I have a T430s, that is still on warranty.

About six months ago, I started having an intermittent problem, that sometimes when I would plug the power cord in, I would get error 0251. I would reset the clock and go about my business. This happened a few times, getting more frequent, and then one time Windows wouldn't start.

We bought support when we (my company) bought the computer. The tech guy came and opened it, and said it looks like there was some liquid spilled on the hard drive (a spot a couple of centimeters in diameter). Their standard solution is to replace the motherboard, but he couldn't do that because the motherboard was "damaged". Buying a new mother board he said would cost € 2100 (the laptop costs € 1700). So he said it is not a warranty issue he can solve.

I didn't like that answer, so we found a company to replace the motherboard for a few hundred Euros, but the error 0251 still occurred. That company took over two months to get that far, and seemed overtaxed. 

In the meantime, we found a new IT partner. They replaced the CMOS battery. We just picked up the laptop a couple of days ago. I left the laptop closed with the power cable out over night. This morning I plugged in the laptop and (no surprise since I'm posting here) got the error 0251 again. 

I would guess that there is:

1. A problem with the CMOS battery connection causing the battery to drain.

2. A short or a grounding problem in the power plug socket, or

I assume that the IT company did not lie about changing the battery.

Other details:

A. The problem never happens if I don't unplug and start/resume from hibernation.

B. The problme never happens when starting/resuming from hibernation with no power cord plugged in.

C. The problem never happens when I unplug shortly and then plug back in. 

D. The problem is not dependent on the AC adapter. We have 5 Lenovo laptops in operation, and I have tried this with multiple AC adapters "bricks", both 65W and 90W.

I lean towards #1 above, as I would expect if it is #2 then the problem would occur every time or almost every time, and "C" would not happen. 

I'm now using a timer on my phone to see if I can find out what the threshold is to get the error and then reproduce that. 

I will try this a couplde days and then send the machine back to the IT guys/Lenovo, but any ideas would be greatly appreciated. The laptop has a new LCD display, and other than this one problem, works great. 

I also face same issue. Is there any resolution to this problem

Thanks

Sorry, no resolution yet. We've been using it as a desktop until business quiets down and we can do more testing.

You're very welcome. I've saved this link so that when we try again I'll post if we've found anything.

Regards,

Jack

I also support a T430s that's showing this behavior. Has anyone found a fix yet? Maybe a BIOS update or something?

Thanks!

Your post describes the problem on my T430s EXACTLY.  I replaced the CMOS battery, but that did not help.  My current battery still lasts a good 3 hours on full charge.  

By any chance do any of you have a fingerprint reader?  Note, that it blinks even when the laptop is off.  Also one method I found to avoid this problem is to physically remove the battery, and then reinsert it, before plugging in the AC.  This is the only way I have found to reliably avoid the startup error and having to reset the date in the BIOS.

@onix: Yes, I do have a fingerprint reader. Right now we have solved the problem by using the € 1700 laptop as a € 300 desktop. I've told the guy who is using it right now to try your solution the next few days when he comes in. Stay tuned...

No solutions to report.  But in case anyone is still interested, I replaced the battery with one supplied by Oneda on Amazon.  $50 later, the new battery did not resolve the problem.  Also, my fingerprint sensor is no longer recognized by the OS, even after a Win 10 upgrade from Win 7.

I suspect some diode (or power regulation of some sort) is busted on the motherboard, in that plugging in causes a voltage spike that then forces a reboot and date loss.  I was hoping the new battery would obviate this by leveling out the max voltage difference between the output of the battery and when the power supply was plugged in... if that makes sense.

I am not accusing anyone of anything, but the thing that makes the most sense to me is that the CMOS battery never got changed.