All right so here is an update on my problems and repair...
I opened up the baby today (it was easier than I thought) and inspected the LCD parts as well as the connections to the LCD extend board. Everything looked fine, and reseating the connections didn't solve the problems.
Because I have two other X6x tablet laptops, I was able to do some transplants to troubleshoot a bit...
I know that the LED/digitizer problem is
not from the
microprocessor board and the
LCD inverter card, as swapping them to my normally functioning X60t (XGA) maintained normal function in it (the LED [on the microprocessor board] worked normally), and the pen/touch input kept working fine on the X60t.
I know that the
wacom digitizer on the SXGA+ screen seems to still work, as when I put it in my old X61t (which also had a SXGA+ screen), the pen input works [modulo the tiled resolution problem which already existed in this laptop which I will explain more below].
So other possibilities could be:
- the LCD cable? (I haven't changed it yet, as it is a pain and I don't really have a compatible cable which I know for sure is working [see below for the parts I have and problems with them])
- the motherboard?
- any suggestion?
The reason I suspect the motherboard could have problems is that I found a
thread which described exactly the same symptoms as I had (LEDs partially functioning; tablet buttons broken; digitizer not working). The person did change the LCD cable, microprocessor board and inverter, and it did not fix the problem. No fix was mentioned in the thread though...
Another relevant thread I found was
this one, where somebody had partial LED problems on a X61 (not tablet though). In their case, the cable was obviously damaged and so changing it fixed their problem. Another difference though is that their HDD activity light was not working (whereas mine is) and neither the 'power on' indicator [the slanted 'z'] (whereas mine is dimmed).
So any suggestion of what else to try?
=== My Frankenstein plans -- making a working laptop out of my three??? ===
So I currently have three laptops:
- X60T 6363-95U MT/MV WWAN with Windows XP -- everything works fine on this one (though it is quite slow!)
- old X61T 7762-WY2 SXGA+ -- this one has the problems described in
this thread from last year where I described a "tiled resolution" problem for my screen which also had the bubble problem [more on this below]
- new X61T 7769-A67 SXGA+ with Windows 7 x64 -- this is the one that I was talking about in this thread...
The big question is how can I mix parts to get a functioning laptop with SXGA+ resolution + pen input?
The problem with the old X61T is that
a) its SXGA+ screen has the bubble problem
b) it often boots into the wrong XGA resolution (instead of SXGA+) and get a "tiled resolution" setup as well as a flickering of the display as described in
my thread from last year as already mentioned above.
The bubble problem a) can be easily solved by using the screen from my new X61T in the old X61T. On the other hand, using the new screen maintained the wrong XGA resolution problem. As an interesting note: PC Doctor diagnostic (from a bootable CD) says that "digitizer firmware" N/A in both my old X61T and my new X61T. On the other hand, the pen input works in the old X61T (just with the wrong resolution and weird tiled display) when booting into Windows (the pen input doesn't work in the new X61T -- I get the 'wacom router mouse' "this device cannot start" (code 10) error in device manager).
Finally, note that as I had mentioned in the tiled resolution thread, I can sometimes boot with the right resolution in the old X61T (and then as long as I don't reboot, it maintains the correct resolutions across sleep sessions, etc.). The weird way I can usually fix it is by the following procedure:
1) I put it on my docking station; make sure the display is only on the external display, then I shut it down
2) I let it cool for a while (say overnight; though I guess 30 minutes worked in the past) -- but the cooling is crucial for some reasons!
3) Then I boot on the docking station... Because of the last configuration, the boot sequence appears only on the external screen, not the LCD. Then when I log into Windows and re-activate the LCD screen, it sometimes has the right resolution (no idea why!). Pen input works fine...
So because of this weird behavior on my old X61T, I am not sure which parts I should swap between the two computers! If somebody had ideas on what could be the source of these problems, that could be made easier...
Any pointer appreciated! Oh, and if you also have pointers on how to clean up the leaked adhesive from the LCD screen (a common problem with the bubbles on the SXGA+) on the plastic case and the circuit boards, I'd be happy to hear them as I'd like to clean this mess in my old X61T...