bad screen: advice needed

[geos]

hello,

I enclose the picture of the screen which has dots/stripes of dots. can this screen be "cured" or rather not? I ask for your experience, your last opinion was 100% right (damaged row-drivers)

what could be the cause in this case?

thank you,
geos

[Neil]

What model ThinkPad is this?

It doesn't look like a bad screen at all. Looks like a failing GPU to me.

[geos]

this is T60, 15" 4:3, I don't know the type. I enclose another picture. On this one you can see slight vertical stripes, a little reddish.

[Neil]

Sorry, but I can't see the stripes. Could be the picture just doesn't reveal them, or could be that I'm not in the best of situations for viewing it right now.

Vertical lines are likely a bad line driver issue. But those dots, and lines of dots, still look a lot like corrupt VRAM to me.

Can you read the type number off the label on the bottom of the machine? Or look on the first page of the BIOS, and get the first seven characters of the machine serial number?

[RealBlackStuff]

I think I agree with Neil, that your (graphics) VRAM is most likely corrupt, a sometimes failure of the FireGL motherboard in a T60p.
If an external monitor shows the same distortions, it's definitely bad VRAM.
But if the external monitor is OK, please note that external and internal work independent of one another, one might work, and the other not.
To be 100% sure, try another LCD.
If you need one, I have a spare T60p motherboard.
PM me if interested.

[geos]

I don't have this T60, I will ask the owner. meantime I include "enhanced" version of previous picture.

[RealBlackStuff]

I stay with my opinion of bad VRAM.
Also (and has nothing to do with the bad motherboard) that T60 runs W7 on only 1GB RAM.
Please advise the owner to make that at least 2GB, or rather 3GB of RAM.

[geos]

from what I know it happened "just like that": screen was ok and suddenly stripes appeared. is is rapairable?

generally I consider buying this unit just to convert into frankenpad. if this is motherboard failure or some element mounted on it is acceptable since motherboard would be replaced anyway, I'd just miss opportunity to sell it. if it is the screen I would probably stay away from this unit... from what you're saying I suppose VRAM is located on motherboard, right?

[RealBlackStuff]

VRAM is on the motherboard, yes.

I would still check an external monitor, and if possible, another LCD, before you 'jump' on this.
If you already have a T61 motherboard, you can remove the whole LCD and attach it to the T61 LCD-connector.
That would be another test-option.
Just add RAM (from T60), CPU+fan (both from/for T61 !!), keyboard (from T60) to that T61 mobo and see if you can get a picture.

[geos]

Thanks!

I finally got a reply from owner saying that indeed the dots are visible on external screen too.

So my next question is if VRAM are replaceable on those motherboards? Are VRAM memory chips hard to find/buy? I have a friend that would do all the soldering for me but I'm not sure if such operation is worth considering.

[Neil]

I'm not 100% certain about this, but, I think the VRAM is built into the GPU chip on these, which is soldered to the motherboard with hundreds of tiny solder balls. It might be possible to replace the chip, but one would have to have a professional re-work station to align and solder the new chip in place. Probably cheaper and certainly easier to replace the whole motherboard.

[geos]

I see... so it looks like classic reballing is worst case scenario. I'm looking for information about VRAM inside GPU and I found similar case here: http://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopi ... 9&t=106062

Thanks Neil!