Lenovo Laptop Won’t Turn On – Blinking or No Power Light

Issue: Several Lenovo laptop models have had issues returning from sleep, suspend or hibernation mode. An affected laptop may be fine one day but wont power on the next. In this state the Power LED indicator light may do nothing when pressed, or may blink 3 times but the laptop remains idle with a blank black screen. No beeps, no BIOS post messages, no keyboard backlight, nothing. Your laptop is now a very expensive but not construction worthy brick. Below are solutions to get your laptop powered back on and running.

Prevention (sometimes) – Update your Lenovo laptop BIOS!

Solutions – try the solutions below one at a time until your laptop fires up

Solution #1 – Power Button Drain
Old faithful. If this works, think about buying a lottery ticket.

  1. Unplug power
  2. If your laptop has removable batteries, remove them
  3. Press and hold the power button for 30 seconds
  4. Return battery and power
  5. Power on

Solution #2 – Reset Hole
Yes your expensive Lenovo laptop came with an emergency reset hole.

  1. Unplug power
  2. Find a thin paper clip
  3. Locate the Emergency Reset Hole on your laptop
  4. Press and hold the Reset Hole for ten seconds with the paper clip
  5. Power on

Solution #3 – Fully Drain All Power (internal batteries)
Completely drain all power from the laptop – some disassembly required.

  1. Unplug power
  2. Remove bottom cover (search Youtube for a removal guide for your model)
  3. Remove both removable and internal Batteries
  4. Press and hold the power button for 30 seconds
  5. Replace batteries, return bottom cover
  6. Plug in and Power on

Solution #4 – Remove CMOS battery
Last chance garage – give that little ole battery a kiss & a rattle in the hand like a pair of dice and pray for power!

  1. Unplug power
  2. Remove bottom shell of the laptop – Search YouTube, your laptop’s support website or the IFIXIT Repair Guide site:
  3. Unplug the CMOS battery for 30 seconds
  4. Reconnect the CMOS battery
  5. *Don’t put the shell back on yet, only do that after confirming everything has been reconnected correctly
  6. Power on
  7. Set Date and Time if prompted

Solution #5
Involves Fed-Ex. Not the step you want.

  1. It’s hard to update the BIOS when your computer wont turn on so…
  2. Call Lenovo Support
  3. Ship package
  4. Contemplate your brand selection process
  5. Forgive all when that baby’s back, powered on and rockin!

 

47 thoughts on “Lenovo Laptop Won’t Turn On – Blinking or No Power Light

  1. solution# 1
    i have disconnected batery from inside, i have 2 batteries ,and bios reset. on an x270

  2. My 4 YO Thinkpad T480 wouldn’t wake up from hibernation. The power button was acting up. I thought it was a fried motherboard. Luckily, solution# 2 worked like a charm. Thank u very much. Commenting to upkeep this post !

  3. Excellent! THANK YOU!!
    went through each step in sequence and solution #3 worked for my son’s Lenovo T470 :-)
    From tears and upset thinking he’d lost everything to a big hug and a happy 11yr old again :-)
    Just remember there are 2 x internal batteries to remove as well as the external ;-)
    30 seconds holding the power button once all batteries removed and hey presto, it came back to life. Just had to reset the date and time on start-up and all seems to be working fine again.

    Solution #3 – Fully Drain All Power (internal batteries)
    Completely drain all power from the laptop – some disassembly required.

    – Unplug power
    – Remove bottom cover (search Youtube for a removal guide for your model) –
    be careful, I broke 2 small plastic retaining pins towards the back lip where the external battery was. But case clipped back on fine, thankfully
    – Remove both removable (external) and both internal Batteries (coin and large flat one)
    -Press and hold the power button for 30 seconds (this was sufficient)
    – Replace batteries, return bottom cover (it clicks back in then screw down)
    – Plug in and Power on (fingers crossed ;-)

  4. Thank you for the well documented procedure. After 35 years in the IT field, much of it managing IT departments, I appreciate your clear instructions along with a sense of humor. I’ve had my T15 Gen 1 for several years now and this was the first time this problem was encountered. Now retired, I no longer have a staff to rely on. For me it powered up with Step 1, so I’m headed to buy a MegaMillions ticket – the jackpot is $400M. Will let you know if I win. You deserve a finder’s fee

  5. It was the COMS Battery . I remove the battery and return it to its place …. And my laptop start but i should correct the Data and Time on BIOS it was easy thanks alot

    1. Hi Wanfadger,

      Hope you are doing good.
      Does your t460s was showing keyboard blinks 2 times and nothing else.

      I m facing the same issue where the laptop was closed on Thursday afternoon and when tried to start it on Monday, nothing happened.

