SyntaxBomb - Indie Coders

Hi tech gurus,

I've lost all power to my Lenovo Ideapad Y460. It happened when I put it to sleep mode and turned it upside down to knock out the dirt from the keyboard, which I did fairly gently, but when I went to switch it on again there was no power, has anyone ever had a problem like this?

I tried a standard power check where you unplug it and press the power button for 10 seconds to drain the static, then plug it in and try again, but they didn't work. The next step is to find the CMOS battery to reset the BIOS, but the Y460 is such a rare model that I couldn't find anyone who knew where the CMOS actually is, including the manual.

It has a tendency to overheat and I've had it on way too much really so I think I have cooked something, has anyone got any idea what that could be? Will it need a new motherboard now?

Thanks.

Try re-seating the RAM.

As per above. Take the RAM out and shove it in again and also while you're inside unplug any easy to get at cables and reseat those too, plus make sure anything that has a connection is given a gentle push. I assume you've done the obvious fuse change for the PSU?

Hey thanks guys.

I did take the RAM out, just to see if the CMOS was underneath it. So it's not that, but it could be the RAM is fried.

I didn't check the PSU plug fuse, but the PSU has a power light on and the laptop had plenty of power in the battery when it died. The laptop has no lights at all, usually there's one or two.

I'll have a look at loose cable connectors then, good idea.

You'll more than likely find the cmos battery buried near the motherboard (keyboard side), either on it in a holder or wrapped in plastic with black and red wires. The only way to get to it would be to strip the laptop down. You'll need the service manual and take anti-static precautions. If you look on page 77 on item 6 (the motherboard). You'll see a round thing with what looks like wires coming from it.

Make sure that you keep track of what screws come from where, or you could end up damaging something if you put a long screw in the wrong place.

With one of my old laptops I have to tweak the cable until it has power. A bit like picking a lock.

If you achieved to break loose one of these little resistors or capacitors or ...you got it... any of these little pieces. Then it might simply lead to things like a gpu not reacting, a psu not delivering power.

Do not even think about replacing the mobo .. that is a 12yrs old laptop, so replacement of the motherboard will more expensive than buying a newer and used laptop.

Quote from: markcwm on April 03, 2022, 20:24:24
[..] but the Y460 is such a rare model that I couldn't find anyone who knew where the CMOS actually is, including the manual.

think you simply need to follow the maintenance/repair manual to disassemble the device

https://download.lenovo.com/UserFiles/UserGuide/en/User's%20guides%20and%20manuals/Y460/Lenovo%20IdeaPad%20Y460%20Hardware%20Maintenance%20Manual%20V1.0.pdf


If BIOS was corrupted somehow I assume one see the device power on but just showing "black screen" (with the backlight still enlightening the screen). Same for a broken GPU. A broken CPU most probably does the same ...
So if display stays black but "fans swirled" then the display connected would be an issue. If no fan, no display - mainboard will be.

Reseating cables is a good idea .. and regarding PSU : you have a battery in it, does it have a battery level indicator (my old hp elitebook has a button I can press to see how full the battery is). If the battery has power left and it does not work, then you at least know you did not break loose the AC plug socket.


PS: When I had to "push" in a CPU fan some months ago I slit off with my flat screwdriver a bit and tried to "rescue" (to not damage the mainboard) but it was enough to reach out a tiny bit to the GPU ... which was enough to break off a little resistor (or so) from the board - inclusing a bit of the PCB ... on booting up the GPU fan run at noisy full speed and no image on all output sockets... that easy to destroy an (gladly old) GPU .


bye
Ron

some others suggestions :
-maybe one of the pin of the power source has a 'false contact'
-maybe the cable of the AC/DC converter has a 'false contact' or is dead
-maybe a component was already starting to have a bad soldering because of too much heating and by shaking it you finished to 'unsolder' it.
-maybe there was a 'sur-voltage' in your home and a capacitor / resistor / chip has burnt

in any case this show the necessity to backup often on external storage (usb disks, sd disks, dvds...)

good luck

This happens to me occasionally. I think it has to do with the pc going in to sleep mode at a bad time
Remove the physical battery from the laptop then plug it in and turn it on

Thanks everyone, that's a lot of suggestions.

I haven't taken it apart again yet but I'll try looking for the CMOS where dawlane said. I don't think that will work though and as Derron said something could have just snapped.

Pakz, sounds like a loose connection with the socket, those just get worse over time but may just need a bit of soldering to fix, but soldering must be good.

Quote from: markcwm on April 06, 2022, 23:24:59
I haven't taken it apart again yet but I'll try looking for the CMOS where dawlane said. I don't think that will work though and as Derron said something could have just snapped.

Some how I don't think that messing around with the CMOS battery will work. The chances are that if you tried cleaning it with the battery still in place, then you've shorted something. As you've mentioned that it had an overheating problem, then that will more than likely be down to dust, which it's self can be a cause of some electrical issues. The other cause for overheating is old thermal paste.