A31 Laptop screen issue!

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A31guy · #1 Post by **A31guy** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 2:49 am

It just so happens, that out of the blue my laptop started to have a problem with the display.
When I started up my A31 laptop the other day the IBM BIOS image displayed in sections and looked like the image was dissolving so to speak.

Also, the operating system boot image appeared to be all messed up with diffrent colors and not all together so to speak. There where also vertical blue and brown colored lines that appeared in and around the desktop area, Desktop icons and programs that I decided to open and run.

Another thing I noticed was that the lines would periodically stay and then sometimes totally clear up, to where the screen looked as if it was perfectly clear again. Then out of the blue the screen display would go to crap again all of the sudden....this is starting to get really annoying.

I have recently done the following to try and and fix this problem. I took apart the laptop and shot compressed air into most of the places that where dusty and ran microsofts memory diagnostics tests, which my computer passed. Although the problem still persists.

I purchased a new replacement battery, because the old one doesn't hold a charge and also installed a new cmos battery. I purchased a new A/C adapter, as the old one was making wierd whinning noises....But the problem still persists.

Has anyone else experienced these things with there A31 or similiar IBM notebook laptops.....and if so what did you do too fix the problem.?

My other assumptions are that either the Inverter board or the mainboard are slowly going out on me..

Any help would be appreciated.

Oh yeah this is my first post so does anyone know how to post like a paint file so I can show a picture of what the screen is doing...
[/img]

LtTPfan · #2 Post by **LtTPfan** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 6:05 am

You might try reseating the video cable connector. From your description it sounds to me like the inverter is not the problem.

To post images your image has to reside on the web somewhere. If you don't have a web site you can put the file on, there are several free image posting web sites, just google "free image posting." Once your pic is on the web, use this format to link to it in your post, where "MyImageURL" is the web address of your image file, which you can copy from your web browser's address bar: [img]MyImageURL[/img]

A31guy · #3 Post by **A31guy** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 4:30 am

Thanks for replying!
So what would be the best way to go about reseating the video cable connector.?

a31pguy · #4 Post by **a31pguy** » Wed Jan 11, 2006 8:21 pm

Open up the laptop. The hardware maint. manual on the IBM site has the step by step instructions. It's a ribbon cable. You can see the top of it near the bottom of the screen.

Nice name!

A31guy · #5 Post by **A31guy** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 2:10 am

Alright! Went ahead and reseated the ribbon cable/video cable connector, but same problem still persists.....

Any other suggestions....

Because I'm thinking of selling this laptop on ebay where I bought it from....
Although It still power's up...and everything works fine it's just these thin and small vertical yellow and brownish lines on the desktop are not acceptable to me....

LtTPfan · #6 Post by **LtTPfan** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 6:02 am

It sounds like you may have a bad mainboard if reseating the cable didn't do the trick.

a31pguy · #7 Post by **a31pguy** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 3:51 pm

Depending our your initial investment - the screen is still available via IBM - you can still replace it. I was getting screen related issue (pinkness) and ended up replacing it.

However, that said - i think your problem is acually the motherboard. I overheated my video GPU and got similar errors that you are seeing. The motherboard is available as well - you might be able to find some on the secondary market.

A31guy · #8 Post by **A31guy** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 9:11 pm

Hey thanks for replying!

Yeah I'm starting to think it is probably the mainboard too.
I think the integrated graphics unit is going....so I guess I will have to buy a new mainboard.....

Found one on ebay for 120 dollars without processor!

And I don't think this could be a monitor problem, because I plugged the laptop into my desktop computers CRT monitor and the lines still show up!

proaudioguy · #9 Post by **proaudioguy** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 10:13 pm

I'm having a similar problem but the lines are horizontal and pink. They are a pixel high, and several pixels wide. Sometimes they are bad, and sometimes not so bad. Sometimes not a problem. Sometimes when I jiggle the screen I have other video issues which may or may not be related. Also sometimes, seemingly at random, my ATI control panel shows 16 megs instead of 32 megs, then I'll check another time and it's back to 32 megs.
Also wanted to mention this just happened out of the blue the other day. Also I have reseated the connector. I am a fairly techie type but just ignorant as to where to find this issue. My fear is that the video processor is going south. I don't know what the solution to that would be.

Any ideas?

UpAndAway · #10 Post by **UpAndAway** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 8:27 am

I too am having a similar display problem -- numerous lines horizontal and green, about a pixel high, 20 pixels long.

IBM Thinkpad A31p -- 2653. Problem getting worse. 2 months out of 3 yr warranty.

I updated the bios from IBM download support and it fixed it completely for several weeks.

Then, when it was running on battery power and a message came up saying battery was lgetting ow, the screen went bad again exactly at that point -- same issues again.

Ran the complete Diagnostics check on startup (F11, Diagnostics) -- all passed except Video Memory Failed, Video Pages Failed, and VGA Controller Reg Failed.

