Solved! "Dead" ThinkPad T61 came to life after 3.5 years...but only once...

MEA707

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Apr 12, 2017
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510
I have an old Lenovo ThinkPad T61 that stopped booting in September 2013. Immediately when you power it on, the LED indicators come on and the fan and HDD can be heard spinning, but it doesn't proceed further. Not even a flicker on the screen, with the screen completely blank and none of the keystrokes on the keyboard do anything.

It's one with an Nvidia discrete graphics that were known to prematurely fail due to a defect in the chip. More details here:
http://t61.wikispaces.com/home#nvidia

I suspected this is what failed, and figured after 5.5 years of use, it was time to replace it, so I got a ThinkPad T440p, which I use to this day, and never looked back.

Today I decided for fun to just see if the old T61 will power up, after 3.5 years, so I popped in the hard drive (I had removed it to copy files I had on it over to the T440p via an external enclosure).

Miraculously, it booted up just fine, and I was able to log into Windows no problem. After tinkering around with it for a few minutes, I shut it down to see if it would then boot up again.

It did not, back to the same blank screen, with just the LED lights on, and the hum of the fan and hard drive spinning.

My question is why was it able to turn on once, after 3.5 years, and back to being dead again? If it is the GPU failure, shouldn't it have just never turned on once after 3.5 years to begin with?

I tried removing the hard drive again, removed the CMOS battery, removed the RAM sticks, pressed the power button 10 times to clear it of any current, but it did not bring it back to life. Maybe it'll power up once again after another 3.5 years? :)
 
Solution
Did you ever try hooking up an external monitor to it? That would let you know if it is the GPU or the Display (or even the cable that connects the display) that is the problem.

If anything shows on an external monitor, then it isn't the GPU.

Also, since you say it turned on once, moving it around may have temporarily made a connection work that didn't before. It could be the cable is loose, or there is something within the display itself. I would really start with hooking up that external monitor. :)
Did you ever try hooking up an external monitor to it? That would let you know if it is the GPU or the Display (or even the cable that connects the display) that is the problem.

If anything shows on an external monitor, then it isn't the GPU.

Also, since you say it turned on once, moving it around may have temporarily made a connection work that didn't before. It could be the cable is loose, or there is something within the display itself. I would really start with hooking up that external monitor. :)
 
Solution

MEA707

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Apr 12, 2017
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510


Hi there,

Thanks for the reply. I actually don't have an external monitor at home. I will try at a friend's house and see.

Just to be clear though, the failed boot doesn't even load Windows or anything, you don't hear any sound or clicking noise on the hard drive. All you hear is the hard drive spinning smoothly (with no clicking) and the fan running. I don't even think the BIOS is attempting to boot. It's as if it's brain dead.
 

PlayMoar

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Apr 12, 2017
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510
Wow... never heard of this happening. My only logical answer is that you pressed the GPU for a long time and it just couldn't handle it. Then it had some time to relax. Of course I'm speaking metaphorically, but since the CPU is the "brain" of the computer, it could have gotten overheated and it shut down, just like a human does during. A heat stroke