Lenovo Thinkpad won't POST, fan on, and no indicator lights when plugged into wall.

OJTheAviator · August 23, 2022

Hello.

I've got a Lenovo Thinkpad L13. I had it powered down earlier today, and tried to power it back up this afternoon. Upon pressing the power button, the fan ramped up to full speed, yet nothing happened on the display. After waiting for a minute or two with nothing happening, I tried powering it down by holding the power button, however the fan remained on. At a loss, I plugged it into wall power and no lights blinked as they would normally to indicate charging (and I've checked that the charger works with another device).

I'm thinking my best bet is to try to open it up even though the fan is running and disconnect the battery manually, then press the power button to let everything discharge, them plug the batter back in and try again. Is this a good idea? Is there any hope for this machine?

Luckily I've got an entire copy of the drive from about a month ago, so nothing critical should be gone. Still, would like to have the data on there if possible, in case something important is there. Any recommendations for order of operations regarding taking out the SSD/dealing with data?

This is really not what I wanted to be dealing with my first week of classes this year - my major has given me enough to worry about . Any help would be absolutely wonderful!!

Edit: just remembered I need to include system info. It's currently not operable so I don't know all the details offhand but it's got an i7 10th gen, 1TB NVME SSD (upgraded from default 500GB model), Windows 11 and PopOS dual booted (upgraded from Windows 10 originally, running Windows 11 at time of shutdown before incident)

OddOod · August 23, 2022

Have you tried plugging it into an external monitor?
Also, I assume you held the power button for a full 20 seconds.

OJTheAviator · August 23, 2022

1 minute ago, OddOod said:

Have you tried plugging it into an external monitor?
Also, I assume you held the power button for a full 20 seconds.

Thanks for the idea about the monitor, but sadly there's no signal. And indeed I held the power button for 20+ seconds, with a timer, but the fan is still going at full blast and nothing appears to happen.

OddOod · August 23, 2022

Shit's bricked. Let it run the power out and in the meantime contact Customer Support

OJTheAviator · August 23, 2022

I solved it! TLDR unplugging the internal battery, pressing power a few times, then plugging it back in worked.

I opened it up, went ahead and unplugged the battery (fan stopped of course), then took out the SSD to err on the side of caution, in case something crazy happened next. Pressed power a few times to make sure it was absolutely off, then plugged the battery back in. Pressed power once, and it POSTed! Powered back down, unplugged once again, put back in SSD, and reassembled. It seems good to go now!