      Thanks

  6. Thanks so much for this helpful post. I noticed when I plugged in the power to my laptop, the power button flashed green 3 times, but would not start. I performed the steps in sequence and it wasn’t until I performed Step 4 did my laptop finally start back up. Again, thanks so much for this post!

  7. None of this works for me except step 5, and step 5.4 is the most hilarious thing I’ve seen on the Internet this week. Thanks for that! LOL

  8. Lenovo Flex 5 81X20005US the step with pulling the battery cable out – carefully – worked, after holding the power down for 30 seconds i replugged the battery and it turned on. The bits you need are T5 “star” bits, t6 is too big and t4 is too small.

  9. Awesome genius. #1 didn’t work for. I have Lenovo Thinkpad T480 (an year old) and this is the 2nd time this happened. I took the removable battery out, tried to press and hold the power button multiple times for different duration, didn’t work.

    But the tiny reset hole when pressed with a small paper clip pin worked in less than 10 seconds I guess.

    Thanks, I can now go back to my blogging.

  10. Perfect! Option 3 worked for me!

    We’ve found that this is a real problem when X1 Carbons are allowed to drain their batteries completely . With so many devices having been left in drawers in the office for the last 6 months, this is going to be a regular occurrence

  11. Thank you for this post! Finally my Lenovo is working again. However, I was wondering how common is this error for this laptops? A friend wants to buy one but I’m not sure recommending her this one.

    Thank you

  12. unplugged the laptop. Took out the battery. Taking the bottom off the laptop was easy. No hidden screws. A screw holding down the hard drive literally fell out onto the floor. I unplugged the ROUND cmos battery and a long lithium ion also. Left it unplugged while screwing the hard drive holder back in. Re-seated the memory. Put it back together and turned it on. It took about 2 minutes to do all that. Of course the time had to be reset in the BIOS after unplugging the cmos battery.

  13. Thank you so much! Step 1 didn’t work, but step 2 did :)
    I had the power LEDs flashing like it was still sleeping even with the battery removed… Trusty reset hole

  14. Hi there I have the same problem tried 1234 and still won’t power up is there any other way of fixing this annoying problem

  15. Did it on a 4-year old Lenovo X260 Thinkpad!
    No light, no nothing.
    Unplugged both internal and CMOS battery – and BINGO!
    Back alive!
    Thank you!

  16. My lenovo ideapad laptop not on….
    Charging light isnot on….no any response in my laptop…..
    Please help me

    This is brand new

  17. My lenovo ideapad laptop not on….
    Charging light isnot on….no any response in my laptop…..
    Please help me

  18. Open the laptop, remove and reseat the memory. This has happened to me twice now on my Lenovo Legion Y520 and both times removing and swapping over the memory modules has fixed the problem without having to do anything more. Good Luck!

  19. Thanks for saving my computer.

    Husband did it as I read your instructions. We had to pull the CMOS battery, I told my husband to shake it in his hand, pray, and kiss it and he said “don’t be silly”
    “But it’s in the instructions!” I said.

    He ignored me and it worked anyway! Thank you!!!

  20. I tried the rest button, power button for 30 secs, and all the above but no luck. But then I took the back cover off, reseated the ram and also unplugged the internal battery (there’s a wire that connects it via plug to the board), and it worked :)
    But not sure which of the 2 actions sorted it.

    1. Step 1 worked for me. Where can I buy that lottery ticket? :) Thanks a lot for assembling these troubleshooting steps!

  21. After steps 1, 2, and 3 did nothing, I was very nervous– but a CMOS battery cycle did the trick. So thank you, internet stranger, for making my life significantly less stressful. I hope you stay at the top of the Google results, because you were very helpful.

  22. thanks it works after changing ram and ssd drive on my laptop T460 it failed to turn on
    i used paper clip Before was a terrfiying moments

    thanks God bless you

      1. Just did the reset on my laptop following the first step. Now I’m back on line
        Thanks alot.

    1. I’ve always love Lenovo laptops…certainly been more reliable than any other devices I’ve used and supported over the past 30 years. However, I have a Yoga that just had a system board replacement to resolve a bad USB port (2 months before warranty expired and I would “buy it” from my employer), and then a couple of weeks before I get my replacement device and “buy” this device, which I absolutely LOVE btw, I go to power it up Monday morning and nothing. No power light, nothing. Went through ALL of the normal troubleshooting steps, including removing batteries for a while. Now it does something…the power light blinks once…when I push the power button, but that’s all. Anything else to do other than find a replacement motherboard on eBay? Does anyone know the logic behind the various power light blink sequences?

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