Lenovo C3000 laptop. Linux Mint 17.3 all updates installed. After leaving the laptop in suspend mode for several hours the sleep led was active but the device failed to respond to any inputs. I tried long pressing power button to switch off but nothing happened. Then tried removing all power- AC plug and also removed battery. Pressed power button for several minutes to drain residual power. Restarted with power button. Result: nothing changed, although the fan came on for a moment and the optical drive was searching then nothing but the standby LED. Tried the above again after removing and reseating memory. No change.

Had this problem on only one other occasion with Windows 10 and identical symptoms. Tried all the above solutions, but leaving without battery or power for 24 hrs was the only way to restore to normal. First time it has ever occurred with linux in this dual boot (Win10/Mint17.3) environment. While its an old machine it has never had other issues and this standby issue only twice in the last 12 months. As I cannot get any activity out of the machine at all except the standby LED, can anyone suggest how to reactivate this laptop. Its my primary computing device, so much needed.

Try to boot from a live OS <Repair Kit, or the LiveCD / LiveUSB of Mint>.

1. On live session use the Gparted to reformat the "swap" partition into a "swap" again,
this is intended to erase whatever the suspend app registered into the swap space.

2. After eliminating the swap record, shutdown and remove detach the battery for at least 20 seconds.

Re-assemble and boot.

Good luck. Hope that helps.

m.m.

I don't think this is a software issue. Lenovos often include a small, built-in battery that allows your laptop to stay on while you swap the main one. Holding the power button should completely power it off though. If that doesn't work you likely have a serious hardware problem.

Thanks for the assistance. Unfortunately, the laptop won't boot at all. (Tried live CD). I have also removed the hard drive while trying to boot CD, so swap not the problem at that time. The device starts to read the CD and the fan comes on then the standby LED illuminates and.......nothing

Left battery out and power off for 12 hrs after holding power button for a couple of minutes. Unfotunately, still no response from laptop. Starts up and then standby LED again. It seems to be a very common problem over the years on many different machines and OS's. I would dearly like to know exactly WHY this occurs though.

This really sounds like a hardware issue. Could you elaborate on what you mean by common problem on many different machines and OS's? I've never encountered anything like this. Are you in a very hot/cold/humid/arid/dusty environment that is killing hardware?

I just saw you're in Australia, so I'm going to preemptively blame spiders or some other vicious fauna/flora :-)

I think I'm ready to blame spiders too. I live in tropical rainforest in far north Queensland! Further developments since yesterday: I removed memory once again and replaced sodimms in reverse order. Miraculously, this then booted to live CD without HDD installed, but only reported 512mb of RAM. (There are 2Gb installed). Took both sodimms out and cleaned slots and connectors thoroughly with alcohol. Result is the system is now running memtest with 2Gb reported! Go figure. 🤔 Even with memory removed there were no beeps on startup before. For now I guess I'll have to call this one solved although I've no idea why no errors were indicated. Maybe memory vibrated loose after months of use.