IBM X23 laptop boot failure

Hello

I have an IBM X23, Type 2662 laptop which has worked well for about the last 4 years (apart from the very occasional minor issue). A couple of days ago, it stopped and sat at the IBM boot up screen and would not boot further (the one with the directions for F1, F11 & F12). I forced the machine off by holding down the power key and left the machine off for several hours, tried again, and it booted fine. (This was great as it provided opportunity to back up.)

Today however, it sticks at the boot up screen and gives one long beep, then two short beeps. I checked this out on the Lenovo site and it would seem to indicate a mainboard issue. (Sometimes a bit of distortion appears at the top of the screen, like a graphics chip is failing to draw the screen properly.)

Pressing <F1> to enter SETUP, <F11> to invoke the IBM Product Recovery program, or <F12> to choose temporary boot device, at best produces text: ‘Entering IBM BIOS Setup Utility’, at which point the system sits again.

During one attempt to boot, ‘command prompt’ (?) output appeared with the following info (after which the system sat, unresponsive):

PhoenixBIOS 4.0 Release 6.0 for IBM ThinkPad
Copyright 1985-2000 Phoenix Technologies Ltd.
All Rights Reserved

(C) COPYRIGHT IBM CORPORATION 2000, 2001 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
US Government Users Restricted Rights - Use, duplication or disclosure restricted by GSA ADP Schedule Contract with IBM Corp.



CPU = Intel(R) MObile Intel(R) Pentium(R) III Processor-M processor 866 MHz
638K System Ram Passed
254M Extended Ram Passed
512K Cache SRAM Passed
System BIOS shadowed
Video BIOS shadowed
UMB upper limit segment address: DC00
Fixed Disk 0: IC25N020ATCS04-0
Mouse Initialized

I have screen shots (digital photos!) of all this stuff in case they could be useful.

Any advice/suggestions would be much appreciated, thank you.


______________________
"The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice." Proverbs 12:15 (NIV)

 

Hello and Welcome to Majorgeeks.
IBM BIOS beep codes

As you can see One long beep followed by Two short beeps indicates a Video issue, so it may be that your GPU might have failed.

 

Thank you Spock96 for your help & welcome to Majorgeeks & for posting the beep codes - the list I found did not seem as exhaustive.

I will try to troubleshoot in the GPU area. I wonder if it could be heat related, as the machine is working fine again this morning. As it seems an intermittent problem I wonder if I'll eventually need to try to dismantle the machine and clean/reseat cards/cables etc.

Thanks again.

__________________
"Gold there is, and rubies in abundance, but lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel." Proverbs 20:15 (NIV)

 

No Problem glad I could be of service
(PS: GREAT signature we need more of that in this world today)