Intermittent startup issue

My Lenovo Thinkpad is a little over a year old, running Windows XP Pro. I've had this happen 4 times since April. The first incidents were 50+ days apart, the most recent only 6 days apart.

What happens is that the laptop is off, and I power it up in the morning. So I press the power button, the Lenovo splash screen comes up. The next step should be the appearance of a small horizontal line in the upper left corner of the screen, and then the Windows splash screen. I've had these times when nothing happens after the Lenovo splash screen. It just goes to black, and then nothing. No hard drive activity either. If I hold down the power button I can restart. This morning it beeped prior to shutting down. I don't remember if it did that the other 3 times.

I've also had a few incidents where the screen doesn't come up when coming out of standby, but if I press a random key then the screen appears. I'm not concerned about this, but the startup problem has me wondering what is going on.

So what happens between the time the manufacturer's splash screen appears and the Windows splash screen appears?

Otherwise, this laptop runs beautifully. Hardware or software thing, what do you think?

 

I ran a complete test of the hard drive after the last incident a few days ago, and I used PC Doctor, which came installed on the laptop. It was a test that took several hours, and it didn't find any problems. Haven't done the memtest yet.

I ran chkdsk, but just from My Computer and I had it run with the options to fix anything not selected. It just told me the test was complete, it didn't provide any further information.

There is shock protection on the laptop. When I first got it, I wouldn't move it at all when it was running because I was worried about damaging the hard drive, but I've seen other people move their laptops around while the systems are on and running. I have since moved it while running, but very carefully, nothing drastic. When the shock protection kicks in, it shows up on the taskbar icon, and it doesn't take much for that shock protection to kick in. I guess that just stops the hard drive from spinning. I understand that it's OK to move the laptop when it's on standby, but it's still handled with care at all times.

I'm thinking the issue isn't heating, as these things happen when the laptop has been off for several hours.

So am I correct, that you have the manufacturer's splash screen (in this case Lenovo), and then the computer would be looking to boot from drive C? It looks like once in a while, that process is not happening. I'm not getting any sort of warning about the hard drive not being found. (With my other PC, a friend and I replaced the PSU and then we apparently didn't have the hard drive plugged in all the way because when we went to boot up, the system said very plainly that it couldn't find it. A little stress, but easily corrected. )

 

Thanks for watching out for us newbies, Major Attitude.

 

Is it like the computer turned itself off?

If so, I'm thinking too much heat.

What model Lenovo? I'll search to see if others with that model are reporting the same thing.

 

I shut the laptop off every night. These occurrences have taken place when I first power up the laptop for the day. Lenovo splash screen, then black. No little flashing horizontal line in the upper left corner of the screen. Usually when I first power up the laptop for the day, there is a little light at the bottom of the screen of a particular icon--I don't know what that is (and the help document doesn't explain it)--and that will be flashing as Windows powers up. In this case, it doesn't do anything. I've held the power button down until all the lights turn off. Then I try again and it works. This morning, the laptop beeped when it shut off, and I can't remember if it did that the other times.

The icon I mention is beside one that looks like a "z" inside a circle, then there's a battery icon, then a plug-in, and these 3 are lit. Next is the crescent moon, and I know that is the standby mode indicator. The unknown icon flashes once in a while, and it is shaped like an upright cylinder. I think it might indicate hard drive activity.

The laptop is a R61 Thinkpad.

I've been thinking--one time I plugged my USB mouse into a port while I powered up, and it could have been in that time frame. Another time I moved the lid slightly, adjusting its position a bit, the third time it was on my lap and I think I did move the laptop a bit by moving slightly myself, and today I slid the laptop slightly sideways right after I pushed the power button. I am wondering if small movements like that would have interrupted the boot up to Windows. (Just grabbing at straws here!) It's only happened four times, the first incident being in April of this year.

 

The z icon is probably to turn off wireless (at least on my eeepc netbook I have a z that does this), and yes the cylinder is hard drive activity. If it doesn't light, the computer turns on but the hd doesn't spin up so the icon is not lit.

If slight movement while turning on, causes the hd to not spin, something could be loose. Or maybe the BIOS doesn't even get as far as handing control over to the hd.

The manufacturers screen is part of the info in the BIOS. I think if you removed the hd completely, you would still see that. Next the BIOS hands off to the hd and if there is no problem, windows or another OS loads. If there is a problem, you might get a message, no hard drive detected. It seems you don't even get that far. (If the connector between the motherboard and hd were loose, you might get a no hd detected message).

It's as if your hd is dead whenever you move the computer slightly while booting up. Maybe it's a motherboard problem. Let me look around to see what I can find.

 

I've been searching because when your computer turns on, you should get a POST (power on self test) beep. You get no beep which says to me, it hasn't powered on.
Here's the chart for no beep and nothing matches your situation!
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/s...1&family=Notebooks and handhelds|ThinkPad R61

 

I found some drivers that appear to have been updated recently, specifically the BIOS and the hard drive ThinkVantage Active protection
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?sitestyle=lenovo&lndocid=MIGR-67856

I discourage anyone from updating the BIOS unless he/she is having real problems; yours seem to be only if you move the laptop while it is powering up. In your case, I'd say unless you start having this problem at other times, avoid the BIOS update.
You might want to email Lenovo, explain your problem: no hd activity and no POST to see if they can offer suggestions.

 

Thanks so much, Plodr, for all your research. I'll pay more attention for the beep when I power up the laptop in the future and see what happens, ie if there is an instance of no beep followed by no hard drive activity. Intermittent glitches can sure be hard to diagnose, eh?

Thanks again, I appreciate the information.