Thinkpads Forum

So on my new x61s whenever i put themachine into sleep mode, and then i resume, the lcd backlight fails to turn on. To get the monitor working I have to completely turn the computer off and then back on.

I called tech support andthey are sending me a box, but just thought I'd check on here to see if anyone else has had a similar problem

What exactly happens? The indicator lights come on, but nothing on the screen? Pressing a key doesn't activate the screen? What about pressing Fn+F7 to cycle through the internal LCD and external monitor?

the screen is still working. if i shine a bright light on it, I can see everything. Just the LCD light doesn't turn back on when it resumes from sleep.

OK, that's a backlight problem, and there is nothing "normal" that should be causing it, especially on a brand-new ThinkPad. Time to place a service call!

Until you get it fixed, cycling through the Fn+F7 options might get the backlight to turn on again.

once i reboot the system completely, it works fine.. this sucks

i just got it back from the depot on friday, when i first got the machine 3 weeks ago, it wouldnt boot from battery and i had to send it in

That's not good.

Do you have the problem regardless of whether you sleep or hibernate?

When I had my other T42 running Vista RC1, if I used Fn + F3 to turn the display off, it would not come back on. IIRC, when I used Fn + F4 to go into Standby mode, the Fn key would bring it out, but it might take a couple of minutes for the display to turn on. When I booted into XP, I did not have any of these problems. Three or four months later, my display began acting up with XP. It would just turn off for no apparent reason. The time it would stay lit just kept getting shorter and shorter, until a couple of weeks later it would not light at all.

I eventually replaced the entire display lid (with cable and inverter), and it worked fine in XP again. By this time, the license for Vista RC1 had expired, so I could not test it in Vista.

Whether my problems with Vista was do to a display that was on it's way out, I cannot say. However that is a possibility.

I hadn't tried hibernate before, but I just did in response to your post. It resumes from hibernate just fine, it just seems to be resuming from sleep mode that is messed up.

I don't know if this applies to you, but have you seen this column?
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2171472,00.asp

Here is the quote:

Take sleep mode, for example. Vista promised a new low-power sleep mode that would save energy yet enable nearly instantaneous resume. Poppycock. The brand-new dual-core system I built a few months ago totters off to sleep but never returns. I have to cold-start it to bring it back. This after replacing virtually every driver inside. It's gotten so bad that I've actually nicknamed it Chip Van Winkle.

I've actually noticed something like this. After resuming from sleep, the laptop resumes fine, but the screen is just dark. Moving the pointer or hitting a key wakes it up and all is fine. I'll have to try it again at another time to see if it still does this.

My guess is that there is some sort of conflict between the ThinkVantage power manager and Vista power management schemes. I'm guessing the ThinkVantage utility is actually the culprit.

well it got shipped off for service this morning....now just to wait

Well got the machine back today...they reimaged it and did something with the planar card (I don't know what that is) apparently. Things seem to be working fine at the moment.

Separately, I emailed lenovo to complain about having to send in a new machine twice in the first 2 weeks I had it. They offered me an extra battery, a ram upgrade or a 30 day warranty extension. Since I already upgraded the ram on my own, and 30 days on a 3 year warranty doesn't make much of a difference, I took battery.