System goes to Sleep/hibernation mode suddenly; sometimes THINKPAD splash screen dim

[philburton]

I have a T61P type 6460-7EU, upgraded from factory original with Win 7 and a Corsair SSD.  This problem occurred months after those upgrades.

The overall problem seems to display itself in several ways, so I'm not sure what is the root cause and whether or not the system can be repaired.

A few weeks ago, I found that I couldn't resume after sleep or hibernate.  The system would start to restore, but then the screen would go blank and the "half moon" icon would light up.  However, instead of going completely to sleep, it would seem to start to restore again, because the caps lock and num lock indicator light would blink and the DVD drive would "click," just as they do when the system first startup.

In other situations, when I first try to boot up, the ThinkPAD splash screen is very dim.  This occurs  before I see the Win 7 menu to select Win7 or an older OS to boot into.  After I select Win 7, the screen flashes between normal brightness and total black during the boot process. Usually the system never quite completes to where I can log into Windows.

Or, I may be working away after 5 minutes, or an hour, and then system suddenly goes to sleep

At times, I've noticed that the vent near the top left of the system is very hot.  But then I had this bootup problem even when the system was off all day and presumably cold.

Or, I may be working all day with no problems.

Can anyone advise on what could be the problems?  Am i looking at a motherboard replacement?  If so, is it OK to buy from an eBay vendor?  Any recommendations?

[Serge1410]

hey philburton,

hard to say what's going on, i would suggest using this Hardware Maintenance Manual >> http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/guides-and-manuals/detail.page?DocID=UM000396

to clean the unit, especially near the air vent area. it could be clogged. thus making the unit heat up.

and sometimes heat can cause a lot of issues.

[TuuS]

My system had similar symptoms until she finally died a couple days ago. She would just slip into hibernation without warning, but it didn't happen often, then one day it happened and now she won't boot up at all. I'm pretty sure it's not heat related in my case, but if yours only does this when hot, then definitly check and clean it out good.

good luck and I'd like to learn what you discover is the cause. I opted for buying a cheap replacement on ebay, just hoping I can use some of  the parts on mine to upgrade the low-end model I bought to replace it.

[jkrear]

Beeps are important. You might benefit from this: 1. Search for t61 "maintenance manual" at Lenovo site. 2. Download it. 3. Front pages are index to contents (or open the file and search for "beeps"). 4. Also, if you don't already have "Think Vantage" in your menu of PROGRAMS, download it at Lenovo and run it. It may/should tell you where problems are.

I predate you in TP ownership:T..(forgot numbers!), T20, T40, T60.  And bought longest protection plans I could get. Never needed much from them, but when I did, service was FAST and GOOD. Have been greatly saddened that the T60's plan was ended after FIVE years, and tho I pleaded for extension, it was not granted. Though two keys no longer have white "ink" on them, the speed and display and trustworthiness are great.

By the way, another search at Lenovo that would help you know if you can "add" more memory and the like, would be this: "T61 specification". I get these (on various models), and then learn JUST WHICH model has what memory capacity, what display .... 

Of course I then add to FAVORITES the URL address of wherever Lenovo has stored this info.

[philburton · Accepted solution]

OK guys, I don't know whether to apologize or grin because I stumbled onto a solution. 

I'll try to reply to all the replies in this one message. 

I already downloaded the hardware manual, because about two months ago, the screen on my T61p cracked badly, while on a business trip.  Not good.  And in the next few days the crack continued to get worse.  When I got back home, I located this manual and did an eBay search to locate a replacement screen.  I also located a YouTube video that showed how to disassemble the "lid" (once removed from the main system) to change out the screen. That all worked fine, except that it took several hours more than I expected.  In the process of disassembling the main system, I removed the vent and heat sink and blew out any dust.

The way I fixed this problem, in all its manifestations, was to RESET the Plan Setting for the Power Plan back to all defaults!  I had been playing around with some advanced settings, and noticed that some advanced settings parameters did not agree with the same parameter values for the basic settings, for items like sleep and hiberation. 

I can only speculate that there are some subtleties of the Intel CPU sleep modes, that can be set from Windows and are persistent across a reset or even a complete shutdown. And I can also speculate that between Windows and the T61p BIOS, there are some bugs in the way that these settings are configured.

In any case, once I did the reset to defalt, I can put my system to sleep or hiberate or shut down from Windows, and the system always restarts when needed.  I can also put my system to sleep by closing the screen lid, and then restart by opening the lid.

All is good again, and I didn't have to spend any $$$.

Also several months ago, I upgraded to 8 GB memory, using a Crucial part.  Works great, and I noticed that my MS Office applications now run faster, as does Windows (64 bit).

So that's a wrap, I think, as they say in Hollywood.

Phil