The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Is there something wrong with my T61's screen?

    Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by kkSlider, Nov 3, 2008.

  1. kkSlider

    kkSlider Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    49
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Hello,

    I've had my T61 since late August and I've had a recurring problem that would rear its head every once in a while. The problem is that sometimes, my screen would just suddenly dim to the point where I can't see anything but a little light. To show you just how much, if I were to dim my screen brightness to the lowest setting, the problem when it occurs would be much, much dimmer.

    Today, it happened after I put my laptop on standby. After I woke it up, the screen was very dark, but I could make out a little of what used to be on my desktop. Then it got dimmer. I kept moving the cursor trying to get something to happen and after about 10 seconds, the screen brightness returned to normal.

    This is a problem that doesn't seem normal to me. Does anybody know what I should do?
     
    kkSlider, Nov 3, 2008
    #1
  2. ShinyFalcon

    ShinyFalcon Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    41
    Messages:
    216
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    I'm thinking that it's the dynamic brightness control in Thinkvantage power manager. It can change brightness according to what's the computer doing (screensaver, login screen, etc).
     
    ShinyFalcon, Nov 3, 2008
    #2
  3. kkSlider

    kkSlider Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    49
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Hmm, the screen was unreadable while it was dim though. Is it supposed to dim to that extent?
     
    kkSlider, Nov 3, 2008
    #3
  4. czhang

    czhang Notebook Consultant

    Reputations:
    145
    Messages:
    272
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    Was the backlight still on? Perhaps there are some loose screen connections...
     
    czhang, Nov 4, 2008
    #4
  5. kkSlider

    kkSlider Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    49
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    15
    Not sure what you mean by backlight. What's the best way to diagnose my problem?
     
    kkSlider, Nov 5, 2008
    #5
  6. elfroggo

    elfroggo Notebook Evangelist

    Reputations:
    136
    Messages:
    543
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    30
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backlight

    The way I understand it from my simple observations is that there is a thin transparent layer that shows the image. This layer itself is very dim and nearly unreadable. Behind it is the backlight which is supposed to uniformly light up the display enough to make it readable and show what we expect.

    It's sort of like an overhead projector.

    It does seem like a backlight issue on your laptop. Whether it is hardware or software related is difficult to tell from your post.

    I'd try to reinstall display related drivers first. Video card drivers, and maybe power manager too. Try changing the power manager settings, perhaps changing the settings helps.

    I'm not sure how to test if it's a hardware issue, you could try gently shaking the monitor and see if the display changes due to a loose connection.
     
    elfroggo, Nov 5, 2008
    #6