Lenovo Thinkpad T400 is Stuck on Thinkpad Startup Screen

I recently got my Father-in law a refurbished Lenovo Thinkpad T400 laptop and printer to mess around with.

He likes browsing Kijiji and printing off items he's interested in, however he started complaining that his new HP USB printer was not printing. Seeing as how he is not very computer literate, I did not take his complaint that seriously until he said he could no longer boot the laptop. 

Every time he tried, it would freeze at the splash screen. I finally had him bring the laptop and printer to my house so I could examine it. As it turns out he was correct. The system was indeed stuck at the splash screen upon boot-up. No BIOS, nothing...just the splash screen. I initially thought the HD died because I could not hear it spinning, but I was perplexed that I wasn't getting any BIOS info. After removing the battery and re-seating the HD, the system still would not boot...

Upon examining the system, I found a broken USB socket - the orientation tab is missing and the contacts were pushed to the bottom of the socket shorting out each other. Once I was able to separate them, everything then worked just fine when I rebooted.

When My Father in-law moves his laptop, he keeps everything still plugged in (including the USB printer) which likely bent the USB pins causing them to short out.

Answer

This is a somewhat unlikely cause for a hung boot issue, and might also be circumvented by changing the boot order in BIOS to ensure USB was at the end of the list, although depending on which of the 4 pins on the USB connector were shorted out.  This can occur on ThinkPad T400, T500, R400 or R500 and potentially other models if the USB ports are damaged, causing pins to be shorted as in the photo below.

So, if you ever get stuck on the splash screen...

Here is an example of a damaged USB port where the tab on the port in the lower portion of the photo has been broken.  If a USB cable or device were inserted, it is likely the pins will be bent and might short out, causing the boot hang symptoms described above.  

To resolve, you can carefully straighten the pins after powering off the system, removing the AC adaptor and battery.  Use a small flat blade screw driver, tweezers or micro needle nose pliers to carefully separate and reform the contacts so they do not touch.    The system can then be restarted and should boot properly.

This is a work around, as this port can no longer be used.   A complete solution requires replacement of they system board, which may or may not be covered under normal warranty terms, depending upon how the connector was broken. 

Our solution was to purchase a $20 USB hub and plug it into the only remaining USB port in the to right corner. Problem solved:)

RPM