T61p LCD loss of brightness - repair worries

Hello,

I have a ThinkPad T61p that is a little over two years old. My wife has been using it for the last year and I just replaced her machine with a T400 which she adores.

However, I was a little shocked to see how much dimmer the T61p had become compared to my other T61p's. I am referring to the WSXGA+ 1680x1050 screen units. I would estimate the screen is at least 30% dimmer than my other work T61p's. Maybe as much as 50%. I did a side-by-side comparison with a near new condition T61p with the same screen and it's really apparent in that test.

So I called Lenovo Support and they are shipping me a box to send it in with. The support call was very litle hassle to the Atlanta call center. I didn't have to go through the usual girations one would expect from the Dell India support center personnel.

I'm a little worried about my baby. It's the first personal ThinkPad purchase we made after switching from Dell and it has been a trusty machine. Anyone had similar warranty repairs performed? Did all go well?

 

I had to send my laptop in order to get my GPU fixed. When I got it back, not only did they fix up my GPU, they switched out my old keyboard and bezel and replaced it with a new one. My laptop looked brand new.

My PC also runs alot cooler, about 5-6 degrees cooler. They also must of cleared out all the dust in there.

So in short, they did a phenomenal job, going above and beyond my expectations

 

i have heard bad stories on here, where the machine was returned with cosmetic damage. But I've also heard really good responses. I'm not trying to scare you or anything, with a big company it just depends on who they outsourced your repairs to.

I was thinking of a new dell but I've heard MUCH worse, to the point where support nightmare stories have been on the news (and I'm not referring to lisa katayama's boingboing story). It really depends.

 

Thanks all. I am going to roll the dice and see what happens. I bought the three year warranty so I might as well use it. I hope they blow the dust bunnies out of mine, too.

 

I had the same T60p experience about 6 months ago. Noisy fan and gradually dimming LCD. Made the call, fixed it no problem. No very quite and screen is bright - not as bright as myT400 LED screen, but back to nomal. No damage no hassles. Had the machine back one day later.

 

As someone who works regularly with Dell, I can tell you from experience that business laptops (which are comparable to the ThinkPads) have excellent support. If you choose a Latitude E-series unit, you should have nothing to worry about.

 

I received my T61p back from the repair center. The screen was replaced and seems normal again. I had to clean the machine up when I received it. The tech must have had some grease on his fingers but no big deal to get it off the outside case. WD-40 rocks.

How do I tell which screen is now in my machine?

I am familiar with the parts lookup thingy at http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/s...=/partslookup/partsLookup.vm&sitestyle=lenovo but that only shows what shipped with the machine, not what is on it now.

 

My T61p has a 3 year warranty as well and i thought about using it to fix up the loose hinge on the case, there's about 1" of play in the screen which apparently is normal for Lenovo, except i did hear they were accepting laptops with the problem to repair them.

 

Why is this dimming happening so soon? CCFL backlights should take longer than 2 years to dim right?

 

Overall, yes. However, this was probably an atypical experience. It could also have been an inverter problem.

 

I have a two year old T61 with the same display that seems to be pretty getting pretty dim. The backlight also takes unusually long to come up to full brightness after being turned off. I have a T400s coming, so I can finally have it repaired under the extended warranty without being without a computer. Overall the T61 has been the low point of all the Thinkpads I've owned or used. The LCD panel is even installed at a slight angle...