T400 suddenly won't boot beyond ThinkPad splash screen

[jimredfield]

...only visible indicator of a problem is that the disk activity light on the bottom of the screen stops lighting up etc. when the ThinkPad splash screen appears. No bumps to the system, no unusual activity to suggest physical damage to the laptop or disk - booted fine in the morning on the desktop, wouldn't reboot from the same desktop location after lunch. System will also not boot from a bootable system disk (but you can hear the drive accessing it). System is less than a year old.

[kimkas]

I am having essentially the same problem with a T500 I bought less than a month ago. 

From what I can find out on other forums, the problem I’m having resembles a problem with the old T60 models, i.e. a loose GPU. The fan keeps whirring and the computer won’t boot past the thinkpad splash screen.But I am not at all sure that’s what’s going on.

I’m temporarily away from home in Africa and unable to call any of the support help lines.

This is supposed to be the authoritative place to ask for help, So, please help!!!!

[jimredfield]

I found a warranty center nearby, took the T400 in, and got a completely new motherboard and battery installed overnight, all at no charge since the system was less than a year old. No easy explanation for what happened - the system wasn't abused (and showed no internal signs of damage), so the best the tech could suggest was that either a bad battery or bad motherboard took both components down.

[jimredfield · Accepted solution]

I solved my problem: Lenovo warranty repair center here diagnosed a bad motherboard and a bad battery, neither attributable to any handling abuses, etc. the computer might have suffered (it appeared to be a factory defect). No clue as to whether one or the other 'bad' component caused the other to fail. 48 hrs total to make the repair, most of that time waiting for a new motherboard to be overnighted in. No charge to me for anything. Life goes on.