Lenovo X220 not turning on

[tibimakai]

I have picked up this broken laptop, without battery, hard drive and memory.
When I have installed a memory and tried booting up only with a power supply, it went into BIOS, to my surprise.
Since than, I can't boot it up any more.
The two speaker orange LEDs turn on for a second, power button green LED stays on, caps led blinks and also the LED light turns on for a second and then the fan turns on for a couple of seconds , than turns of and it tries to turn on a couple of times. LCD seems dead(no backlight either). LED for battery/power works.
I have read about issues with this model and it seems like the only solution is, to replace the motherboard. It looks like a bad BIOS/EEPROM is causing this issue, same as other Lenovo laptops.
Anybody worked with these laptops, have any experience with these?
It's the regular X220-i5 cpu version-4192, not the tablet one(though, I have an i7 T motherboard as well, that works).
Any help, would be appreciated.

[BCConnectionLLC]

Re: Lenovo X220 not turning on

Have you looked to see if there is a BIOS recovery option for it?

[tibimakai]

Re: Lenovo X220 not turning on

I'm a beginner at this, so I would need some help with that.
What is a BIOS recovery option?

[BCConnectionLLC]

Re: Lenovo X220 not turning on

Some laptops have a BIOS recovery that can reflash the BIOS without a programmer.

Normally a FAT32 usb drive with an Unpacked BIOS exe. Hold a button combo on boot and it boots them into a recovery for the BIOS. Flashes it then reboots or turns off.

here
http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/migr-77151

[tibimakai]

Re: Lenovo X220 not turning on

I will give it a try with a USB stick. Laptop does not have a CD and I don't have a portable either.
I have read the read file and to me, it seems like it won't work this way.
I don't see, any button combo to push, at startup.
I can't select the first boot device either.

[BCConnectionLLC]

Re: Lenovo X220 not turning on

remove everything it could boot from other than the USB and give it a try. Its not going to hurt to try.

[tibimakai]

Re: Lenovo X220 not turning on

This USB update seems like, it is a Windows exe update. Has to run within Windows.

[BCConnectionLLC]

Re: Lenovo X220 not turning on

You can unpack a BIOS exe with 7Zip and load it to a flash drive

[tibimakai]

Re: Lenovo X220 not turning on

I have unpacked it, but it still did not try booting from the USB.
I ended up replacing the EEPROM(L08) from a x220T motherboard and still does not start.
The x220T, starts with the X220 EEPROM, so is not an EEPROM problem.

[dj_ricoh]

Re: Lenovo X220 not turning on

my opinion is that this board got a 2nd gen CPU with Intel HD graphics and you may have 2 possible problems:
1:CPU went fubar (not the first or the last CPU that i will see going bad)
2:Chipset needs a reflow/swap.

Both options will come only if you remember how was the thermal compound when you open the notebook. Because if the paste was hard then yes. Start investigating those 2 options because the heat could have kill them.

take a multimeter and do a continuity test to all the coils. the one that beeps lift the coil up(or a side) and inject up to 2.5/3v and see what heats up.

if you want to troubleshoot the board before injecting voltage , you can check for voltage. checking for voltage its good to do even after injecting voltage because you see if that side gets any voltage.

EX: you injected V and you know that the rail is for chipset or CPU. place it back. power up and see how much voltage you got on both sides of coil.

you can trace back the coil to the fet with a DMM set on continuity to see if you get voltage.

[tibimakai]

Re: Lenovo X220 not turning on

Another thing, that may be a pretty stupid thing.
Am I using the right memory?
I have a X220T motherboard and that one, starts with the memory, that I'm using with this X220.(DDR3 1600)
On Newegg, I'm noticing, that all the (compatible)memories are double row memories and the one I'm using, has only singe row chips.