A21p won't boot.

[RussF92767]

Hello everyone!

I upgraded memory in a A21p to 512 and ran it for a few days, no issues what so ever. Powered it up, powered it down, restarts, no problem.

I went to turn it on for a final run though and now it won't start at all. From powered off/green battery light if press the power on button the screen will flicker and the green light goes out. I hear a noise in the upper left hand corner that sounds like the 3.5" drive trying to  engage, but then it quits.

If I refer to the maintenance chart, the closest match to symptoms I find is under "no beep", as there is no beep.  The first block describes "No beep, power-on indicator on, LCD blank, and no POST".  I have no beep, power indicator goes OFF when pressing the power button, LCD blank and no POST." 

I checked the power suppy with a meter and it checked out fine.  I am going to check the battery with a meter, but I know the battery doesn't hold a charge beyond ten to fifteen minutes.

In order to get the green light to go back on I have to unplug the adapter and plug it back in. The green battery charge light goes right back on. If I remove the battery and try to start it, same problem (only no green battery charged light). If I try to start it on battery only, same thing, but the battery barely holds a charge to begin with. 

I was told this problem was "intermittent" before, but occasionally it would start. Now the problem is constant and it won't start at all. I can't even get into the BIOS screen!

Like I said, it ran fine for days with the upgraded memory. I did not flash the BIOS. I did not perform any  other hardware upgrades. Thinking it could be bad memory, I switched out the new memory for the old, same problem.

Any ideas? I suspect the battery and or power adapter or both. I've been told that batteries in old computers acted like a giant capacitor that if the battery is useless it can make the computer difficult to operate.   Internet searches have not been useful.  Thanks in advance.

[ajkula66 Guru]

Welcome to the forum!

Let's try this ancient trick:

Unplug the AC adapter, remove the battery, hard and media drives. Press the "power" button ten times in a row holding it down for ten seconds each time and thirty seconds the last time around.

Plug the adapter - but nothing else - back in and try to power on.

Good luck.

[RussF92767]

So I am no longer thinking it is the motherboard. I am thinking it is the coin battery now. It is a $5 fix if that is all it is. Considering the computer is over ten years old now, this would prove to be a likely candidate, no?

Well, back on this one...

...I thought it was dead. It sat in my basement for about two months before I decided to do some cleaning out. I thought I would give this one last whirl before I started breaking it down and parting it out. I plugged it in and it booted to the BIOS "Set Time and Date" screen! So, I set the time and date and got a full boot from it. I started updating the OS and thought I would see how long it lasted.

Thirty updates later a reboot was required. It went to reboot and I was back to it "blinking" again when I tried to turn it on...

[ajkula66 Guru]

If you do some research on term " Blink Of Death" aka BOD, you'll find many stories similar to your own.

All A2x and T2x (apart from T23) units are prone to it, no known cause or solution. The problem's been around for a very long time.

Time for a replacement motherboard, or burial with honours.

Good luck.

[luxman]

Dear George,

i am in the same situation with my A21p 2629-H2G.

When i power-on the laptop i can see hdd and battery leds blink, a rapid flash of the lcd screen (i can hear a little "tic" comes from the inverter or the lamp) but the system won't post: i can't hear no hdd start (when plugged-in) and no cpu fan starting.

I made all these tests with only  mainboard, subcard (the one that connects the lcd) and keyboard; without any peripherals like hdd, fdd, pcmcia, memory, modem card, eth+modem port.

I tried your suggests, as you wrote:

<<Unplug the AC adapter, remove the battery, hard and media drives. Press the "p<ower" button ten times in a row holding it down for ten seconds each time and thirty seconds the last time around.

Plug the adapter - but nothing else - back in and try to power on.>>

and i had no changes...

I'm sorry, but - yes -  I also thought you're joking when I read "ten times in a row..." :-)

I tried all mix combinations with ac adapter, battery, backup battery: all inserted, one of them, two of them, head down and legs up, standup with left feet, cross fingers and so on...

I understand it could be another BOD case, but i would make the last trying: what about the J16 jumper located close to flash IC named U69 ?

I thought it could be something like cmos reset...

What do you think?

P.S. I beg pardon for my english :-)

Bye,

Luca

[ajkula66 Guru]

Welcome to the forum, luxman!

My honest opinion: bury it with honours. Unless you can source a known good motherboard for next to nothing.

I love these oldies, but there's not much that there's left for you to try out short of a planar swap.

Good luck.

[Mornsgrans]

It looks more likely a flexing symptom.

At BoD the laptop does nothing and only the power-led glows and turns off shortly while pressung power button.