Thinkpads Forum

Suddenly lost Backlight on a 6 months old T430, I have my T420 almost constantly on for 1.5 years and never an issue and the screen is as bright as the first day I got it.

I can see images so it seems to be an inverter issue, but couldnt find any inverters for this model and found out they use only fuses.

My question is would someone have any steps on what exactly needs to be done to repair this, if I wanted to Bridge this with a wire for example, or what parts are needed since theres no inverter.
And if there are other tricks you recommend trying before digging into this.

I disconnected the battery, power source, removed ram and pressed the power button or 30 seconds to no avail, the backlights arent getting power for some reason. I can see windows under bright light.

Thanks for any suggestions.

A six months old T430 should still be under warranty.
Call them up, you probably either need a new LED-board or a whole LCD, or (worst case) a new motherboard.

Yea its under warranty but currently the laptop is overseas and I cant physically inspect it, researching more it seems this might be an issue on the same scale as the T41 and T43 ( not T430) Video cards solder popping out.

From what models did they start doing away with inverters?

bass1175 wrote:
From what models did they start doing away with inverters?

Anything with a LED-lit LCD will not have an inverter, so T400 series would be the beginning of that era although some of their screens were CCFL-lit as well.

Thanks.

@ajkula66. I have not read of any widespread NVIDIA issues with the T430/T530. If OP has a faulty GPU then symptoms would present as artifacts and BSODs correct?

@OP. Does your model have integrated graphics or NVIDIA Optimus graphics?

I never said anything about graphics...

@ajkula66. It was more of a general statement and question since you are more informed on what presents as GPU failure. I once had an R51e (with ATI X200 graphics) which developed artifacts and system freezing however the back lighting was not affected. OP considers a possible GPU failure and I do not think it is the GPU. I was wondering if you also dismiss the GPU failure as well. Perhaps I should have reworded my question

emeraldgirl08 wrote:@ajkula66. It was more of a general statement and question since you are more informed on what presents as GPU failure. I once had an R51e (with ATI X200 graphics) which developed artifacts and system freezing however the back lighting was not affected. OP considers a possible GPU failure and I do not think it is the GPU. I was wondering if you also dismiss the GPU failure as well. Perhaps I should have reworded my question

No, I don't see the GPU failure as a likely culprit here nor have I read much of anything on nVidia failures on recent ThinkPads.

With that said, I stay away from *30 and later series like they were The Plague so my knowledge of them is most definitely incomplete...