Thinkpads Forum

I have a T60 that I just purchased and I have to admit the LCD is not the brightest even with the brightness set on High in the bios and fiddling with the color settings in the ATI Catalyst Control.I goole searched this and it seems to be a pretty common problem.Any ideas? I thought I found something on this website,but when I clicked on it it said I was not authorized to view it.http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... fl+ill+fix

Your backlight is probably on the way out. You can replace it, but it's a pain in the rear job. Though a new LCD will probably cost more, it much easier to do and worth the extra $$$. I can't help you on the link as apparently I'm not worthy either. Good luck.

I'm neither, but it must have been a posting from/about jamiphar, offering his CCFL-replacement services.
This is his website, don't know if he still does it or not: http://www.arndtcomputer.com/laptops.php

Can you test a CCFL? If you remove it from a machine can you power it up and see if it lights?

Not without endangering yourself....
It needs ca. 1300V(!) just to start up.

burns334 wrote:Can you test a CCFL? If you remove it from a machine can you power it up and see if it lights?

The brightness of the panel is entirely dependent on the CCF lamp being in the backlight assembly. Even if the CCF lights up outside of the backlight assembly, there is no way to tell whether it is bright enough or not.

Panels are about 200nit when new. Many 3-4 years old panels are near 100nit. You can only measure this with a luminance meter like this:
http://www.topcon.co.jp/finetech/fpd/lumi/bm9.html

sjthinkpader wrote: Panels are about 200nit when new. Many 3-4 years old panels are near 100nit.l

ARE YOU CALLING ME A NIT? Oops looks like a nit is about a tenth of a lumen. lol I was hoping I could put 6 or 12 volts on it and see how good the ccfl was, oh well. I'm going to buy a couple on line and fix up a few dim/pink LCD's for the fun of it.

Thanks guys, as always

You won't have much fun doing that.

I thought the same thing!! the T60 has such a crappy XGA screen its colors are bland and the brightness is terrible! What I did was just install a new screen it was only 90 dollars on Fleabay and it was beyond easy to put together ! and in the end I have a perfect SXGA+ screen !!

Also if u are coming from another laptop it can really seem dark! I had a super bright Acer so when I got my thinkpad I thought the thing was broken !

That Acer may have a RGBW panel instead of RGB panels used in Thinkpads. It may be brighter at the brightest setting but color balancing at different brightness level become impossible.

The other way is to sacrifice battery life.