Thinkpads Forum

Ok,

So I am having a rough week and hopefully someone will be able to assist with this one.

My GF stepped on my laptop and cracked the screen. I ordered a replacement for about 115.00 brand new. It is the glossy screen which mine had the non-glossy one. anywho, I replaced the screen and it turns on, nice and bright looks good and it works flawlessly. However, none of the LED status lights work. The hard drive, power, wireless, sleep, battery, caps lock, num lock, non of them work at all.

So I figured maybe it is the inverter board? So I had a spare t61 and removed the inverter board and put it in mine. Same issue, no status lights, LCD turns on no issues there. Also, when I close the LCD lid, the screen does not go to stand by or hibernate mode. I am assuming something is wrong with the lid switch. However I have no idea where that is on these laptops and not sure if that could be causing the status LED's not to work.

Problem #2.

The spare laptop I used to trouble shoot the top one was perfectly good and functioning just fine. All I did was take the LCD front frame off and remove the inverter board so I can trouble shoot the top one... Unplugged the monitor and the other cable that's IT. Now that I put the original inverter board back in....the laptop turns ON, the screen WORKS and boots. BUT there is NO backlight lighting up the graphics now. AND i have no LED status lights displaying EXCEPT for the wireless light indicator....which to me all this is just soo weird.. Could I have tripped something? A switch, fuse? What?

At this point I thought I would have my two laptops functioning, but now I have the broken one working with an issue with the LED lights and the good one now broken.. with no backlight display......haha I just need a vacation!

Any help would be appreciated as I am sure both are now warranty voided.

P.S. I know the issue with the spare laptop is not the backlight itself because I tried 2 other LCD screens for the t61 model and get the same result...displays ok with a light shining on it, but no backlight.


Dan

Easy question first:

The lid switch is a magnetic switch on the inverter. There is a magnet at the rear of the keyboard bezel that trips it. Hopefully, you are trying these things without installing the KB bezel, so that the problem will go away with the bezel installed.

The bad news is that on T60/61 machines, I have seen multiple cases where broken screens, wrong screens or badly connected screens blow a fuse or another component on the motherboard, causing no backlight or no lights on the inverter. If I remember correctly, the fuses involved were F7 and F8, but I cannot guarantee that.

Hmm, so i guess the next question is how to u get the switch to "switch" back.

I am hoping it isnt a fuse issue, but by testing a second inverter board and getting the same result on the second laptop. At this point i dont think i will screw with the 1st laptop since it works. I can live with out the LED lights.

P.S. how hard is it to replace the fuses?

The fuses are very hard to replace on these without specialized equipment. The solder on these are lead-free and they need a very high temperature to melt. It is easy to delaminate traces or damage nearby parts

Hmm, ok the news just doesnt get better does it....

Any recommendations? I doubt IBM will replace the board or anything under warranty

dand2 wrote:Any recommendations? I doubt IBM will replace the board or anything under warranty

Why would they at this point even if you had purchased the accident protection?

I might put in a service request for the 2nd one anyway. I mean it isnt like i took the whole thing apart anyway. I doubt they can tell i took the inverter off..since i put it back with 1 screw. I'll put in a request and if they fix it great, if not.....oh well my loss.

I thought you broke it by plugging in the bad inverter? If that's true, it's customer abuse and not covered by the warranty. Take responsibility for your own mistakes.

You misread what I posted...i did not put a bad inverter in the laptop...go back and reread carefully..

sounds like you've swapped some parts around so this would have been covered when doing that, but anyway...

For the no back light issue, make sure that little cable that goes into the Inverter card is plugged in correctly. If that white connector piece on that cable is rotated 180 degree's when you plug it in, then those 2 wires are now going to the wrong spot and this will give you a no backlight scenario (however that connector will appear to snap into place.....).

There's 2 wires on that connector, one wire is pink, and the other is white. When plugging in that cable, the Pink cable is on top (or up), and the White is on the bottom (so closest to the bottom of the laptop), and make sure that connector actually "snaps" into place on the inverter card.

Check page 115 of the HMM