Just upgraded from X20 to X21.

[Terrahawk]

I just bought an X21 and I swapped the hard drive and RAM from my X20. The difference is like night and day. The X20 had a 500 MHz celeron and the X21 has a 700 MHz Pentium III. It's so fast in comparison, and is uses less power when idling too.

One question though - is the display on the X21 supposed to be really dim when operating on battery? It's worse than my R40, which is quite dim. Most other laptops from the same era put the R40 to shame in display brightness, but this X21 is almost unusable.

So... can anyone tell me whether this is something I have to just put up with, or can I fix it?

[rkawakami]

"Put up with"? No. "Fix it"? Yes, but it depends on how cost-effective the fix is.

With a dim display, there can be a couple of things happening:

- backlight has reached the end of its life
- inverter board output voltage not what it should be
- firmware setting (BIOS) is doing what it's suppose to

Taking the last one first, access the BIOS setup page and select the "Config/Display" option. I believe that there should be a "Brightness" entry. If "Normal", the display will dim when operating off of battery-only. You can change this setting to "High" and the brightness will be the same whether you are on AC or battery.

If the inverter board is getting weak, that can affect the intensity of the backlight. Fairly easy to obtain and replace (~$15 on eBay and a few minutes with a small screwdriver). However, most of the problems I have seen with inverters are that they work or don't. There's no in-between.

Lastly, and probably the most common cause, is that the backlight (aka, the CCFL) is giving up. If there is a reddish tint to the light (especially at the lower brightness settings) or dark shadows in the corners, then that's another sign that the bulb is going. The bulb itself is around $20 but the LCD panel has to be taken apart. The other, more expensive option, is to replace the entire panel but you probably will get one that still has the original backlight so you may end up with the same problem again.

edit: I should note that there can be two other reasons for the dim light; LCD ribbon cable and the motherboard. The cable may not have a good connection somewhere or the motherboard may not be generating the proper voltage/signal for the inverter.

[Terrahawk]

Thanks for your reply

I might investigate the inverter and cable options as there is no reddish tint when the LCD backlight is operating. The good news is that the brightness while operating from AC power is absolutely fine. It's just on battery, it is extremely dim, you can just about use it like a transreflective display when you're outside.

[The Spirit of X21]

Terrahawk, did you try adjusting the BIOS settings first? I had to on my X21, and it made a world of difference.

[Terrahawk]

I did think of adjusting the setting that dims the display when running off the battery but I also do like having as much battery life as I can get. Therefore, I shall just live with the dim display for now.

Thanks for the ideas - my SVGA X20 had an extremely bright display in comparison so I wasn't sure what to expect with the XGA display with the X21.

[The Spirit of X21]

I did think of adjusting the setting that dims the display when running off the battery but I also do like having as much battery life as I can get. Therefore, I shall just live with the dim display for now.

Fair enough, but even with the BIOS settings changed, you can still adjust the display brightness using the keyboard controls. I did this with a new battery, adjusting the brightness as needed, and I could still pull around three hours on a charge.