ThinkPad

1357 readers

1 users here now

IBM and Lenovo ThinkPad laptop enthusiasts!

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

T430 doesn't turn on - Help with troubleshooting? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I just bought a used "faulty" T430.

It doesn't turn on at all (no lights, no sounds, no fan spin) and when I tried to turn it on with only the critical components (motherboard, power adapter and speakers), I got the same result.

I've also examined the power area on the motherboard, and it seems like 20V is getting delivered to the motherboard just fine.

But I've looked at the motherboard thoroughly, and I couldn't find a single part of it that looked bad.

Is this definitely caused by the motherboard, or could it be an issue with another component like the CPU?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

is there a way you know of flashing firmware without the laptop working? Do I need one of those bios programmer clip thingies?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

@Jumuta if your laptop doesn't turn on, external flashing is the only way.

@kanzalibrary

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

thanks, I'll try getting a soic8 clip and flashing coreboot with a raspberry pi

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (1 children)

@Jumuta try Coreboot from Skulls project

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

is it better than libreboot in some way?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

@Jumuta Skulls just uses SeaBIOS as a payload, so it mush simpler.

However you can still try Libreboot, but you need to dump your firmware and extract binary files from it (like IME for example, and vgablob if you have Nvidia GPU)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I see, I thought there were pre built images for libreboot though?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

@Evv1L @Jumuta Incorrect. Libreboot's build system automatically downloads update files from Lenovo, to extract things like Intel ME, which is then processed through me_cleaner.

Dumping your factory ROM is still recommended, but you don't need to extract anything from it to build a full Libreboot image.

On Libreboot release ROMs, files like Intel ME are missing but can be added using the same auto-download logic from the build system. See:

https://libreboot.org/docs/install/ivy_has_common.html

We provide SeaBIOS and GRUB.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

@Evv1L @Jumuta Libreboot does not yet auto-download VGA ROMs for T430 though. It does for Dell Latitude E6400.

I have on todo to rewrite the handling of VGA ROMs, so that they can be added for non-Intel GPUs on all currently supported Libreboot hardware.

On T430, Libreboot currently configures coreboot to only use native graphics initialisation, for the Intel GPU. On T430 models with other GPU, the Intel GPU is still present and can be used in this way.

Also, Skulls is a really cool project.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

@Evv1L @Jumuta If you're using Libreboot an a T430 and you boot with SeaBIOS payload, you can still configure use of non-intel GPU if one is present, by modifying cmos.default in flash, using nvramtool with the -C option (Libreboot hardcodes the default so you need -C); and you can add the VGA ROM manually, conforming to name in CBFS: pcivvvv,dddd.rom, where v is vendor ID and d is device ID.

SeaBIOS would then automatically execute it, and if coreboot is configured in this way to use the dGPU.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Thanks so much for the info Leah! I'll definitely keep this in mind when I flash the firmware. If I can get my t430 to boot, I'll definitely try to install libreboot on it.