Thinkpads Forum

Hi all!

Apologies for just turning up and asking a question straight away! Been doing lots of research on your forum but not been able to find an appropriate resolution to my problem so thought I'd ask!

Thank you in advance for your time/help!

So I have a T60 which started to develop issues with the screen backlight...It progressively got worse over a period of time. Symptoms included the pink hue/longer start up times..then eventually it would go all black... To begin with if I turned the brightness down it would last longer but then the screen would go black. After a few weeks of usage like this it wouldn't light up. You could see the desktop if you looked closely enough but very dimly.

I deduced that it was a backlight issue and so decided to buy a replacement lid off ebay from a dealer who 'breaks' thinkpads. I was sent a complete lid for exactly the same model - I dismantled my unit and popped the screen in BUT ended up with a similar issue - you can see the desktop but no backlight so I removed and sent back to the dealer who promptly tested another one and sent it out to me.

This time I spent more time effort installing the new complete lid - really straight forward process - and lo and behold, same problem. At this point I got worried that maybe it was my unit that was faulty rather than the screen.

On removing and trying to refit the main flat cable of the screen (whilst the unit was still on (am I stupid for doing this??)) the screen flickered and lit up for a millisecond and then the same again. This gave me hope - as I though that perhaps the cable was faulty and not the screen so after much fiddling I find that if I perch that flat grey coloured male connector on top of the female and wiggle the screen will come on beautifully. When I press it home it will refuse to come on...

Having done my research I am now thinking that perhaps the backlight fuse has gone and that the screen works/flickers only as it's shorting somewhere?

(I did replace the cable eventually with my original one which looked in mint condition and the results were the same)

Any help/thoughts/suggestions would be extremely welcome!

Thanks again for your time!

Mounis

Welcome to the forum.

Mounis wrote:On removing and trying to refit the main flat cable of the screen whilst the unit was still on...

You asked: am I stupid for doing this?? Yes, very!
If you'd blown a fuse, the LCD wouldn't light up at all![
Instead, you must have 'burned' one or more of the contacts in the LCD connector on the motherboard.
Get a 5x or 10x magnifier and inspect that connector.
Maybe you can fix it, but it's doubtful.
Good luck.

[/quote]You asked: am I stupid for doing this?? Yes, very!
If you'd blown a fuse, the LCD wouldn't light up at all![
Instead, you must have 'burned' one or more of the contacts in the LCD connector on the motherboard.
Get a 5x or 10x magnifier and inspect that connector.
Maybe you can fix it, but it's doubtful.
Good luck.[/quote]

That makes sense - that I could've burnt the connector... BUT the first time I installed the screen there was no power to the unit till after it had been reassembled?

When you first noticed the screen going pink(er) and dim(mer), that was only the CCFL (backlight) dying.
The 'burning' of the mobo's LCD-connector must have happened when you did the first exchange of the lids.
We weren't there so we can only guess.
The fact that it sort of works, when the connector is only 'half-in' points to faulty contact(s) in there.
Did you inspect it yet?