Hardware

[jwdonovan]

I have a T42p that worked fine until a few days ago when it started to give me a box with "Please Wait" Preparing to turn off the monitor. Then it turns off the monitor. Now it will only stay on a few seconds to a couple minuets. Is there a fix?

[Merlin Witt]

Excessive heat has been the most common culprit for this problem in my experience. Next time just put your hand near the exhaust from the processor fan (Left center of the keypad near the Fn key and on the right palm rest {hard drive}). If these places are hot to the touch, you have a heat problem. Defective, clogged or dirty fan, dried out thermal paste, etc.
Disassemble, clean out, check the fan, blow out the case with compressed air, replace the thermal paste. Put everything back together. There are lots of instructions available, but the best assembly / dis-assembly instructions are still the Hardware Maintenance Manual. It is generic (covers all T40-T42's), but pretty detailed. It can be found here:

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/default.page?#

I suggest you use the quick path and put your Product ID number in the box. Your product ID number is located on the bottom of the case under the exhaust for the cpu fan. If it is missing it is also available through the system BIOS.You must re-boot the computer and press the F1 key when you see the IBM logo. You will receive the message "Entering IBM BIOS Setup Utility". The system number is the first seven (7) digits of the System-unit Serial number. It must be entered as XXXX-YYY. For example 2374Y1e99 becomes 2374-y1e. The entry is not case sensitive.

Good luck

Merlin

[jwdonovan]

I did the cleaning bit and to no avail. I have the same simptoms. I think it has to be in the inverter or lcd screen. most often when the screen goes off i can see a faint screen when I do a Fn F3 it will go out. so the light seems to be what is going out. I pluged in a monitor and everything works fine. what do you think?

Jerry

[Merlin Witt]

Sorry for taking so long to get back with you.

If you can see the OS desktop on the LCD screen (Put a flashlight against it and check), you have one of two problems.

The easiest to fix is a bad LCD inverter. ($10.00-$25.00 on eBay) The difficulty here is due to the complexity in dis-assembly of the laptop down to the point where you can remove the LCD assembly, and then dis-assemble LCD assembly replace the LCD inverter board (soldering IS required) and then re-assemble everything. There are several good pictures showing which screws go where when you are putting everything back together on this forum, and the Hardware Maintenance Manual gives a general idea of where everything should be located as well as which parts need to be removed. You should do an Internet search for "How to replace the LCD inverter in an IBM T4"
I found this one to be very easy to follow.

http://www.insidemylaptop.com/replace-s ... p-laptops/

Of course it is MUCH easier to just change the entire LCD assembly. These run between $25.00 and $150.00 on eBay.

When you open and close the screen (LID) does the picture on the external monitor change... flicker, waver , become unstable in any way? If it does you have the infamous one where the entire mother board must be either be replaced with a good working motherboard, or you need to get the surface mount components re-balled, and or re-flowed.

Merlin

[ajkula66]

Merlin Witt wrote:

The difficulty here is due to the complexity in dis-assembly of the laptop down to the point where you can remove the LCD assembly, and then dis-assemble LCD assembly replace the LCD inverter board (soldering IS required) and then re-assemble everything

The above statement is incorrect for the following reasons:

a) There is NO soldering required for inverter replacement.

b) If one is careful, the inverter on T4x units can be swapped just by having the front LCD bezel removed.

Generally, a lack of display can be attributed to one of the following reasons:

1) Backlight (CCFL) or inverter failure

2) GPU becoming unsoldered

3) Blown fuse on the motherboard

Without some more details on whether a faint image is visible when the screen is viewed under the flashlight etc, it's difficult to point one in the right direction...