Lenovo T590 20N4 noscreen error 0288

[Good2Know]

Hi.
I bought a defect laptop for training porpus (maiboard troubleshooting /repair etc).
As advertised by the seller it turns on, fan spin but no display.
First thing i did was disconnect anything (ribbon cables) that could eventually cause the display not to work.
Still no display, not even via hdmi.
But after removing display cable off the mainboard it worked "perfectly" fine via hdmi.

So i installed a spare ssd and installed win10 without any issues.
With all the drivers installed via win update and lenovo vantage i went back to bios to check some preferences.
Problem: bios did some funny error messages, i could not save any changes ( although no set superviser pw).



Went back to vantage and installed latest bios firmware.
Problem was solved, but still no display.

Bevor and after flashing bios, laptop plays a funny melody, which (after research) is the error code 0288.



Now the question is: even with disconnected display cable, why is this error melody still present ?
Btw, anytime i press FN (while laptop is on) the melody starts playing.

Some user in another forum suggestet checking the fuses near the display connector.
Is this a good way to start my analysis or is there anything else i could check bevore.
Thanks in adance.

[Sephir0th]

I don't know whether there will be a solution to get rid of the melody, but regarding the fault itself, sure, a start at the fuse(s) near the display connector might be a reasonable start.

Follow the general rule to not unplug or plug anything with power applied (this applies to the main battery too). Other than that there will be various systematic approaches depending on the exact fault (no picture, no backlight, or even both not present), which you need to clarify next.

[Good2Know]

Indeed there is neither backlight nor picture with connected display cable, moreover, no acces to bios, no caps lock led or num led (upon pressing) and no error-melody.

[Good2Know]

I maybe discovered something interesting.
The heat sink was bent when i first opened the laptop. Specifically, the "tube" that goes to the fan.
I bent it back but the tube is of course not in its original form. It is bottle necked so to say.
Some user in the depth of the internet made a comment on my specific error (0288) but did not elaborate further.
He said it is caused by faulty temperature sensor(ing).

That would make more sense (for me at least), since the official error description is -> faulty display or lcd cable or both).
But my display is not connected and still i get the error melody.


Tried to run some stress testing software.
After 6 sec the test stopped with the following error:




Am I on to something ?

[Good2Know]

Ok I did the stress testing mentioned obove not in normal windows enviroment, but via an bootable toolkit (hirens boot cd like toolkit).
After running same software within windows no errors accured.
Also run other tests like furmark, heavy load etc. Everything's fine, no errors.

As soon as can locate the fuses i will test.
Not that easy, since total beginner, but try my best.

[Good2Know]

After further research i decided that i's maybe better to put this error 0288 troubleshooting thing on hold.
There are strong indications that the error (in most cases) is caused by the bios itself.
Lots of people have had this issue even with laptops out-of-the box, others say that after bios update to version 1.17 and above the issue occurred.

Lenovo even had a specific fix that reads:

- (Fix) Fixed an issue where BIOS might generate 0288 beep error.

They maybe fixed it in some models, but it seems to be still baked into the cake in my device.

Btw all fuses that i could identify via schematics and boardview in the JLCD1 region (LCD CONNECTOR
) tested good.


Off-top:
I highly recommend Okular (pdf viewer) for schematics.
Using it on linux but its also for windows.

[Good2Know]

For what it's worth:
Since i installed dual system (win10/ linux mint) i can now confirm that:
once you put the machine into sleep and then waking it up --> error melody is gone, no matter how many times you press FN or FN combos, at least until the next reboot.
This behavior is the same both in win10 and linux mint.