T61p Major Problem -- HELP!!!

Three straight years without a problem and now suddenly my laptop turns on but 1) has no display (no LCD backlight either) 2) shows no hard disk activity at all. 4) Keyboard does not respond either (Caps/num/scroll lock indicators show no response) 3) There are no beeps.

How it occurred:

I was updating my nvidia driver and the laptop rebooted to complete installation, it was then that the problem manifested itself.

What I have tried doing:

1) I have tried using an external display to no avail.
2) I have disconnected all cables, external accessories
3) I removed the RAM and turned the laptop on which did not solve the problem and provided me with a series of beeps as well.
4) I tried inserting the two RAM sticks one by one to ensure faulty RAM was not the issue -- it still did not solve the problem

I am now completely disheartened... I am currently jobless so I cannot afford to buy another laptop at this time, neither can I afford to buy any sort of warranty. If any one has any inkling as to a solution for this particular issue please do advise! Any help at all would be much appreciated!

 

Don't worry, I don't think your computer is broken. The reason your computer was beeping, was because the ram was removed, I think. Please don't touch the hardware any more, place the ram back. If you can find a windows 7 install or Linux cd (can be downloaded google linux live cd ) please try to boot from it, change the bios to boot from the cd if it's not already set. If it the CD boots be certain it's not a hardware issue.

Please post back with results.

 

Hi graycolor, Thank you for your reply. The problem persists even with the RAM in place. All I get is a blank screen with no back light. The computer turns on with the screen blank but there is no hard disk activity. I therefore cannot access the BIOS. I have tried booting it up from a WIN7 CD but nothing happens. I do not think the keypad is working either.

 

I must have missed the no backlit part. That definitely sounds like hardware issue. Did this occur right after the update, can you clarify exactly when this issue arose. Or did you update, and a few days later the problem occurs.

 

Yes, it occurred immediately after the nvidia update when the computer restarted to complete installation. So do you think my GPU (and consequently my motherboard) is fried?

 

That seems like a pretty good bet. There's no way to fix it like the T4x machines. The fix is to replace the board. Probably your cheapest option would be to buy a board on eBay and replace it yourself. I would suggest getting one with an Intel GPU.

 

I'v got the same symptoms and it happend also after nvidia drivers update
Did you managed to fix this? Any hints what to do now?

 

Those sound like the same symptoms my T61p suffered a couple years ago when it croaked. It may well be due to that congenital disorder found in a lot of notebooks from that era, in the nVidia GPU.

If you can find a mainboard to swap out (yes, with different GPU), go for it. You might find a whole T61 online or on craigslist for under $300, though.

If not for that, T61p would've been the last computer I bought. Great computer aside from the GPU problem.

 

what drivers did you upgrade to ?

I've tried the 266.58 but got BSOD at my overclock speeds ... and thus rolled the video driver to the older one.

 

Possibility is that you bricked the video card when u upgraded the driver. if the upgrade of the driver is also a firmware upgrade and something gone wrong, you will get the symptom of no POST. may you can talk to Lenovo support and see if there is some way to roll back the an older firmware. It will be like un-bricking a wrt54g router. Best wishes and God Bless your T60p.

 

Try an external screen?

When you say you disconnected everything, did you also disconnect the battery and wait for a few minutes before switching it back on? Just for fun you could also remove the HDD and boot from CD to make sure it's not the harddisk.