Black display on A30p...faulty inverter card?

[d94dsj]

I have an A30p (with the UXGA 1600x1200 IPS screen and Bluetooth) which is now a bit over three years old (just outside of the three year extended warranty I purchased).

The display has over the last few months sometimes gone black, although an external monitor always works.

Four weeks ago the display went black and it never got back to normal.
So I called IBM who told me that my laptop was three weeks outside the warranty....grrr.
Judgning from my description, they thought it was the Inverter Card that was faulty.
IBM support here in Sweden costs ca $220 per hour (!!) for troubleshooting, and I don't want to put that much money into this old laptop when I'm buying a new one in a couple of months.

IBM Support told me that I could try installing a new Inverter Card by myself, but that it would take 1 week to order in from Holland - it would cost about $30. So I did (I looked up the part number from the Service Manual with instructions from the support representative)

When the part finally arrived, I disassembled my laptop, carefully taking note of each of the screws/parts (this took 1 1/2 hours for me...).

When I finally removed the Inverter Card, it looked a bit "burnt" where the see-through plastic covers the chips.
But when I compared it to the shipped new one, they were different!!

Doing a quick search on IBMs web site revealed the awful truth: I had the wrong spare part (26P8132)! And the right one (26P8133) costs about $190 and takes another week to get.

But after assembling all parts again, the display worked! So I assumed that some connector was loose.

But today (one week after) the display suddenly went black again!

Does anyone know if the Inverter Cards has a limited life length and that I need to replace it?

Thanks,

Daniel

[d94dsj]

I just fixed the problem.

Disassembling the Inverter Card and reseating the connector between the LCD and the Inverter Card solved the problem.

Hmm...it doesn't seem to be fastened very well

/Daniel

[egibbs]

More likely it's a break in the flex cable and mucking with the inverter moves the cable enough to restore continuity.

It's almost always the cable - it has to bend every time you open or close the cover. And 3 years is about the lifetime of a flex cable in my experience.

Ed Gibbs