t61p - 13 months old, dead display - HELP

I was using my T61p last night and the monitor went black. Hooked it up to an external monitor and it worked fine. Tried rebooting, cycling displays, everything; no image on laptop display. I fear it's almost surely a hardware problem.

Called Lenovo tech support and they said the warranty ended Feb 13. That's one month ago!!!!! They said my only solution is to send it to them and it will be either $475 or $575 depending on what needs to be replaced.

I found displays on eBay for $150, but I don't know how hard it is to change it out.

This has been a great computer up until now, but to have the display die 1 month after warranty expiration is a royal bummer.

Any ideas about what to do would be appreciated.

Thanks!!!!

g-

 

Try taking out the battery and booting. But if it does boot up fine with an external monitor, then it might be the lcd as you fear. How comfortable are you with tech? You can surely find diagrams on how to remove the lcd; the issue is really more of one of your own trust in your skills vs paying the price. You could always hire a tech/friend after buying the display of course, as well.

 

There is a good video on DIY lcd removal and replacement (notebooks>thinkpad>T61>video):
http://www.lenovoservicetraining.com/ion/

 

Cool. I'll check out the vid. My biggest concern is not that I can't swap out the LCD, but rather that I swap it out and it doesn't solve the problem. E.g. could it be the graphics card instead? Again, the external monitor output is fine, but there still could be a problem with the graphics card I suppose. g-

 

Think about that. If the external monitor output functions fine then that means the video card is fine.

 

Think about that - 2 separate output ports, and they can be switched separately and can operate at different resolutions on the T61p. So, although 90% of the circuits are in common, about 10% are not. Meaning that it is probably OK, but not 100% sure... In fact, a failure in the switch for the internal monitor would cause exactly the same problem.

 

True. But unfortunately one could not realistically fix the part in question without replacing the whole motherboard. So I am just going to go with the screen or perhaps LCD cable being the issue.

 

Check to make sure that the screen is dead at all angles that it's open. Turn on the laptop, then close the lid slowly, checking to see if it pops on at any certain angle. My old Averatec's screen cable became slightly frayed, so it only worked at < 45 degrees open.

 

Is it completely dead or just dim? I had the lcd backlight die on an old computer, I could barely see what was on the screen, but only if I tilted it just right, and it worked just fine on an external monitor. If you can see things really dim, then you know it's the display and not the card.

 

Thanks for the idea. I've tilted the screen every which way and even given the computer a bit of a shake to see if it's just something loose. No amount of fiddling get's her to fire back up... thanks, g-

 

Good question. In fact it's EXTREMELY dim, not totally black. If the room is fairly dark I can just make out the outline of the open windows, but can't read anything.

Does anybody know the role of the inverter versus the monitor. I saw on eBay this evening that there are t61p monitor inverters for sale, and it made me wonder if that was my problem. They're only $30.

Oh, I did the whole PC Doctor thing and there was nothing wrong with the video card.

Thx, g-

 

C'mon, be a man - order the display from eBay, get a screwdriver, make sure you do not carry a lot of static, and swap that display. It is a piece of cake, if you ask me. I disassembled and reassembled a modern Thinkpad in 4 hours, down to a bare motherboard. Screen disassembly can start right after you removed the palm rest and the keyboard. There are two hinges and a plug, so you separate the screen from the notebook, from then on you have to admittedly unscrew about 10-15 screws to get to the LCD itself in the LCD cover, but just have patience and faith.

Before you take my words as a call for action, make sure your screen IS actually dead. An LCD screen is a comples BUT homogenic structure, i.e. for an LCD screen to go belly up it would have to either crack, backlight to die, or all the layers to fail. In your case it is probably the backlight or the inverter, since you did not crack it, or so it appears. Anyhow, make sure you do not swap a perfectly working screen, and if you do, just send it afterwards to someone who can verify what is wrong with it, and if it works - sell it on eBay.

There is no reason to pay extra $300 to Lenovo for doing the same job for you, especially since it will NOT give you your warranty back. Basically you shelled out $300 extra and end up being just as where you have been prior to your screen dying and after the warranty expired. Not cool.

I would have swapped the screen for you, but I do not live in U.S. of A.

 

Yeah and by the way, why do I long have this suspicion that Lenovo does not do as good quality control on machines with 1 year warranty as they do with those that have longer warranties? It would make sense, as you only make sure parts work longer than a year, if you know the customer might call and complain something is not working after a year (i.e. he/she has a 3, 4 or 5 year or longer warranty). If the warranty is only a year, no reason to put inside and quality proof parts to last longer than that, right?

When I will be ordering my T400, I will most likely go with as long warranty as my budget will allow without cracking

 

An inverter is a relatively straightforward electronics part that converts DC electricity to AC. In the relevant field of application, AC power the inverter converts drives the CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp) backlight - the one that makes your LCD screen shine. From what you describe, the light is dead (there is only darkness), and I think the chance of inverter dying is greater than chances of either lamps themselves or the LCD itself being dead. Since it costs $30, order it, try it, if it works - problem solved. If not - sell it back on eBay, and try the next part. This process will not cost you much life-energy, and you might solve it at first step

 

The screen is -extremely dim- but not completely dead. The more I think about it, the more I think it's the inverter. I think I'll order one and give it a whirl.

g-

 

Tell us how it goes. A CCFL lamp does fail abruptly too, but I doubt it has happened in your case. I also even more seriously doubt something happened to the LCD itself, given you can make out details still.

 

OK - Inverter is out and I've ordered a new one. I'll report if this solves the problem so if anybody has the sudden really dim screen, they'll know it's the inverter, or not. Thanks for all the help. g-

 

So I did more reading and found that the extremely dim screen is usually an LCD backlight problem; but I thought I'd try the inverter anyway since it's a much cheaper solution. I found one on eBay for $15 shipped, got it last night, plugged it in, and it WORKED.

A $15 part from eBay instead of a $500 Lenovo repair. Nice.

So if your T61 screen suddenly dies but you can just see the faint image on the screen, try to replace the inverter first. Oh, and getting to the inverter requires taking the screen partially apart, but you don't need to remove the screen from the computer, nor do you need to remove the LCD. Just undo the 5 screws around the display, take off the back of the display, and then remove the display bezel only at the bottom of the screen so that you can get a screw driver to the two screws that secure the inverter board. The bezel is very flexible so you can bend it up and out of the way.

g-