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

submitted 1 year ago by Jumuta@sh.itjust.works to c/thinkpad@lemmy.ml

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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?

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[–] Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (10 children)

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

[–] Evv1L@mastodon.ml 1 points 1 year ago (9 children)

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

@kanzalibrary

[–] Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (8 children)

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

[–] Evv1L@mastodon.ml 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@Jumuta try Coreboot from Skulls project

[–] Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

is it better than libreboot in some way?

[–] Evv1L@mastodon.ml 0 points 1 year 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)

[–] libreleah@mas.to 1 points 1 year 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.

[–] libreleah@mas.to 1 points 1 year 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.

[–] libreleah@mas.to 1 points 1 year 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.

[–] Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year 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.

[–] Jumuta@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

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

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