ok so basically my T61 shuts down randomly, happens every now and again. running windows 7 ult has latest os and lenovo updates.

Well, my T60 also does something similar, it goes into sleep as it was low on battery occasionally - fairly rare though. Something like once every 1-2 months. It will start again with no apparent loss of anything, but strange it is.

When you say it shuts down, does it shut down through Windows or does it just hard power off?

Just wondering if maybe there's a hardware problem. If your T61 has the nVidia graphics card, I'd be leaning towards a card failure.

Failed nvidia gpu doesn't usually present like this, I'd lean more to a thermal shutdown, or other system board problems. If you have an nvidia based model built before august 2008, then I'd clean out your heatsink/fan assembly and reapply some thermal paste on your cpu/gpu and monitor temps with thinkpad fan control (freeware). This may even cure the problem, but what you need to know if it persists is if it's doing it when your component temps are high.

does it hot on the left corner keyboard area? if it is. then its overheating issue. could be lots of dust in your fan.

yea its a hard shut off and no its not overheating. it usually happens when my external hdd is plugged in, could it be a power issue?

I had the same problems with my FrankenPad T61. Random shutdowns.. drove me crazy. I never had this problem with my T60p config.
I was already searching on eBay for T60 parts to revert it to a T60... then I decided to completely reassembly the laptop.

I took it completely apart till it looked liked this: http://home.concepts.nl/~pc125480/t61_mod/IMG_0338.JPG

I noticed the magnesium frame I had to modify for the FrankenPad mod was very close to the motherboard: http://home.concepts.nl/~pc125480/t61_m ... 0_reds.jpg (lower red circle)
I pulled some anti static plastic over it and taped it, so it could not touch the motherboard.

I reassembled the laptop, now everything is fine Not sure my anti static plastic was the cure or something else... Temperatures of the hardware is still the same.

if it happens when on battery then it's your battery that has gone bad.

I changed mine once after it started giving me problems like that, but I didn't run power manager at all for like 3.5 years .. lol, so that pretty much explains it right there.

My random shutdown problem is back after I replaced the integrated wifi card...
I have a dual boot with Windows XP and it only happens there, not on Ubuntu. Yesterday it happened when I was playing a DVD image which was streamed over the LAN. The laptop just shuts itself completely down, without a warning.

I am sure this is not caused by the battery, mine is still in good condition.
I'm going to reassemble the laptop, hopes that does the trick... and never open ever again after

^ I run different wifi as well, no problems.

This problem is driving me crazy... It occurs also on Ubuntu now... not just on Windows XP. And I have no idea how to fix this problem.

Symptoms:

• The laptop goes straight to standby while I'm working on it. It is not always standby mode, sometimes it just completely shuts down or resets itself.
• Sometimes it just hangs, gives a black screen for a couple of seconds, then it reboots... after the full-screen Thinkpad logo I get a black screen, and it reboots again (infinitive loop).
• At this point I can turn off the laptop and turn it on again, but if I do so it hangs during boot. Only solution is to turn the laptop off and wait for 10~15 minutes and try again. Usually I can use the laptop till the problems repeat.
• These issues sometimes come after 10 minutes of working on it, sometimes after more than 1 hour. It looks like it starts when I do some more intensive work than just internet browsing, like installing software, copying files, etc.
• I have a cpu temperature meter on screen; sometimes during these incidents it is only 45 degrees, sometimes 70 degrees, but never higher.
• These problems happen when on battery power and on AC power.

Does anybody have a clue how to fix this problem?

As has been suggested before, remove the battery, then see what happens.
If the battery shows in Green, it does not necessarily mean the battery is OK.

I tried it with battery installed and on AC power, and on AC power without battery installed. Unfortunately the same result

If this happens when playing video, it sounds like high temps were detected in your gpu and the system went into standby to prevent damage.

Monitor your temps with something like thinkpad fan control, your cpu should idle at 60-70 and gpu at 50-60. If one gets up around 90ish, your system will shut down (self protection).

It would also be a good idea to clean and reapply some artic silver #5, but be careful not to much, and make sure you have good contact on GPU and CPU.

I've also seen a bad system board cause this problem. Take a good look at the bottom docking connector, if there is corrosion (one of many things that can cause this), you may have a bad board. On the one I had, I attempted to repair it, it even worked for a while... almost a year, but I'm not going to officially recommend anyone do this, but if you have nothing to lose, then you can give it a try.

