Here is something funny I've found, and it's a solution I've used on several T61's.
When the computer wouldn't start I took out the battery. Sat down and put my fingers on the Fn and the Start button(in the middle top of keyboard). Then I took my finger off the Fn after a couple seconds, and held the start button down for about 2 minutes. I put the battery back in and the computer started.

 

This technique is used to discharge any static electricity and I notice coimputer doesn't start up usually after coming from work to home, and/or weather is real windy and dry. It's the sort of thing that made me phone Lenovo when my laptop was under warranty and the service technitian had me try it.

I can't count how many times I have needed to do this and it worked.

 

I'd hate to see someone get hosed because he thought the motherboard wasn't working and my guess is most local repair facilities are going to "error" on the expensive side.

 

Now, I'm not sure if the Fn button included technique really works. But since one of the first times I had done it, I just assume I will hold down the Fn for a few seconds at the same time.

 

 

@TuuS

Yep, it was unfortunate. I was only able to use my T61p for like a year and a half. I like the 4:3 screen also. Anyway, I presumed that I have the meron cpu. How big is the performance difference between meron and peryn cpu?

 

@Lenovoowner

That's a weird way of starting up a laptop. I will try it and let you know if it works. =)

 

Thanks,

JC

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, I presumed that I have the meron cpu. How big is the performance difference between meron and peryn cpu?

 

 

Thanks,

JC

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The merom cpu chips used in T61 range from 1.4ghz to 2.6ghz and the cache size ranges from 2mb to 4mb.

 

Penryn cpu chips range from 2.1ghz to 2.6ghz and cache sizes range from 3mb to 6mb.

 

A penryn of the same speed will perform better, but most important they are more efficient and run cooler. If you consider that in extreme use the speed is often limited by thermal throttling so the longer your cpu can run without being forced to slow down to a crawl, the better your performance. The coolest running chip is the T8100 penryn, it's clock speed is 2.1ghz and it's virtually identical to the 2.4ghz penryn and built on the same die. I suspect it was probably underclocked so they could offer it at a more attractive price which would explain why it runs so cool. Because of it's low resale cost and cool efficient running it's one of my favorites and if you ran it against the fastest merom running at 2.6 the merom would be faster until the temps get above mid 80c degrees and is forced to throttle down to about 0.8ghz while the penryn will be running 10 or more degrees cooler and continue at fll speed. Of course environmental conditions are a factor here, but if you think of the story of the tortuise and the hare in a race, you can imagine how the cooler running chip can outperform the faster but hotter chip.

 

However I'm not saying you should dump your merom chip, they still are good chips but this explains the advantages to the penryn design.

 

Penryn is also the last design before the i-series which is when they moved the GPU onto the same chip with the cpu. This really only has one advantage and that is to make computers smaller. If you're building a tablet or subnotebook or palmtop computer then the iseries is the way to go, but for the Tseries and other full size laptops I wish they would have continued the penryn development as it was a major advance in technology. On my first T61 I waited until the Penryn released and ordered it with Intel graphics but the intel boards weren't available so they gave me a free upgrade. I loved the nVidia...   until it died of course. I wanted a cpu intensive laptop but didn't really need the nVidia graphics and of course I wish I had just waited for the boards to be available, but that's all water under the bridge now.

 

 

 

 

 

Hey,

Having a black screen and 3 beeps on your computer is a common error while having an old NVIDIA GPU (Graphic driver). To fix this common error you simply open your computer and find the GPU driver and you just warm it, some even takes the motherboard in the oven at 150C for 10 minutes with some foil balls under the board. It will not melt, garenteed. This will fix the error.

Thank you and good luck!

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wrote:
Hey,

Having a black screen and 3 beeps on your computer is a common error while having an old NVIDIA GPU (Graphic driver). To fix this common error you simply open your computer and find the GPU driver and you just warm it, some even takes the motherboard in the oven at 150C for 10 minutes with some foil balls under the board. It will not melt, garenteed. This will fix the error.

Thank you and good luck!

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No offense intended to you personally but I wish people would stop posting this, it's nothing new and it won't fix anything. The only thing this has done as cause a lot of people grief and making it nearly impossible to source good system boards when there are so many of these "baked" boards being sold online.

 

At best this may result in a partially working boards for a few weeks, maybe even months if you're really lucky, and often will stop working as soon as you shut it down. This problem is caused by fractured circuits in the GPU chip, heating the chip can cause momentary contact across the fractures but will result in hotspots within the chips, poor performance and repeat failures. 

 

This technique was discovered by accident when these failures were first treated as detached gpu chips and the boards were reflowed (resoldered). The heat from the process often caused the board to work but after realizing that the failure rate was 100% no reputable shop would reflow a board. Some shops in asia are still selling reflowed boards or boards reballed with fake gpu chips.

 

fake gpu chips from china

@TuuS

 

Thank you for explaining the difference on the merom and penryn chip. It's appreciated.

