T400 restarts on shutdown

[ColonelONeill]

Try a battery reset... Even 13Wh should last you almost an hour, unless you have the discrete model with improperly installed switchable graphics.

[onethinkpaduser]

Does the problem occur without the battery inserted?

[pdkpdkpdk]

yes, it does for me

[onethinkpaduser]

Sorry I was replying to the original poster.

I noticed you have similar problems with battery unplugged? Perhaps its best to contact tech support if your T400 is within warrenty?

It could be an issue with the BIOS or OS like others have suggested. Perhaps try shutting down with another OS - perhaps linux? Maybe try re-flashing the BIOS to a newer/older/current version?

It may also be that the power electronics relays/switches regulating power to the motherboard is faulty also.

[dave1x]

I work at a school where I support about 30 T400's. In the last week I have had 2 students walk in with the exact same symptoms.

[emress]

Haven't responded in awhile.  Problem is still there, and it happens even with the battery removed.  I haven't had time to partition and install another version of Windows 7, or figure out how to boot into Linux.  I've lost patience, I spend a lot of time shutting down and then hitting the power button repeatedly until I catch it at just the right moment to permenantly turn off.  This can't be good for the machine.  I've also noticed that the battery is draining when I shut it down and get it to stay off, which is weird.

dave1x, have you been able to solve the problem for your students?

I'm at the point where I may just hire someone to look at it, but they'll charge me a fortune and mostly try and things I've already done.  Grrr.

[ColonelONeill]

Short of installing a new copy of Windows or Linux, load the ThinkVantage Recovery Environment (F11 or ThinkVantage button at boot) and see if a shutdown works from there. I'm pretty sure it's a WinPE setup for TVTRNR.

[emress]

Well I installed ThinkVantage Rescue and Recovery (didn't come installed on my machine) but it has no option for shutdown, only restart.  So I downloaded Ubuntu and ran it off of CD (you can do that before installing) and shutdown from there.  And it did the usual thing: waiting about 3 seconds and then restarted.

I think that's ruled out a Windows issue.  So its either hardware or still a BIOS problem, and I'm leaning towards hardware.  Seems like I may be stuck with this problem until my computer finally gives out.

[ColonelONeill]

I still think there may be a Wake action that causes it to boot back up right after it turns off. I had an antique P3 desktop with some BIOS option that caused this exact behavior. Try pulling the CMOS battery and leaving it overnight.

[emress]

Aside from not knowing where the CMOS battery is (though I'm guessing a google search will turn that up), what will this do to my computer?  Will it corrupt my Windows 7 install at all?  While I hate the problem I have, I don't want to make it worse

Thanks for all your help Colonel.