Thinkpads Forum

Hello All,

I have a T61p with a 1920x1200 screen resolution. The screen seems very dim at highest brightness. It is a 6 year old laptop and it has been a while since I used it so perhaps thats how the screens were back then?

Is this a common issue for laptops of this age?

Thanks

Yes, fairly common, especially for FlexView screens such as yours. They were not that dim when new, but over the years they do tend to dim and yellow a quite a bit. If, on the other hand, you are saying the lamp is out completely, where you have to shine a bright light on the screen to see anything, that would indicate that the fluorescent lamp inside the panel has gone bad.

If I recall correctly, the 1920x1200 LCDs were not FlexViews and were 175 nits, which is on the dimmer side, even back then. The CFFL bulbs can and do dim over time. That would be my guess as what's happened here. Once thing that may be worth trying is upping the brightness to max in the BIOS when using battery power. That can up the brightness a notch or two if you're using it on battery.

Doh! ZaZ is, of course, correct about the FlexView thing. I must have skimmed through the original post thinking I saw 1600x1200. Still, should have known, since there were no T61p units with 1600x1200 display.

Thanks all for the information.

The screen does go dimmer when I dim the screen and the computer is hooked up via power supply.

Is there someplace that can get the CFFLs changed or upgraded to something newer. The 1920x1200 is a remarkable screen, the current T series has max resolution of 1920x1080 if I am not mistaken.

You can swap the bulb, but it's quite a tedious job. You might be better off just doing the whole screen. The WSXGA+ LCDs of that era are brighter and a bit better quality wise if you're not married to WUXGA.

My screen is pretty dim. If I had a cheap way to give it a guaranteed improvement, I would - but I would not be willing to lose pixels in the process. 1920x1200 is one of the big reasons I bought this rig.

These guys can fix it for you:
forum user jamiphar or
http://www.moniserv.com/lcdpartsnet/panelnet.htm

the 1920x1200 is never going to be a bright screen, which is why many people prefer the 1680x1050, which really isn't that different, and are much cheaper. I can get them for about 1/3rd the cost and they are better quality.

Besides brightness, they also are known for uneven backlight and sometimes dropping pixels.