Thinkpads Forum

Really disappointed today since I got a Thinkpad T530 a year and a half ago to get a quality laptop that would last a while, and this afternoon the screen went all rainbow / multi-colored and scrambled.

Moving the screen around a bit would occasionally get it back into the right spot, as if some connection was a bit loose. I rebooted and it would start happening again almost immidiately, but I noticed that if I docked it it would happen even on the docked screen.

I took the laptop apart hoping that it'd just be some loose connection (I've done repairs/replacements to extend the lives of previous laptops, but not usually so soon after purchase). Booting it while disassembled having checked and reconnected the screen ribbon I got a yellow screen and flickering on the secondary screen, and after giving up and putting it back together the screen doesn't even flicker at all.

It's outside of warranty (I only got a year), and I'm not sure what to do now. It doesn't seem to boot up and I can't even seem to boot it from a linux USB stick, even though I'm sure this is just a screen / graphics card issue. I can recover the data on it, but I splashed out on a nice laptop with a decent processor, plenty of RAM, an SSD drive, etc, which up until now I've been very happy with, and it has lasted less than half as long as my last cheap Dell laptop.
It seems like a waste to throw away all those decent parts just because of the screen, and if ThinkPads aren't a reliable brand of laptop what is?

Any thoughts / suggestions?

Welcome to the forum!

Sorry to hear of your trouble.

With your T530 you made an excellent choice.

In my experience ThinkPads are very reliable and durable. Unfortunately, it seems, your T530 failed much sooner than what I would say is normal for a ThinkPad.

I tend to agree with your suspicions of motherboard failure.

If you are handy with a screwdriver, and it appears you are, replacing the motherboard is not too difficult.

Brad

I would be very cautious about spending lots of money on new parts for it if you aren't sure what the problem is. It could very well be a faulty motherboard, or it could be something else. You might be better off selling the laptop as-is and buying yourself another functional one.

kestasjk wrote:Really disappointed today since I got a Thinkpad T530 a year and a half ago to get a quality laptop that would last a while, and this afternoon the screen went all rainbow / multi-colored and scrambled.
Any thoughts / suggestions?

I had the same exact problem and it turned out to be a bad cable between the display and the system board.

kestasjk wrote:if ThinkPads aren't a reliable brand of laptop what is?

IMO, there aren't huge differences in reliability among different brands of laptops. For example, see PC Magazine's most recent (Nov 2014) laptop survey: http://www.pcmag.com/image_popup/0,1871 ... 191,00.asp

There may still be a reliability difference between consumer- and business-class laptops, but not between different brands of business-class laptops. When I shop for a laptop, I look at its specs, price, and design.

Well Ive got a Surface 3 now, with 4 years of warranty this time. Unfortunately none of the outputs including the docking station worked and the tech guys I went to said it was likely the mainboard.

Should probably try and figure out if I can sell the component parts anywhere, but don't want the hassle of setting up a dozen eBay pages.

If I do get a ThinkPad again (not very likely I'm afraid) I'll definitely get longer warranty

ROHS ?

Last ditch effort, repaste the heat sink fan, perhaps the GPU section had gotten loose.

I had an integrated graphics T61 go bonkers once, due to me not correctly applying the heat sink fan.
But it is very unlikely.

kestasjk wrote:If I do get a ThinkPad again (not very likely I'm afraid)

Did you check out the survey I linked to? All surveys conducted in recent years have consistently shown that all laptop brands are roughly the same in reliability. For all brands, about 1 in 10 laptops will have issues.

kestasjk wrote:I'll definitely get longer warranty

Consider an alternative approach that many forum members take: buy used, or buy new laptops that are cheap. If it breaks, just toss it.

Besides, I can't imagine being stuck with the same laptop for so many years. If it comes with 3 years of warranty by default (e.g. all of Dell's Precisions and flagship Latitudes), great, but I never purchase extended warranties. It's boring to keep using the same laptop for so long.

pianowizard wrote:

kestasjk wrote:If I do get a ThinkPad again (not very likely I'm afraid)

Did you check out the survey I linked to? All surveys conducted in recent years have consistently shown that all laptop brands are roughly the same in reliability. For all brands, about 1 in 10 laptops will have issues.

kestasjk wrote:
For me one in four T530's (scrambled screen) had failures and two in three t61p's (overheating) had failures.