The LCD(TFT) display on my A31 IBM ThinkPad seems to have given up on
me..the dispaly fickered a couple of times and now i cannot see
anyhting, except if I tilted the screen and shone light on it, then I
could barely see the screen, so I figure this could be something to do
with the brightness/transistors that aid brightness of a dispaly unit.
IBM does not repair these and its past warranty? any ideas...?

It sounds like the LCD backlight or the inverter that powers the backlight
has died.... it is repairable.

Guy

phoenix wrote:
> The LCD(TFT) display on my A31 IBM ThinkPad seems to have given up on
> me..the dispaly fickered a couple of times and now i cannot see
> anyhting, except if I tilted the screen and shone light on it, then I
> could barely see the screen, so I figure this could be something to do
> with the brightness/transistors that aid brightness of a dispaly unit.
> IBM does not repair these and its past warranty? any ideas...?

You either have a bad inverter or a bad lamp (the inverter is more
likely the problem). The inverter is a separate board inside the LCD
lid with the display panel (but not part of the display panel).
Replacing the inverter is fairly easy and relatively inexpensive (you
can usually get an inverter on E-Bay for $15 to $30; it will likely cost
more from IBM, but it's likely still less than $100). The lamp is a
fluorescent tube that is physically located inside the LCD panel, but
it's separately replaceable without replacing the entire panel (the
degree of difficulty of this varies widely, from trivial to almost
impossible). Lamp replacement can cost from about $15 to about $150,
depending on how you have it done.

In both cases, the biggest problem is finding the part. From your
description, the LCD panel itself is likely not defective. The inverter
is more likely the problem than the lamp, but either could cause this.


phoenix wrote:
> The LCD(TFT) display on my A31 IBM ThinkPad seems to have given up on
> me..the dispaly fickered a couple of times and now i cannot see
> anyhting, except if I tilted the screen and shone light on it, then I
> could barely see the screen, so I figure this could be something to do
> with the brightness/transistors that aid brightness of a dispaly unit.
> IBM does not repair these and its past warranty? any ideas...?
>

thanks Barry, that certainly helps, I will have it checked out..cheers


Barry Watzman wrote:
> You either have a bad inverter or a bad lamp (the inverter is more
> likely the problem). The inverter is a separate board inside the LCD
> lid with the display panel (but not part of the display panel).
> Replacing the inverter is fairly easy and relatively inexpensive (you
> can usually get an inverter on E-Bay for $15 to $30; it will likely cost
> more from IBM, but it's likely still less than $100). The lamp is a
> fluorescent tube that is physically located inside the LCD panel, but
> it's separately replaceable without replacing the entire panel (the
> degree of difficulty of this varies widely, from trivial to almost
> impossible). Lamp replacement can cost from about $15 to about $150,
> depending on how you have it done.
>
> In both cases, the biggest problem is finding the part. From your
> description, the LCD panel itself is likely not defective. The inverter
> is more likely the problem than the lamp, but either could cause this.
>
>
> phoenix wrote:
> > The LCD(TFT) display on my A31 IBM ThinkPad seems to have given up on
> > me..the dispaly fickered a couple of times and now i cannot see
> > anyhting, except if I tilted the screen and shone light on it, then I
> > could barely see the screen, so I figure this could be something to do
> > with the brightness/transistors that aid brightness of a dispaly unit.
> > IBM does not repair these and its past warranty? any ideas...?
> >

phoenix wrote:
> The LCD(TFT) display on my A31 IBM ThinkPad seems to have given up on
> me..the dispaly fickered a couple of times and now i cannot see
> anyhting, except if I tilted the screen and shone light on it, then I
> could barely see the screen, so I figure this could be something to do
> with the brightness/transistors that aid brightness of a dispaly unit.
> IBM does not repair these and its past warranty? any ideas...?

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