Lenovo Thinkpad x230 Laptop Turns On and Off On and Off

[RYoder1997]

Hey there guys. I recently acquired a Thinkpad x230 laptop from a customer of my small electronics store. He said I could have it because it suddenly stopped turning on.

 

I tried to fix it in front of him, but did not have the proper tools. He said I could keep it. Now I'm at home with the laptop mostly disassembled, and am troubleshooting. I've posted on Reddit already, but I thought I'd post here to get the most feedback.

 

When the power key is pressed, the computer powers on, but only briefly. It dies seconds after turning on. No video output even. I tried powering it with and without the battery inserted to no avail. I've also re-seated the RAM and tried different RAM, and have also re-seated the 500GB mechanical hard drive as well. A Reddit user had a similar issue with a different model, and apparently the issue was resolved by removing the RAM and unplugging the CMOS for 1 minute, then plugging everything back in. I have tried that twice now to no avail. Just on and then off, on and then off. The light near the webcam flashes through this process as well as it turns on and off.

 

BUT WAIT. IT GETS WEIRD. 

 

Trying to power it on without RAM inserted yields no display output, but the laptop does stay powered on and beeps to indicate no RAM is inserted.

 

How can it not power on with all the components inserted, but it can power on without RAM inserted at all? As I said I've tried a few different sticks of RAM and still no luck while its inserted.

 

What's going on, exactly? Have you guys ever had a similar issue with a Thinkpad? How did you fix it? 

Any insight would be awesome. Thanks guys!

 

-Rick

[TechyBen]

Have you tried turning it off and on again? /troll

 

RAM error will cause a reboot loop/shutdown I would assume. No RAM just causes a boot error, and does not shut down.

 

Retry the ram, 1 stick etc. Check USB is not shorted somewhere.

[RYoder1997]

5 minutes ago, TechyBen said:

Have you tried turning it off and on again? /troll

 

RAM error will cause a reboot loop/shutdown I would assume. No RAM just causes a boot error, and does not shut down.

 

Retry the ram, 1 stick etc. Check USB is not shorted somewhere.

How do I check if the USB isn't shorted?

[TechyBen]

Looking physically, if one of the pins is bent or missing.

[RYoder1997]

3 minutes ago, TechyBen said:

Looking physically, if one of the pins is bent or missing.

Ah okay. Those look fine. I will see about just ordering a stick of brand new, never used RAM off of Amazon for Free One Day shipping and see if it will work then. Any thoughts on the CMOS battery?

[TechyBen]

Yeah, that would reset the settings. But a new one should be fine. I think I remember at least one laptop I saw refused to boot with a old/dead CMOS battery (or it may have been a motherboard).

 

So sometimes that can cause silly problems, when in reality PC has no reason to stop working other than "I checked the battery... I'm confused now, crash!!!" programming fail.  

 

You could google the specific model, to see if there are any known failures, such as GPU/thermal/etc. But it's usually something like the iMacs (certain years all cook their own GPU, certain years all the power rails fall off due to bad solder etc) that do that, not Thinkpads!

[RYoder1997]

On 4/15/2018 at 12:19 PM, TechyBen said:

Yeah, that would reset the settings. But a new one should be fine. I think I remember at least one laptop I saw refused to boot with a old/dead CMOS battery (or it may have been a motherboard).

 

So sometimes that can cause silly problems, when in reality PC has no reason to stop working other than "I checked the battery... I'm confused now, crash!!!" programming fail.  

 

You could google the specific model, to see if there are any known failures, such as GPU/thermal/etc. But it's usually something like the iMacs (certain years all cook their own GPU, certain years all the power rails fall off due to bad solder etc) that do that, not Thinkpads!

Just wanted to give you an update. No, it's not that the RAM I had lying around was bad; brand-new RAM didn't help. BUT. You are right about a possible programming fail. Someone on the Steam community, and another person on Reddit have said their computers stop working just because of a dead/lack of CMOS battery. Fingers crossed as that comes in the mail tomorrow.

[TechyBen]

Yeah, most of the motherboards/laptops just give you a clock warning on boot, as that and settings might go when the battery dies on power out/disconnect. But AFAIK everything else should function, and in fact while plugged in, it should not even care if the battery is dead/absent.