The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Lenovo SL500 Thinkpad not powering up

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by themoriniman, Jun 30, 2011.

  1. themoriniman

    themoriniman Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    2
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Hi. Just took my wife's Thinkpad apart as it wouldn't respond at all to pressing the power button. I was allowed to have a play with it after it wouldn't work at all; the history is that a fan error message came up several times previously, so firstly I cleaned out lots of dust and still it would not work. Discovered a little about the fan and it ran fine on a 3v battery, so lucky I didn't buy a new one thinking this was the problem! The battery voltage is well over 11volts and the adapter output is the required 20volts so that doesn't seem to be the problem. The stage I'm at now is with an almost bare motherboard and when I connect the battery the voltage across the + and - terminals goes down to almost zero (about 0,25volts). I have tried to test if any capacitors have shorted out and haven't found any yet. I'm guessing there is a short circuit somewhere, but cannot see where the battery terminals go to on the motherboard. I'm almost resigned to the need of buying a good motherboard, but thought i'd see if anyone knows what the problem might be or if any advice can be offered? Thanks for reading this. :)
     
    themoriniman, Jun 30, 2011
    #1
  2. themoriniman

    themoriniman Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    2
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Success! After some time with the bits lying around on the table and with a suggestion from a family member about trying another power supply (I didn't have one) I reconnected the power switch to the motherboard and with the adapter plugged in but the battery disconnected the power button light came on and one of the front leds also come on. I checked the voltage across the outer battery pins and it was around 0.25V as before. Connecting the battery made no difference and the leds worked with the battery instead of the adapter. I took this as a positive sign and reassembled the laptop and lo and behold it worked as it should. My wife was happy, but complained about the fan noise so I took it apart and lubricated the spindle with a little 3 in 1 oil and it all seems pretty quiet now. As she is fussy about background noise I am considering dropping the CPU voltage using a free programme to keep the fan off as long as possible. I'll post an update later.
     
    themoriniman, Jul 11, 2011
    #2