Big issue with the display of a Thinkpad R50p

Hello, (I'm french so excuse my english writting please),

After having faced some recurring issue coming from Winlogon and/or my anti-virus (Bitdefender) I guess, I suddenly got a big issue with my display : it became very very dark but I still could hardly see something displayed. Then I rebooted and now I can't see anything displayed

I obviously tried to increase the luminosity with Fn key but it didn't do anything.
I then tried to connect another screen either on the labtop itself and on the "console" (I don't know the exact name)...-> display remains black.

What could I do to make a right diagnosis of the cause : graphic card, faceplate, Fn key...?

EDIT : Everything went back right...mystery..??

 

At first blush it sounds like the backlight or inverter went out, but if you aren't getting anything on an external display, it could be a motherboard problem as well... when you say "display remains black" are you referring to the internal or external monitor?

 

excuse me but I didn't notice your answer thanks a lot for it

yes but to get something on an external display I had first to extend the desktop on it, no ??
To prevent further internal display getting black, I did this extension to be able to use this labtop... at home only

In fact I realize that I got this issue pretty soon after having tried to increase luminosity that had vanished a little bit.
Now display is better instead of a big instability of luminosity that makes my screen twinkling

What do you think it could come from ??

 

Is your screen reddish on cold boot?

 

hello
it's difficult to say if reddish,I might say greyish beige.
What's sure is that luminosity becomes a little bit weaker than usual

 

Try running this utility:

Video Card Stability Test - Stress Testing & Benchmark the speed of your 3D graphics video card

If the machine freezes or loses video during the test, it's likely a GPU problem.

If not, likely the LCD panel getting old.

Good luck.

 

Thanks fot helping me ajkula

The big problem is that yesterday display vanished completly at the end of the afternoon and this morning it's black So that I can't do any test to know if the cause is the LCD panel, in which case I'll change it, or the GPU and in that case I'll have to admit that my laptop is like dead

EDIT : connecting the labtop to an external screen : no signal input

Do you think there's anything I could do not to put this laptop in the trashcan ??

 

That does sound like a sickly GPU...however...try this old trick and see whether it does anything:

Remove the battery, hard and media drives, unplug the AC adapter.

Press the "power" button 10 times in a row holding it down for 10 seconds each time and 30 seconds the last time around.

Plug the AC adapter - but nothing else - back in and try to power on.

Good luck.

 

OK thanks a lot for this trick I'll try it pretty soon but to be sure to understand with my poor english technical vocabulary ( I remind you I'm french ) and thus to do well :
when you say

1/ you mean the battery to work without AC ?? My battery is out for almost allways beacause I use this labtop at home with AC
2/ You mean HDD and CD player ??
3/ unplug AC adaptater [/U...]where ?? : the cable going from the labtop to the plug ??

what a damn precision : do have I to do it with a chronometer ??

I'll let you know the result

But when you say :

do you mean graphic card ?? couln't it be the LCD "slab" ?? (I'm not sure of this term taken in a dictionnary)... or the inverter. or the neon..or a cable .in that case I could replace/repare them "easily" ..

EDIT I'm submiting my labtop to several tests, Memtest OK, and I downloaded PC Wizard at random..and I read in display menu : "Luminosity setting : No

 

ajkula could you please answer my last questions cause I'll try to do what you advise to me this week-end but I'd like not to do something wrong

 

Yes. All sources of power are to be removed.

Yes, yes and yes.

Only if it's a Swiss-made analog one, nothing else counts...

Nothing in the LCD assembly (apart from a possibly shorted cable connector, but that's quite a stretch) would make the machine lose the picture on the external display.

R50p unfortunately has a *very* shoddy GPU cooling design and given its age - and the general tendency of graphic cards on R5*/T4* units to die from unsoldering - I believe that the culprit is there.

I've lost you with the PC Wizard and Luminosity setting...

 

in fact the inverter is dead..at least, so I ordered one to begin..we'll see in a couple of days..I'll let you know

 

OK...the best of luck.

 

I'd have first to receive it for I didn't pay attention to the web merchand site nationality I ordered from...chinese..as I thought it was american .That's twice I make this kind of error while ordering too quickly.....the first one it was very hard to get the product ..I hope it won't be the same..