Display goes dim

[raf39]

Hello all, I have a Thinkpad A30. When I startup the screen says IBM Thinkpad and looks okay but when it goes past that the screen goes dark. I can see a general help screen but it is very dark. Anyone know what might have happen or what I did? Thanks for any help or suggestions.

[BigWarpGuy]

Was it plugged in or on battery power? Have you tried turning up the screen brightness?

[raf39]

Tried it on battery and pluged in same both ways, Also held down fn key and hit home key and there was no change.

[raf39]

Don't tell me that no one has any ideals about this problem. Someone must have had this same problem before. Come on give me a little help.

[tfflivemb2]

Sounds like the inverter might be going bad.

[raf39]

If I plug it into my desktop monitor it works, But the LCD on the A30 will not work after I see the IBM Thinkpad screen. It goes dark

[tfflivemb2]

If the inverter is going out, you would still be able to use the external monitor.

Where there any warning signs to this problem, such as a red or pinkish LCD, even if for only a moment at boot up?

[raf39]

No, last time I used it I had no problems. This time when I started it up I had no display.

[r. aster]

It's the inverter, display or flex cable. Or maybe the little lid switch. You can try to very gently operate the switch with a paperclip or something to see if seems sticky or anything, but be very careful -- you can easily push it too far and break it. (Don't ask me how I know this.)

(The lid switch and some of the control circuits seem not to be enabled until part way through the boot, which is why you see display then no display.)

However, most likely, your inverter or LCD panel are going, although these usually fail more gradually. In any case, the result is that the backlight isn't starting. My A30 does just what yours does sometimes, so I give it a little more juice by:

• Charging the battery to 100%
  Temporarily removing the CD drive
  Temporarily removing the mouse
  Fn-home rapidly the brightness all the way up during boot

This seems to gives it enough voltage to kick on, and then it works fine. As a quicker experiment, you can also Fn-home it all the way bright (even if you can't see it), and then Fn-F4 to sleep, and then long Fn to wake up. This often gets my backlight to start up.

All these tricks are just making up for a marginal component somewhere, but only the inverter is quick and cheap to replace, so it's kind of hard to isolate and solve the root problem.

Good luck.

RA

[raf39]

Thank you, Will try all and let you know what happens