Thinkpads Forum

Happened suddenly this morning with no warning whatsoever. No ghost image or anything, just a very black screen. Hooked up another monitor and everything appears normal there. Is this most likely an inverter or something disconnected or what? If I hold it just so when opening the lid to see the screen when its barely open, there's a very brief flash of color before it goes black again.

Admin edit: Changed subject line T61p to T60p per OP's note.

If it "flashes" every time you switch it on, it could be the inverter.
OR, the CCFL is broken and only "shows" for a few seconds when cold-starting.

Thx RBS,
No warnings of ccfl failure, so it sounds as though I should replace the inverter & if that doesn't do the trick, send it to James for backlight replacement.. That sound about right? Is James still around and doing this?

Try another inverter first.
AFAIK James is still doing this, but this solution would be much cheaper:
if yours is a 15.4", you should look at the Sharp WUXGA LQ154M1LW2A or LQ154M1LW02 screens.
They need some metal brackets cut off, but are otherwise a drop-in replacement.
They are by far the best screens on the market, fitting any 15.4" T60/T61/R61/R500/T500.

Thx again,
That all sounds like real good stuff. BTW, looks like I erred in typing the original subject line; the machine is a T60p.

What size T60p and what is your screen resolution?

15.4

Don't offhand recall what res I've been running but it's been unchanged pretty much forever

New inverter is on order from China

sbjoe wrote:15.4

Don't offhand recall what res I've been running but it's been unchanged pretty much forever

That screen should be WSXGA+ (1680x1050), given that this is a "p" model.

sbjoe wrote:Happened suddenly this morning with no warning whatsoever. No ghost image or anything, just a very black screen. Hooked up another monitor and everything appears normal there. Is this most likely an inverter or something disconnected or what? If I hold it just so when opening the lid to see the screen when its barely open, there's a very brief flash of color before it goes black again.

Admin edit: Changed subject line T61p to T60p per OP's note.

Update: I replaced the inverter w/ no effect and then noticed that I do have a very faint ghost image after all. So it would seem that a new screen is in order, right? If so, what are the odds this will work?
http://tinyurl.com/jrfywtq
I do notice that it's WUXGA; is that important? Are there other, better, alternatives?

Did you READ my previous post?

RealBlackStuff wrote:Did you READ my previous post?

Oops! Guess I was so focused on the inverter at the time that I forgot completely that you'd suggested a couple of screen replacement options. Apologies & thanks. Any reason to prefer one over the other? Certainly good to know I don't have to wait for shipment across the larger Pond.

Thanks to RBS my venerable T60p is happily purring again. Got a Sharp LQ154M1LW02 off fleabay for the princely sum of 23 bux & installed it today. Really nice bright screen!

I doubt it's worth it but if anybody has use for the original, in need of a new backlight, it's yours for shipping. I can most easily do Priority - looks like it'll just go into a medium flat rate box - or FedEx Ground. I'll hang onto it until the next recycle pickup.

Thanks again RBS!

You're welcome.

Goes to show that it pays off to read the forum attentively.

sbjoe wrote:Thanks to RBS my venerable T60p is happily purring again. Got a Sharp LQ154M1LW02 off fleabay for the princely sum of 23 bux & installed it today. Really nice bright screen!

Belated update:
Screen was beautiful until I turned the machine off at the end of the day. When I turned it back on the next morning it was back to the black screen with no ghost image or anything. I had quite enough on my plate at the time so I simply shelved the machine until today. It's a bit late for me to consider taking the ebay seller to task so I need to decide whether to try again with another screen, give up and recycle the machine or ...? Machine works just fine if I hook an external monitor up to it. I did try substituting the old inverter just in case to no effect. Any ideas as to how/why there might've been such a sudden failure? Thx

If you have ANY other T60/T61/R60/R61, take the complete lid of that T60p.
From the other machine, remove keyboard and KB-bezel and just disconnect the LCD-cable from the motherboard.
Then connect your T60p-lid to that other machine, put the KB back on and see if the screen works (it should).

Thx,
That would the the right clever test - if I had another machine of the type.