Do this at your own risk, and only as last resort if your board has corrosion.

Mix distilled water and baking soda (you only need a few drops so you don't have to buy it, get an inverted cup held over a tea kettle at full boil and catch condensation and let it drip into a small container). Mix up paste and get an old toothbrush and thoroughly clean the connector, then thoroughly clean all the baking soda off the board and dry with a heatgun or hair dryer (to be safe let it set overnight just to be sure it's fully dry).

***Note: This worked for me, but I'm not making any statement on what effects baking soda may have on the electrical components.

Other then that, I can only suggest a new system board, but you might want to try removing/replacing as many components as possible, it's possible (but unlikely) that something is drawing to much current and forcing shutdown.

These may be long-shots, but it's all I can think of without seeing the machine.

Good luck

It happened one time while watching video, but most of the time I was doing something else.


I use Everest Ultimate in Windows which shows CPU temperature in my system tray. Idle is between 45-60, but stressed it quickly jumps to 75-85. I never have seen it hit the 90 degrees. I have Intel X3100 graphics which are not visible with Everest Ultimate.


I completely reassembled my laptop about 2 months ago (took it completely apart), and at that time I applied some artic silver #5. After the reassembly, my shutdown problems were gone Unfortunately they returned when I installed the Intel 6300 ABGN network card last month


Hmm, I see no signs of corrosion, but I will reassemble the laptop again, clean everything and see what happens.

edit: If that doesn't help, I will replace the motherboard. Unfortunately T61 4:3 boards with Intel Graphics are very hard to find, and if you do, they cost around $400... which is insane in my opinion.
T60 motherboards with Intel graphics are much cheaper, I can get one for approximate $50, but then I will need a T7x00 CPU as well. But still, that will be cheaper than only a T61 motherboard.

I've got a T61 (4:3) for sale that I am pretty sure has an Intel GPU chip in it. Complete will all parts and for far less than the $400 you mention just for the M/B.

But yes, this does sound like a MB issue to me. Sorry to hear of your T61 woes....

Last night I took it completely apart. I cleaned every part with a microfiber cloth (however it wasn't really necessary, but hopefully it helps ) and reapplied thermal grease (Artic Silver #5) on the CPU and the other chip under the heatsink and reassembled the laptop. Took me about 3,5 hours.

I turned it on and showed me a "thermal warning"... oops, forgot to connect the fan adapter

At that time it was too late for me to fix it, so at this moment I don't know if my reassemble action pulled off. Tonight or tomorrow I will know more.
If it didn't work, I am interested in your T61 if the price is not too high

my fan just stopped working. theres no dust

My FrankenPad back; alive and kicking! Looks like my actions have pulled of.
I have installed a VMWare virtual machine under Ubuntu, ran it for half an hour, rebooted to Windows XP and I was able to play a 1080P MKV file for more than 2 hours, streamed over the network.
And now 30 minutes later it is still running

My CPU was 78C after 2 hours of playing the movie:
http://home.concepts.nl/~pc125480/t61_mod/temps.png

And 5 minutes later it was back to 39C:
http://home.concepts.nl/~pc125480/t61_mod/temps2.png

In the meantime I already bought a T7200 CPU for $25, but I will keep it as a spare part in case the random shutdown problems return. I will return to a T60 Intel graphics config in that case, because that is much cheaper.
But for now, I am happy (again) with my T61 FrankenPad

Edit: ...And 1 minute later after this post I had a random shutdown

I fixed my random shutdown problem... by going back to a T60 config. I really liked this mod, but the instability issues made it an unreliable machine... very annoying.

I decided to go for a T60 motherboard with Intel graphics because of the less heat compared to an Ati graphics motherboard. Next to it I installed a Intel Core2Duo T7600, the fastest CPU available for the T60. I am very satisfied with my T60, again I feel it is a little bit slower than the T61 config, but not much. However, the reliability of the T60 config makes up

Currently the CPU temperature is about 40C which is about the same as the T9500, but the fan spins more than with the T9500. Strange
My new temps:
http://home.concepts.nl/~pc125480/t61_mod/t60_temps.png

I've got this random suspend problem too on my T7300 T61p with 15" WUXGA screen. It does indeed appear to be heat related.