 

@BujarMali

 

I'm not sure if I want to try baking a motherboard. My significant other would think I'm gone nuts =)

 

Thanks,

JC

@Tuus

You're wrong, heating the GPU chip will not cause any damage. When you heat the GPU chip, then the heat will simply make the GPU chip start and go in process. A computer is almost like a car, the car wont be destroyed if you heat it, it only will get better.

You can of course buy a new GPU chip, but heating it will not cause damages in the motherboard. Hard to believe..

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wrote:


You're wrong, heating the GPU chip will not cause any damage. When you heat the GPU chip, then the heat will simply make the GPU chip start and go in process. A computer is almost like a car, the car wont be destroyed if you heat it, it only will get better.

You can of course buy a new GPU chip, but heating it will not cause damages in the motherboard. Hard to believe..

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If you believe I said heat would damage your gpu then you didn't read my post, or didn't understand it. If you believe your gpu is fixed, then you are going to be disappointed just like the other members who posted this so-called solution when you realize it's not fixed.

 

The point to my post is that your advice won't result in any fixed computers but is very likely to result in people dumping a defective laptop (or board) on an unsuspecting buyer. 

 

We can't do anything about all the people posting this kind of misinformation on sites like youtube, but if it's posted on lenovo's forum I will challenge it, especially considering this so called repair has been around since 2008 and has been debunked countless times.

 

Srry for not replying so good at the other replies, I was at school. Anyways, I got your point now. I can agree with what your saying, but still this is a sulution; Heating the motherboard will make your computer work again, not for long but it will fix the problem for a while. Now, I didn't say the GPU chip will fully work, but If you need to review you computer asap then you should heat your motherboard. It is an common GPU error for NVIDIA, and no solution for it is found - so that means you can't review your computer unless you buy another GPU or unless you heat your motherboard. Realesing this kind of posts like I did, is not an negative thing, it helps people desperate enought to heat their motherboards and review their computer, for a short duration - some even forever, like my computer did.

 

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wrote:
Srry for not replying so good at the other replies, I was at school. Anyways, I got your point now. I can agree with what your saying, but still this is a sulution; Heating the motherboard will make your computer work again, not for long but it will fix the problem for a while. Now, I didn't say the GPU chip will fully work, but If you need to review you computer asap then you should heat your motherboard. It is an common GPU error for NVIDIA, and no solution for it is found - so that means you can't review your computer unless you buy another GPU or unless you heat your motherboard. Realesing this kind of posts like I did, is not an negative thing, it helps people desperate enought to heat their motherboards and review their computer, for a short duration - some even forever, like my computer did.

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Good luck with your motherboard. Most don't last more than a few days or weeks. I've heard of some members that got theirs to last for a few months, but they ended up with random BSOD crashes and repeatedly needing to reheat the chip. The thing that upsets me is that this method has been posted here dozens of times already and it usually results in people using this method to sell their defective laptop or motherboards. 

 

The truth of the matter is when the gpu chip fails it has internal circuits that have cracked (fractured). A good analogy is when a lightbulb fails you can sometimes tap on it and if you can get the broken filiment to touch the bulb will light and it may continue to work for a few days or longer, as long as you don't bump it  again, and eventually even if you are very careful the excess heat from the resistance where the broken ends are touching will cause excessive heat and will again burn out. 

 

This might be helpful to get data off your computer, but in my opinion I'd think it was a waste of time to disassemble and rebuild my laptop to have it only work for a couple days. I guess if someone enjoys taking their laptop apart every week or so then there is no harm, but I'd prefer to fix it properly.

 

A proper fix would be a board from August 2008 or one with Intel graphics.

 

You cannot replace the GPU, they are soldered on the board and even if you had access to an infrared reballing station to resolder (reball) a gpu chip, finding a good one is virtually impossible. nVidia only makes replacement chips for OEM customers and only when required to do so by contract. They lose money whenever they make small quantities of chips, in order for them to be profitable they have to be produced in the millions. Also to further complicate things most GPU chips sold online are fake, usually old chips removed from scrap equipment that have had the numbers polished off the dies and new numbers etched on with a deceptive production date. . These fake chips have been coming out of china for decades and in many cases it wasn't a problem because it was a cheap source of chips, but with chips known to be bad it became a huge problem and this was compounded when 3rd party factories begain refurbishing boards with fake gpu chips. There were several of these factories making these boards in southeast asia, but thankfully most have closed down. Lenovo does sell refurbished boards but unfortunately most do not get new GPU chips installed on them and they are quite expensive, but the best option is a board that was originally manufactured with the updated GPU chip but they were only used for one month before the T61 series was replaced.

 

ps. You can try using an external GPU card in an 2503 advanced docking station so your nVidia card isn't used. The laptop still will probably fail, but this may prolong the failure. You can also try removing the nVidia drivers and run it as a standard VGA graphics card. All video cards support these drivers with no acceleration, it's built in so that you can get up and running in order to install the proper drivers, but if they are used instead it may prolong the failure at the cost of significant performance loss.