Thinkpads Forum

Please help, I bricked my laptop.

I tried updating the BIOS on my T60 to the most recent version but upon
booting I encountered an infamous 1802 error.
But, there is no PCMCIA card of any kind inside my laptop.

I tried disabling my wireless adapter in BIOS, so I can boot again, but I am
unable to set an option to "Radio off" since that option is missing! (only
Enabled and Hidden are present).

This is my BIOS info:

BIOS Version: 2.27 (79ETE7WW)
BIOS Date 2011-03-21
Embedded Controller Version 1.07
Syste-unit serial: 2007AY6L3M1672
System board serial: VF05B65T20X

Welcome to the forum!

You haven't bricked your T60.

Remove the internal wireless card and check whether the warning goes away...

All the answers on "how to..." are in here:

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/product ... MIGR-62733

Good luck.

Thank you sir, you are a gentleman and a scholar.

I successfully removed the wireless card as instructed and flashed the BIOS with the Zender's hacked image file.

My laptop boots fine now and I am able to use my wireless card, also the missing "Radio OFF" option is present now.

---
BTW:

There's only one problem, I as still experiencing the random lockup's that I
tried to fix by flashing the BIOS, resetting the memory modules and HDD ( I
checked the RAM with Memtest86, all the tests passed ). The computer just
freezes randomly, the screen goes blank, the power button does nothing and the
keyboard turn off.

I found quite a lot of info regarding the said problem, but I am still unable
to locate the exact source of it ( it happens in both Windows and Linux and is
unrelated to USB ports, RAM or HDD, also the temperatures seems quite normal).

It just happens randomly!?

How's your battery?

Try removing it and running on AC only and see whether the freezing goes away...

Good luck...

The battery is not OK, it reports false values.

I tried running on AC only, I also tried running on Battery only, it freezes anyway .

I suspect a "cold solder joint" somewhere on the MB, but that's just my 2c.

Your CPU might be overheating.
Clean out the fan from all dust/debris, using e.g. a can of compressed air.
Hold the fan blades with a toothpick, to stop them from over-revving while you blow it out.
Clean off the old thermal paste with e.g. isopropyl alcohol.
Replace the paste with Arctic Silver 5 (a drop in the size of a rice corn is enough). Spread it out evenly with a credit card.
Reassemble.

I checked the fan and it is clean, I am not sure whether or not it sits on
the CPU properly (the temp seems a bit high at times), but I stress tested the
CPU and GPU and they survived a half hour test, max CPU temp is about 69C and
GPU about 75C, maybe more, but the system didn't shut down.

I am convinced at this point that the problem is not caused by a faulty
cooling system since I had the laptop freeze while in BIOS and on some rather
low system loads, both in Linux, Windows XP and Windows 7.

Also, I wanted to check weather it is only the screen that gets frozen so I
wrote a simple script to beep every 10 seconds, when the laptop froze
(after 10 minutes or so), the computer started beeping like crazy (one
continuous long beep).

Could this be caused by a damaged HW clock / CMOS battery / bad GPU or
something else? I flashed the BIOS and the internal EEPROM (it was empty
and the eth. port wasn't working until I reprogrammed it to a default values).

EDIT:
I checked the RAM again, removed the modules, cleaned the contacts and tested
each of them separately with Memtest86, they both passed all the tests. I am
clueless about what to do next. The freezing seems to happen more and more
often.

You must have gotten the 1802 error, when you put in a new/other wifi card.
Remove that wifi card again, and run it 'wired'.
Also, after a BIOS flash, you need to boot, press F1 to go into BIOS, when there: press F9 to load defaults, and press F10 to save that and reboot.

RealBlackStuff wrote:You must have gotten the 1802 error, when you put in a new/other wifi card.
Remove that wifi card again, and run it 'wired'.
Also, after a BIOS flash, you need to boot, press F1 to go into BIOS, when there: press F9 to load defaults, and press F10 to save that and reboot.

Yes, thank you, I already fixed the 1802 error earlier.
I am having problems with system freezing, I already performed the BIOS setting reset, no luck.

Also, once the system freezes, I have to remove both the AC and the battery in
order to reboot the laptop. I can shut it down manually (power button, 10
secs) but it just returns to it's non-responsive state once I try to turn it on
again, unless I remove all power sources and they reboot, then it boots
normally.

I know you fixed the BIOS-1802-problem, but you should still load the BIOS defaults with F9/F10.
And your freezing may be caused by that wifi card that gave you 1802 in the first place!
So remove the wifi card, and run without it to see if the laptop still freezes.

I did as you told me and laptop worked fine for some 12 hours and now it just froze again.
I also removed the modem (just in case).

The fan is spinning, the lights are on, keyboard is dead and the screen is black. Nothing seems to be working except some hardwired keys (numlock, light-on, eject cd) and the power button is unresponsive.

I left it frozen for some 5 minutes (tried rebooting it but it just returned to it's blank state) and all of a sudden i got: one long and two short beeps.

Well, that's not good in the least.

But you already know that.

How much would a replacement board run you over there?

Since you have to take it apart sooner or later, try this:
remove the LCD video connector from the motherboard, then hook up an external monitor via the VGA port.
Any luck?

Going back a bit: you updated BIOS (with an IBM or a modded BIOS?), then encountered the 1802-error.
Did you have a modded BIOS in the laptop before, like from Zender?
What is the wifi card make/model? Does it have an IBM/Lenovo P/N or FRU?

I unplugged the connector and now am waiting for the computer to fail again. (Should I also disable an internal LCD in BIOS?)

I only bought this laptop recently, it probably already had a hacked BIOS since the wifi card worked just fine.
The wifi card is intel made, lspci says: I am not so sure about getting another mobo, it would probably cost me about 100$ just for the shipping and the import tax.

What is the TYPE/Model (like TYPE 2007-24U) and the PRODUCTID under it?
What exact BIOS from whom did you flash it with?

This is the picture of the wireless card:


There was a sticker on top of that with a bar code saying:
"as nf186100690157"

As for the BIOS version I am unsure, I know that the BIOS from which I flashed was: 2.27 79ETE7WW,
Lenovo's windows update utility didn't want to update it (I downloaded the latest version, the info
is in my first post) so I used a little .bat script that runs: winphlash \s ( I found the
instructions on this forum ). After that, I installed a Zender's hacked BIOS using winphlash with
advanced options (BIOS checksum was wrong), which I found somewhere on this forum, also.

This is my current BIOS info: EDIT:
OK, si it just happened again. I left it running in BIOS while attached to an external monitor and the screen just turned off.

PM me your email address, I'll email you a better BIOS.
That is a non-IBM wifi card.