Thinkpads Forum

My A31p LCD suddenly has gone dark. After 4 years! looking closely I could still see a faint image of Windows working there, but very very dark, as if just the backlight lamp has burnt or something.
Alas the laptop is far away from America and it will be expensive to ship back and forth.
Can you just ship me the part and is it user replacable. How much would it be including shipping inside the USA (I have relatives who come to visit every now and then).

thanks

it may be the backlight or the inverter itself, from my experience, if the image had any red tinges to it before it dies, then it was most likely the inverter. (.. oops... I mean the ccfl bulb)

the inverter is the cheaper way to determine the problem. if the new inverter is not the solution, then at least you can order the backlight separately.

The process to replace a backlight is not so difficult as it is tedious.
the lcd panel has to be dismantled to remove the complete lcd panel, the lcd glass "sandwich" itself has to be carefully dismantled, the bad ccfl bulb removed, de-soldered from it's leads, and the new ccfl re-soldered and replaced and the sandwich reassembled.

a ccfl bulb can cost about $19.95 US.

The last post is not right. A red tint indicates the bulb is bad.

absoultely right. wrote my reply too quickly and didn't proof it.... thx for the correction

richk wrote:The last post is not right. A red tint indicates the bulb is bad.

Hello Malachont,

I happen to have to exchange some of those bulbs myself.

It is a pitty, that You do not find advice on the procedures in the net, at least up to my knowledge. The other Year, however, I remember hints in this forum, that exchanging the bulb is difficult, tedious, but possible, if You are lucky.

Dismanteling the lcd is not very difficult, but has to be done with even more care than the dismanteling of a systemboard! You will need a screwdriver with very small dimension. Try to retain the material, especially all the plastics as undamaged as possible.

The bulb itself is very slim and fragile. as it contains quicksilver it should be handled with extreme care! The LCD, too, seems to contain potentially hazardous liquid (following TP Maintenance Manual), so You ought to handle both, lcd and bulb with extreme care.

For some time over here in Germany, someone sold spare bulbs with already fixed new cables.

If You could get Your hand on those, try them. As far as I have understood, the backlights are not only very fragile, but they would "dislike" getting to hot. From joining the old cables to new buld, e.g..

Good luck, may be there is some out there who has more/better information and/or sources of spare parts.

http://www.lcdpart.com/doc/ccflinstallation.html

They sell the parts as well, incl. a presoldered CCFL.