And the Lenovo T400 said: "Beep.Beep-Beep-Beep.Beep-Beep-Beep.Beep!

By Gael Holmes (Intel) (91 posts) on February 23, 2009 at 2:30 pm

I found myself in a strange situation with my T400. I was trying to provision it and suddenly I could not get into the Manageability Engine (ME) with any of the normal passwords.  Actually this happened twice to me on this system.  I looked for a way to reset the ME to factory settings from the BIOS (HP allows this) but I came to find out later that Lenovo has not implemented that feature yet.  (Too Bad!!)

So I found a Lenovo upgrade utility that actually goes out to the Lenovo site and installed the latest Firmware (the system came with an outdated version.) I figured - a great way to get it back to Factory settings would be to upgrade the Firmware, right??  Well after doing the upgrade, the system proceeded to reboot and all I got was a bunch of beeps. One short beep followed by 3 beeps followed by 3 beeps followed by 1 beep. The Lenovo website indicated this was due to memory.  I figured that the Doctor was ordering a CMOS clear at this point.  So then I actually had to figure out where the CMOS battery was (always fun on a Notebook!)  It turns out that it is behind a panel that is "south" of the keyboard. There are 4 screws on the back of the notebook that must be removed in order to remove the panel and then to access the CMOS battery.  Make sure the Notebook is unplugged (Including the Network cable) and that you have removed the battery before doing this.

To make a short story long, clearing the cmos worked (both times.) The Lenovo T400 is now back to "brand new!"

 

UPDATE:  One of our developers (Frank) saw my blog and mentioned that he was having the beeping problem to and that the latest firmware upgrade solved the problem.  I think the reason why I had to keep clearing the CMOS is that I hadn't upgraded to that latest version of the firmware yet.  Every time I left it overnight, unplugged I would get the beeps in the morning.  (Note I had just upgraded the FW, but when I went out to the Lenovo site, I found that there was an even newer version so I upgraded again - haven't gotten the beeps since.

As to the question of how to get the ME back to factory default, here is a way to do so without taking the box apart:

Here is a picture of which of the 4 screws you need to remove when you find yourself in this situation.  Look for the picture next to the screw - it's the only screw that has 4 "like" pictures.

Categories: Intel SW Partner Program, Intel® Software Network 2.0, Manageability, Mobility

Comments (9)

February 24, 2009 1:02 AM PST


adella		 Very interesting situation, thanks for such good explanation of problem, I also have T400, so I hope that if I will be confronted by this kind of difficulties, I will pass it. Thanks again.
February 26, 2009 10:36 AM PST


Frank Engelman		 Hi Gael,
I had the same "Morse Code" problem on a T400 and thought it was a one-of-a-kind.. :)

But, I have some good news for you... there is a Lenovo BIOS update that addresses this and it worked me...
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-70350

As to the question of how to get the ME back to factory default, here isn the process I use:

In BIOS, select Config-> Intel (R) AMT-> Intel (R) AMT Control- Disable ... exit BIOS and reboot

Then repeat the above enabling the AMT control, and you will be back at factory default- PWD is "admin" again

Frank

February 26, 2009 10:41 AM PST

Gael Holmes (Intel)
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 Frank: I did get the BIOs upgrade that was from Feb 16th. And the Beeps did stop after that. THANK YOU for the tip on getting it back to factory mode without having to start dismantling the box. I'm going to update my blog with this info.
February 26, 2009 11:06 AM PST

Joshua Hilliker (Intel)
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 Great post Gael. just posted a reference to this on Expert Center..
March 4, 2009 3:52 AM PST

vzvezda
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 Had the similar problem on Acer Travelmate but did not manage to find the CMOS battery without a chance to break the warranty. So the laptop was sent to technical support.
March 4, 2009 8:58 AM PST

Gael Holmes (Intel)
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 Hi earlnsk - yes - figuring out where the batteries is sometimes challenging - there are so many screws on the back. Did you see Frank's response? I tried it and it worked great. (password did go back to "admin" too, like he said it would!) I'm finding that the wording in the bios screens is not very clear for the various OEM boxes. If your bios has an Intel AMT section - look to see if it has a "Disable AMT" - this seems to mean "Return to Factory State" - so disable it, reboot and then shut the system down and start it up again and then enable AMT and see if that works for your system.
March 4, 2009 8:59 AM PST

Gael Holmes (Intel)
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 "where the battery is"
May 7, 2009 6:00 AM PDT


KIS		 hi, can any one please help me. i have a Lenovo ThinkPad T400, and i locked it at the boot up. i dont know what i did, but now it wants a hard drive code, and the system code. the thing is locked and i cant use it any more. please help.
May 8, 2009 8:52 AM PDT

Gael Holmes (Intel)
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 KIS - you're probably going to need to call the Lenovo Technical Support for this problem.

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