My guess, somehow the bios is getting messed up -- maybe with a power transfer to backup when main battery was getting low. After talking with experts, my new understanding is bios chip is big palyer in video.

My clock date and time is okay -- so probably not backup battery.

Cannot reload the bios again until a new update comes out.

IBM support thinks systemboard might need to be replaced, but must send in to find out for sure.

At IBM support: new systemboard $425; if LCD problem, new LCD $595.

I think it's systemboard: bios or ATI Video on systemboard.

How do you buy a systemboard on ebay for $120 and transfer the processor? Is is easy. I'm a computer novice.

UpAndAway · #11 Post by **UpAndAway** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 8:30 am

Also, IBM support said that the way to determine if it is a LCD failing is to hook up an external monitor and if still bad, then it's probably the systemboard.

Unfortunatly, I don't have an external monitor to test with.

Website · #12 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 10:45 am

It might just be the LCD cable or inverter board. These are also cheaper possibilities.

UpAndAway · #13 Post by **UpAndAway** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 11:27 am

That's good because I need cheaper.

Website · #14 Post by **tfflivemb2** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 12:12 pm

Yeah, it might be better to spend $10-20 and still having to buy an LCD, then to spend the money on an LCD and find out that it was just the $10-20 for a cable or inverter board.

proaudioguy · #15 Post by **proaudioguy** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 10:31 pm

I checked it with an external monitor and it's there on both. Also sometimes my card reads as 16 meg and somtimes it reads as 32 meg. It's supposed to be 32 Meg. As far as I know you have to replace the motherboard to get the video replaced since it's onboard. If it was just a bit of soldering around the edge of an IC, I could do it myself, but I don't have the ESD tools, and chances are the board is multilayered and the IC may have hiddin pins. It becomes a real crap shoot at that point. I absolutely don't want to have to replace my MB, but if in the end I knew for a fact that would correct it I would. I just spent $160 on this thing putting a new Hard Drive in it, and it's so much faster (with new 5400 instead of tired old 4200 about to die for 1.5 years, but somehow continueing to live), I am considering getting a 2.4GHz and buying an A31P MB if that is what will fix it to up the video memory so I can play more games. I'm not a real gamer, but I'd love to be able to play san andreas on here even at a lower res.

Anyone else with IDEAS regarding this video issue?

Also, what is an invertor (voltage from DC to AC?) in regard to the video?

a31pguy · #16 Post by **a31pguy** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 5:33 pm

Sounds to me like you are going to have to replace the mainboard. A31's are infameous for this. The P4m and FireGL chip just gets too hot at full throttle. The external monitor is a dead give away that the system board is kaput.

proaudioguy · #17 Post by **proaudioguy** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 7:46 pm

So , what if I replace the system board, is there a way to increase the air flow? I have no problem modding it but I may need a bit more current than the computer can supply safely to drive a better fan, or more of them.
Any suggestions?

a31pguy · #18 Post by **a31pguy** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 8:17 pm

You can mod the case. What they did on the Z series was put rubber feet on it and put two vented areas on the bottom. This draws air in from the bottom - but they also put heat pipes from the GPU, northbridge, and CPU. It's a much better way.

I found that the ultrabays can be a good source of cooler air. I put a hard drive fan sled into the drive bays and this helped. But anyway that you can get air into the laptop and hot air out would work.

proaudioguy · #19 Post by **proaudioguy** » Thu Feb 23, 2006 10:38 pm

I would very mch like to see pictures of your drive bay fans.

makeshiftaudio@yahoo.com

a31pguy · #20 Post by **a31pguy** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 12:04 am

I would love to post them for you. Unfortunately the bag containing them was stolen out of my car around new years - along with a lot of my a31 stuff. All I have left is the laptop and power supply at this point. Lost a bunch of neat stuff - including a spare CPU and wireless card. However, I think I posted the specs for the fans in this forum. I used a travel spacer and bought these dual hard drive fans that come in an aluminum frame. Fit perfectly into the ultrabays. I used the parts from a old hard drive carrier to get power to the fans. Cut some slots in the travel spacer and it works ok. Make two if you can. one for each side. Levono should really make one - i'm sure it would sell to the gamers.

proaudioguy · #21 Post by **proaudioguy** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 1:13 am

Some sort of squirel cage blower would work. They could have the vents to the outside of the drive bay. Not sure how to open the blade side to the inside of the laptop to draw the heat out. May take a bit of modding to the laptop casing under the keyboard.

Charles Mann · #22 Post by **Charles Mann** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 8:44 pm

A suggestion, if the computer was purchased with a Visa Platinum Credit Card, check with the Credit Card company to see if the warranty period will be extended. In my case A30p, the screen was showing a pink tinge, I called the Credit Card company, they supplied a 800 number to call. In short the three year warranty was extended an additional year, I had the A30p LCD replaced to the tune of $543.61, sent the bill to Visa, and they reimbursed the full amount. You will deal with Visa Extended Warranty Protection Program.

