T400 Broken Screen/Blackout, or maybe video card?

Just had a funny, actually very frustrating thing happen to my T400. I was using the dedicated graphics, with the laptop unplugged, the battery was at about 15% charge. I closed the screen, the system went to sleep after 5 minutes of inactivity. About 20 minutes later I open the laptop and wait for the screen to turn on. The screen flickers, goes black, and stays black. Usually after 5 or so seconds the desktop shows up like normal, but this time the screen was almost entirely blacked out. It was as if the brightness setting was turned way lower than the minimum. You can just barely make out whats on the screen, but only by turning the screen at an extreme angle and putting your face 2 inches from the surface.



I've tried restarting, switching to the integrated graphics, adjusting the brightness settings, and plugging in the AC, all to no avail. I've looked on google for other similar problems but I've come across nothing like this. Anyone know whats going on? Am I going to have to send this in for service (/sob)?



Any help would be appreciated

 

if you want to test screen hook up to an external monitor if possible

 

Just plugged in an external monitor, worked just fine. So does that definitively rule out a video card issue? Anyone got any more advice?

 

Ok then thats good news (as long as your display is not broken)

What exactly happens when you power on your laptop? Does the display flicker or nothing at all?

 

When I power up, the display turns on, but so dim that I can barely see anything. Too dim to navigate the bios or anything for that matter. It's almost as if whatever illuminates the LCD has broken. You can make out vague outlines of where objects and images are on the display, rather ghostly.

 

Have you done a full power-down, battery out, wait a little while type of restart?

If so, then you've pretty much ruled out a setting or software thing and it's time to call Lenovo.

 

It seems to me that the backlight on LCD is dead.

 

Sounds like a backlight or LCD cable problem. It's still under warranty, right?

 

Here's my theory on what happened:

I splashed a little soda on the back of the computer. There is a hinge at the bottom-middle of the display where a wide ribbon of black cable goes from the display to the motherboard. Normally this hinge swivels without much resistance, so when the screen opens or closes the swivel moves with the cable. Perhaps a little soda gummed up the swivel and caused it to pull on the cable when I opened it, causing the connector to pull out from the motherboard?

I imagine if this is the case it's an easy fix, but how involved is it to take apart the chasis? Does this void my warrantee? I'd rather not wait at least a month for Lenovo to fix this, but maybe I don't have a choice.

 

That's a very plausible theory.

I'm not sure how involved getting to that connector is, but the hardware maintenance manual should tell you. See http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-70069.html