IBM 770 Laptop Screen Flickers in and out

[WOUboy]

Hi everyone-

I was wondering if anyone had any issues with IBM laptop screens flickering in and out. Sometimes it'll be fine and others it'll either just black out or flicker in and out. But the machine is still running cause you can hear it. Sometimes when I close the laptop and open it again it'll reset the screen and it'll work and other times it'll just flicker like crazy. I've downloaded the lastest video drivers, switched power cords, re-installed OS and turned off all power saving functions in the OS. I've even changed the CMOS battery. Nothing worked. Any advice or ideas would be great. Thanks.

This is fairly old laptop, but it functions for what is needed of it. It would be nice to getting running right.

Specs.
72 mbs of RAM
200 Mhz Pentium I
Windows 98 SE
2 MB of cyber video

PS. The battery is totally dead, no charge at all, but I wouldn't that is the problem considering i'm using the AC only. And I have other laptops that have dead batteries and run fine with just AC.

 

[CheetahMk2]

When it flickers does it turn black then look like alcohol is drying on the screen [e.g. shades of black 'squeegee' across the screen]? I am not too sure on that, but mine does that whenever the monitor-lid switch gets tapped. Since you said your laptop is old, is there a chance that laptop-lid-closed sensor is sticky and is going back and forth?

IBM laptops especially are built like tanks... at least I have heard. And the ones I have seen firsthand are pretty durable... there should be a little plastic tab on the lid that goes into the base when you close the lid.. I wondered about the switch part on the bottom since it doesn't require much travel.... if that were to get sticky, that would make it flicker alright : )

 

[WOUboy]

I will check on that cheetahmk2. But the screen doesn't go black like "squeegee" across the screen. It acutally dims itself to the point where you can no longer see it. Then there is the flickering problem. But I will check to see if it's stickly switch. Hope that's it. Thanks for the tip.

 

[vietofmars]

you can try searching around on ibm site and try and find the repair manual for your model. Should have troubleshooting section. Maybe the backlight is dying.

 

[rneff50]

Sounds like a dying backlight. I have had a 770 and not had these problems (although it did have a dead serial port).