Help! Scary Boot Failure

[jmr]

My X31 starts up with the initial 2-sec. Thinkpad splash screen, then it goes blank before it can get to where I can enter the BIOS.

I don't like that I'm not getting to BIOS. With this kind of symptom, would a backup boot disk do any good?

Am I looking at motherboard demise?

[ibmuser]

Could it be the CMOS battery?

[tfflivemb2]

Have you checked the LCD switch to make sure that it is being released when the display is open?

Can you connect your system to external display to see if you can view anything?