Lenovo Thinkpad T400s Troubleshooting

The laptop is not indicating that it’s charging.

If the laptop is taking an excessively long time to charge the battery may be over-discharged. Turn off the laptop and let it charge for 24 hours with the battery attached. If battery continues to take a long time to charge consider a battery replacement. See link to purchase a replacement battery.

Check that the adapter is plugged in and the charging light is on. If light is not on, consider replacing charger with the exact type or a universal charger.

Batteries tend to lose its ability to hold a charge as it gets older. Plug in laptop without the battery attached. If laptop is able to turn on, the battery may be the problem. Consider replacing the battery. See link to purchase a replacement battery.

My computer is slow to start-up or when performing tasks.

One common cause to this problem is software running in the background. If there are any unnecessary programs on your computer, you should uninstall them. To check which programs are using up your CPU processing power is by holding the “Ctrl”, “Alt”, and “Delete” keys to bring up the Task Manager.

Viruses and malware will cause your computer to become slower overall. We suggest you download anti-virus and malware software on your computer. Once installed, you will want to run the program to detect and remove any potential issues.

If your computer is still slow to start up, cannot complete normal tasks, or stops working during memory-intensive tasks then your computer does not have enough RAM. We suggest that you install new or more RAM into your computer. For instructions on how to install a RAM card follow this link to our replacement guide.

My laptop keys aren’t working properly or are missing.

If a key is hard to press down, there is probably something underneath the key sticking to it or blocking it. To solve this problem, remove the key clean/remove anything under the key, and place the key back in. To learn how to safely remove keys, go here.

If the keys are missing you should go here for replacement keys.

When your keys don’t respond anymore, and you fix your sticky keys, this is the point where replacing keycaps is not the solution. If this happens, you need to replace your keyboard. To learn how to replace the keyboard, go here.

My laptop is getting uncomfortably hot and is even shutting itself down.

A lot of issues with overheating stem from dust buildup on the vents of your laptop. If this is the case use a can of compressed air which can be purchased from any local hardware/computer store and blow out the dust from the vents allowing for better airflow.

If you use your laptop in bed or lay it down on the carpet, this may be obstructing your fan vents as well. If this is the case consider using your laptop on hard, flat surfaces or invest in a laptop stand or passive cooling pad which will keep your fan vents unobstructed.

If heating is still an issue after you have removed dust or obstructions from the fan vents, then your issues may be traced back to the fans themselves. If this is the case, you will need to clean. For help getting to the fan and heatsink, go to our replacement guide.

My screen display is dim or not showing.

My laptop screen is damaged.

If your laptop screen is completely dark, the display may be disabled. One of the causes for this could be that your laptop is in a projector display mode. Press and hold “Fn” while pressing “F7”. This will cycle your laptop through different display modes such as: Projector, Duplicate, Extend (for dual screens), and Default.

This can be caused by the following issues:

1. The brightness is not set high enough
   • To fix this problem in the Lenovo T400 serie, move your mouse over to the battery symbol in the bottom right corner of your screen. Click on the battery, go to "Switchable Graphics", and then "Energy Saving" to turn off this feature.
2. The backlight fuse is faulty
   • In order to repair the backlight for the screen, you will can try out a quick-fix with conductive glue on the two backlight fuses. If the problem persists, then you will need to repair the Motherboard.

If your computer screen is cracked or damaged, then you will need to replace your screen. For help on replacing your screen, take a look at our replacement guide.

After the preliminary actions of rebooting, taking out and putting in battery, unplugging, and plugging charger, the laptop is not booting to Windows and staying at Lenovo Logo.

Take out the memory SODIMM, clean the gold pines, exchange their positions and slot them back in. DIMM(memory) removal and installation instructions here.

Use software that checks the SMART data of hard disk. The Lenovo website has a USB key or CD of this diagnostic, download Lenovo Bootable Diagnostics. Press F12 and boot from the device to check hard disk. A possible solution is to replace the hard drive, video link here.

My touchpad or pointer (red button in the center of the keyboard) is not working or responding properly.

This can be caused by the following issues:

1. Dirty Touchpad
   • To solve this problem, you want to clean your touchpad with rubbing alcohol to remove the build-up of any grime.
2. Disabled Touchpad
   • To enable your touchpad, go to your control panel, and enable it in the “Ultranav” tab in the Mouse section.
3. Corrupt Driver
   • This means you are in need of a driver update. Make sure you update your BIOS before you update your touchpad driver. Both downloads can be found here.
4. Faulty Touchpad
   • If all of those issues are not fixed, I recommend getting a USB/Bluetooth mouse or replacing the palm rest, which you can buy here.

If this happens, there may be something wrong with the button hitting the receiver under the button. To fix this, you need to replace the palm rest, which you can buy here.

Check to see if your TrackPoint is enabled in the UltraNav tab in the control panel. If the problem keeps ensuing, you need to update the BIOS and the driver here.