CL56 hibernated, now won't boot at all

Yes, that's a CL56.

I had sound turned off, so I didn't hear the low-battery beeps. XP told me it's hibernating, and the machine switched off. No big deal, this has happened before.

First I thought it just wouldn't come out of hibernate mode. Then I tried powering off and then on again. Now it's basically a plastic brick. Waiting, letting the battery sit out a while, powering on without battery -- it does nothing. The function keys don't work, the screen is dark, I hear the fans and see the power light, but otherwise it's dead.

Any way to salvage my faithful companion of four years?

 

Try removing both the AC and battery. Hold the power button down for a minute.

Then, plug just the AC back in and try to boot the laptop. If it boots, shut down again and then plug the battery in. If it does not work, repeat the above procedure but hold the button down for a little longer (two minutes). Try again, then move to the next step below if that does not work.

If that does not work and you are brave, try removing the CMOS battery from inside the laptop. Do not hold me accountable for your breaking the laptop if something goes wrong though.

Removing the CMOS coin-cell battery should reset all non-password information in BIOS to their default values and should give you the best change to salvage the laptop if it is a BIOS related issue.

 

Update: followed Greg's advice in a nutshell, except I bridged the J1 "jumper" (just a patch) under the RAM chip instead of looking for the battery. It booted. Thanks much!