For those with the same issue - go download "TPFanControl" - it gives you temperature readouts of everything (CPU/GPU/Mainboard/etc.)as well as manual control over the fans. As a short-term fix, bumping the fan speed will prevent the random sleeps.

In my case, now that it appears to be heat related and not software, I'll have to send it to Lenovo for warranty work - my warranty's up in June of this year. Hopefully I'll get a new mainboard and new GPU out of the deal as my manufacture date is 1month before the cut-off.

I began to have this problem after my R500 died on me, went for repair, and was repaired (apparently faulty USB ports. ) the repair guy soldered on other USB ports, he managed to wake up the computer, but the USB do not work anyway.
I restored an old image of my ssd system disk, and the pC worked.
Upon the first boot back from repair, it was unable to boot correctly and stated "error in time and date" or something.
I have entered some fake date, in bios, and then the pC started functioning
However, the soldered USB ports do not work. I am considering some expresscard with USB 3
-however, I started to have the problems described above. PC suddenly going into suspend for no reason.
Also, it seems that the power scheme settings behaved idiotically, i.e. I reset them to Go to suspend: never, and later when I looked, the setting was five minutes.
I installed the latest Power manager, the problem existed, then I removed Power manager.
- I tweaked around bios. Switched off all "clerver" methods of power management, CPU performance regutlation, wake on lan, anyghing that looked a bit sophisticated I turned off
- new chipsed driver, new bios

- TP fancontrol, set on an agressive setting, that is, I am erring on the side of more noise, lower heat.
now standing at CPU/ GPU at 52/40 celsius.


- now I have not seen any shutdown for a while, running on battery. However, this is an intermittent problem. I will see.
The problem occured when I was watching DVD form the DVD drive, and browsing.

- any comments? I do not trust my pc now, but i do not want to pay for a new computer right now.
thanks

I paste my post from another thread:

I have a big suspect for the cause
In the power schemes, it becomes reset , the computer changes the settings to "suspend after 5 minutes" on its own...have no idea how this can happen.
do you? I will run a virus test...maybe windows update? I got rid of the Lenovo power manager.
- I am happier for this reason, rather this than a bad mainboard. I have to check the power scheme every time I switch on the pC

oh god this sounds scary sounds like the guidelines for repairing DVDs. I am not trying it.

I just found this page on Google when searching for whats the problem with a T61 i am repairing. I figured it out myself finally and sharing what i found

So this is what i think happens

The cooling assembley has 3 contact points : 1 over the CPU which is well secured with 4 spring loaded screws, and 2 over the Nvidia GPU and the North Bridge

There is nothing to hold down firmly the contact between the cooling assembly and the GPU / North Bridge. And the temperatures of them are not displayed in software (on my Arch Linux USB anyway). What i think is, that the cooling assembly does not touch firmly enough the GPU or North Bridge and the contact there breaks, leading to rapid overheating of the component and shutdown

When you took apart the compuer you took out and in the cooling assembly and when you assembled it back it touched the chips better, this made the problem go away

I replaced the thermal paste on the CPU+GPU and also put sme thermal paste on the North Bridge so that it sticks better to the pad on the cooling asembly (did not replace the pad as i dont have a spare). Till now (30 min since repaired) the computer works ok, previously it did shut down every 0 - 5 min including right away during POST

Best Wishes

In my case it was also heatsink related. I replaced it with an integrated heatsink (since I have Intel graphics) and my problem is gone. Maybe my previous heatsink was bent or something, I don't know.

Confirmed it was heat related - I called Lenovo and a technician turned up next day and replaced the heatsink/fan assembly. Its been rock solid since, and noticeably more comfortable on my lap.

I wouldn't recommend putting thermal paste on the pad, you can remove the pad and use thermal paste instead, but using both could make the cooling worse. These pads usually don't work as well as good thermal paste. They used to be used on T60 era GPU chips but was switched to paste with the T61 era. If you do remove the pad make sure to check the proper fit of the platform on the die, but for the most part, the pads provide all the cooling needed on the chipset, unless you have integrated gpu in which case it will use thermal paste from the factory.

Mine does that too. I got it from a buddy and he installed Windows 7. It just like these that are mentioned will just do a hard shutdown and restart. Hardware issue?