Thinkpads Forum

Hey there everyone,

Problem in Brief: Laptop Screen on my Thinkpad T61p went out.

My laptop is a Thinkpad T61p. Specs include 15.4" screen, NVidia Quadro FX 570m graphics, Core2Duo T9300 processor, and 3 GB DDR2 RAM, if any of that matters. I can provide further information if needed. I purchased the laptop about 2.5 years ago and have used it extensively. Warranty ran out a few months ago. I bought a monitor at Best Buy that I am now using with my laptop, and that's working just fine, so I think it's only the screen that has a problem.

There was nothing that seems to have happened at the time the screen went out. I was working at home one day, went to make lunch, and came back to find the computer screen would not come on no matter what I tried. As far as I know there isn't a "make the screen not work" button that I could have hit on accident.

I did upgrade the Nvidia drivers a few days before this happened. However it appeared to work fine. I thought I would mention it in case there is the possibility of some kind of delayed reaction.

So, is there something hardware-related that I can check? I've never taken apart the screen area of my laptop, just the bottom to upgrade the RAM and clean out the computer. Would rolling back the Drivers possibly do anything?

Any help is greatly appreciated. I'm willing to try most things because my only options are to keep this monitor I purchased (which makes my laptop into a desktop), buy a new laptop (can't afford it and this one isn't dated yet, to me), or have Lenovo replace the screen for 600 dollars.

Thanks in advance!

P. S. On another note, if I can't fix it, does anyone have a monitor recommendation? I'm not a fan of the one I bought in a rush. I'd like at least 1920x1080 (but strongly prefer 2048+), around 24" (but 22-28" is fine), and under $300. LED is also preferred to LCD because the ones I have seen look better but I doubt I'll manage to find an LED like that so LCD would work.

There are 3 parts that can cause your ptoblem. It might be the bulb, but that is not likely if you didn't see a red tint at startup for a while before the failure. It could be the inverter, which is certainly the cheapest. It is inside the LCD assembly, under the right front corner of the LCD bezel. It could be the motherboard. The nvidia chip is most likely (some/many failures only affect the LCD), but it could be a fuse. The fuse is unlikely if the machine was just running or sitting when it died.

Was there a red tint to the LCD while powering it on prior to the current problem? Disconnect the external LCD and boot up, hold a flashlight to the T61p LCD. Can you see any images or text?