[Libreboot] Un-bricking a T60

[Luke Shumaker]

Hi guys,

My libreboot T60 decided to brick itself after I closed it and put it
in my backpack yesterday.

The wiki[1][2] assumes that the device became bricked while installing
libreboot.  This is not the case for me, so I'm a little unsure of
where to start.

What I know:

 - The screen+backlight are getting power; when I first pulled it out
   of my backpack and woke it up, it was on, filled with the solid
   color that is my X11 background.  However, after power-cycling...
 - the screen doesn't appear to respond at all. Looking very closely
   at it, I can't see anything; I don't believe that the issues is as
   simple as the backlight not turning on (an issue that I had when
   upgrading libreboot at libreplanet last year).
 - The SSD is good (tested in another box)
 - Replacing the RAM doesn't fix it.
 - Plugging in an external monitor (VGA) does nothing.
 - All internal connections seem secure, but it's possible I missed
   something.
 - One of two things happens when I try booting:
    1. The HDD light flickers briefly, and I hear the CD drive spin (checking
       if something's in it), then nothing but the power light being
       on.
    2. The HDD light flickers, and continues to do so, in a manner
       consistent with a normal boot.  But then, it stops, and the
       caps-lock light starts blinking.
 - In neither of the above 2 cases does typing my username & password
   to log in, then trying to run sound-generating commands do
   anything.

I believe that case 1 is libreboot failing to even load the Linux
kernel, and case 2 is Linux starting but then panicking.

My next step is going to be pulling the CMOS coin in case BUC.TS
somehow got set.[1]

Given that I believe that the Linux kernel is sometimes panicking, I'd
love EHCI debugging, but it appears[2] that I need to have the box
working first to identify which USB port to use.  Is it consistent
across libreboot-supported T60's?  Could one of you tell me which port
works?

I guess my final thing to try would be to use my BBB+SOIC-8-clip to
try to re-flash the firmware, but it seems unlikely to me that that
would fix it.

Any help or advice would be hugely appreciated.

[1]: https://libreboot.org/docs/install/t60_unbrick.html
[2]: https://libreboot.org/docs/install/bbb_ehci.html

-- 
Happy hacking,
~ Luke Shumaker