Need help: T60p display issues, possible video card problem?

[kizzmequik_74]

I have a 15-inch T60p that I bought second-hand with (I think) a Core 2 Duo T7400 and a FireGL v5250. I tossed in a 2GB stick of RAM to max it out at 3GB, and replaced the hard drive with a 500GB WD Scorpio Black. It's way out of warranty already.

Now, the computer was humming along nicely last night, when the video suddenly cut out. At first, I thought it had something to do with Windows Update automatically restarting the computer, so I waited. It did something strange at some point: I got to the login screen, and after a few seconds (~5), the video just cut out. Plugging it into a monitor didn't seem to help. Irritated, I unplugged and yanked the battery out. It seemed to turn on fine after that. Left it on overnight with the lid closed (I use it as a media center), opened it up in the morning, put it to sleep, and went to work.

So, I turn it on at the office, and it did the exact same thing it did last night at the login screen. After repeating this a couple of times, I decided to try to go into the BIOS settings. Nothing. I hit the ThinkVantage button, and nothing showed after that. Same thing when I hit F12, in an attempt to boot off a flash drive. Safe mode just tossed me back into the login page blackout.

Does anyone have a clue about the causes of this issue? I'm betting that it's got something to do with the video card, since Windows has been tossing up notifications about the display driver recovering from a serious error when I play some games in windowed mode.

Now, then. How screwed am I? Anyone have any ideas? Any ideas will be much appreciated.

My computers always tend to break just when I need them, and when I need to save money (like now). Push comes to shove, I think I should just pick up something like a second-hand T400 or X200, if I can find them for a decent price.

[ThinkPadophile]

If you have access to the internet, go online and download the T60 maintenance manual appropriate to your laptop (either narrow screen or wide screen). The hardware maintenance manual has comprehensive diagnostic procedures that should help you to pinpoint the problem.

Is the problem thermally related? If the problems only start after the laptop gets hot, it could be a number of problems. A bad video card is one possibility, but cooling problems are common onT60ps. They can normally be corrected fairly easily. Nevertheless, it's too early to conclude that overheating is the cause of your problems, and I recommend you take your laptop through the diagnostic regimen first.

[kizzmequik_74]

I'm pretty sure it's not thermally related. I don't think that the time spent between startup and the screen going blank is long enough for heat to be a factor. It's just a matter of seconds.

Fortunately, the screen held off going blank just long enough to allow me to get into the BIOS and change the default display output to VGA. An external monitor works, contrary to what I earlier believed, but the internal display doesn't, whether I extended or duplicated the output.

Now, I can finally try running some diagnostic tests.

[kizzmequik_74]

Ah, it seems to be a dead/dying backlight. I never noticed it before, but I can just about see white browser pages on the LCD.

That makes things a lot easier, I'll just have to find someplace that can replace the backlight for me, I guess.

[ThinkPadophile]

From the symptoms, it seems more likely that the inverter card failed. The CCFL tubes in the backlight are more likely to dim slowly with age than to simply quit. Inverters are cheap and easy to replace (a 15 minute job, using only a screwdriver), whereas replacing the backlight is time consuming and involves delicate soldering operations. Backlight repairs are, therefore, best left to professional repair shops. Expect a backlight repair to be fairly expensive if done professionally.

[kizzmequik_74]

Thanks, I'll look into acquiring a new inverter card to see if it's the problem.