

Also if you can try to start the laptop without the ram, does it power on and also does it beep???

was the laptop overheating before this episode occur???

 

Try lead org advice, it generally worked on my T42p when it refused to power up.

 

Hi lead org,

No the led does not light & it was not overheating prior to failure.

It certainly was odd the way it failed although 1 thing that happened twice in the day or 2 before it died was that it locked up, which I assumed might have been caused by 1 of the recent programs that I dl'ed. Other than that it had been working as usual.

 

i have a Z61t that i bought from a friend because he was complaining so much about how bad Thinkpads are.

Basically the problem it had was that it was constantly locking up and shutting down when it reached 75 degrees celsius in Dual Core mode, if i disabled Dual Core support, it would work alright. This problem also happened to a second Z61t my friend bought at the same time, not sure whether that is bad luck or coincidence.

The only way i fixed the problem was to change the motherboard, so i am not sure whether that is the pathway you would want to go down too.

I am curious what CPU and GPU did you have?

 

Z61t only offers the Intel GPU.

 

my bad sorry for the oversight.

 

All in all I've been pretty happy w/ it for 2 1/2 yrs, the biggest fault is how flimsy & flexible the plastic is especially in the front. I recently had a memory chip go south but it could easily have been related to the location and the flex of the plastic.

I guess the questions are;
1. Since there is no led is your earlier suggestion "If you take out your ram modules, all the battery and AC adapter, press your power on button ten times, in 30 secs interval." still worth trying?

2. Are there indeed fuses and where are they located?

3. How can I be certain if it is the motherboard & how much do they run?

Thanks

 

1. Anything free is worth trying, so try it since it only takes couple of minutes.

2. Not sure where.

3. The lack of LED light and not starting up is a good indication of the motherboard problem, unless the motherboard and LED indicators fail at the same time, which is unlikely as compared to the motherboard going bad.

The motherboard for Z61t runs around 100 to 200 dollars on ebay, you can also try marketplace forum.thinkpads.com

the manual on how to remove the motherboard is included here:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-64203.html

 

As long as you don't break anything.

The planar is easy to replace as compared to the LCD.

 

In the words of Jim Neighbors AKA Gomer Pyle, Shazam, Shazam, Shazam!!!!, although I didn't wait more than a couple of seconds between the first 10 times but 30 secs. before the 11th based on some other posts that I read.

Thanks a lot lead org & ZaZ!