C Mann

proaudioguy · #23 Post by **proaudioguy** » Sun Feb 26, 2006 12:49 pm

Friday, I had the same issues during the day on a job site. It was just typically annoying. I got home booted up and no screen at all. Just darkness. I moved the screen back and it came on. With a bit of wiggling/ putting my finger in the right place near the bottom I was able to keep it on. Yesterday at work it just wouldn't come on at all. I was quite busy so I waited until today to deal with it. Pulling the cover off the screen, I found that a little PCB on the lower right, under the screen had become unplugged. It has a small screw holding it in on one side. I unscrewed that pulled it out part way and plugged it back in. So far no more screen problems. This could be a seperate issue, because the screen problems have been kind of intermittant. I'll post back in a day or two with an update.

A31guy · #24 Post by **A31guy** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 6:31 pm

I finally got around to buying a new main board, which was definitely the problem. Because after I did the out with the old in with the new so to speak, man all that line garbage I was seeing went away, it's like my laptop is perfect again.

By the way if anyone out there is having similar problems with there screen like I was, you can purchase alot of nice quality stuff from these people off of ebay, this is where I got my mainboard. Although it wasn't new, it looked like it hadn't been used at all to me and it came nicely packaged in a static bag and all of that. Here is the site if anyone is interested:

http://stores.ebay.com/IMS-Store

Later,

Colin T.

[/url]

proaudioguy · #25 Post by **proaudioguy** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 8:55 pm

Second full day and no problems wiht the screen since plugging that little PCB back in. I'll keep checking back.

proaudioguy · #26 Post by **proaudioguy** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 8:27 pm

OK, I came home and the computer was fine. I restarted after uninstalling the Avast I was trying, which seemed to wreck Office XP, and when restarting the lines came back. I completely uninstalled Office and reinstalled and it works now. This after a repair that apparently failed to fix the problem.

The jist of it is the green lines are back. They had been completely gone for 3 days. Also this seems to happen with a startup. If the computer boots without the lines, they do not seem to show up while it's booted. If they show up when booting they do not go away untill a reboot (sometimes).

A31guy · #27 Post by **A31guy** » Wed Mar 01, 2006 1:26 am

Seems to me like your laptop is starting to get the similar symptoms that mine had! Although mine started to show wierd lines on the screen all of the sudden it gradually got worse, until eventually it was like booting into some Psychedelic screen after a few weeks. I mean sometimes I wasn't even able to make out anything that was on the screen...and then after like the 10th time of doing a hard boot the IBM BIOS screen would show up in it's typical messed up looking fashion.

But the odd thing was, I was now able to access windows 2000 pro after hard booting several times, but there would still be all the wierd horizontal and vertical lines.

My suggestion is a new mainboard or maybe not! Although a good way to test is to plug your laptop into an external monitor, like a desktop CRT and boot the laptop too see if those same lines your seeing show up on the external monitor. And if the lines show up on that CRT monitor you can probably rule out that it's the laptop display causing the problem, like the lcd etc. Hope this helps.

A31guy · #28 Post by **A31guy** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 2:26 pm

Just to update, this so called new motherboard just went kerplunk on me! And on second thought do not purchase from this ebay company I was saying was good. I am going to try and send this motherboard back...so lets see if they uphold to there 14 day warranty!

I think I will go Alienware laptop this time! Or build a laptop computer from http://www.xtremenotebooks.com/

Wilsonflyer · #29 Post by **Wilsonflyer** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 4:19 pm

Kathy and Jack are some of the nicest and most reasonable people I've ever had the pleasure of dealing with. I'll be surprised if they don't honor your warranty on that board.

You really oughta give'em an fair shot to make it good before you bad-mouth them as a company. They deal in new/used/refurbished parts. It's the nature of the beast. Some will be fine and some won't and we both know that there's generally no way to tell if it seems to function properly when they send it to you as yours obviously did.

Don't forget that you could have purchased a new one from Leveno/IBM for only about $1295. Then you wouldn't have had any problems with it, right? Keep believing that every part you get "new" from IBM will be perfect. LOL

BTW--> I'm not affiliated with them in any way whatsoever. I've just had really good success in dealing with them and my experiences have been nothing but positive.

A31guy · #30 Post by **A31guy** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 4:52 pm

Well your right IMS inc, sure stepped up to the plate with there warranty. They back there warranty very good, I was very impressed. Stupid me even forgot to write the RMA number on the package and Kathy from IMS, inc. told me not to worry about it....

.

There prices are really good for new, used, and refurbished parts that they deal with, and you can't go wrong with the warranty.

A31 Laptop screen issue!

A31 Laptop screen issue!

Finally got this annoying screen issue taken care of!

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