Laptop screen going black & computer freezing

[desidude]

Hi friends,

I am using a Lenovo Think Pad T43 laptop for the past 6 years. It is quite worn. I am running Windows 7.

I was previously having problems with my screen where the screen would go dim (not less bright but translucent black) and I would need to put the machine to sleep and awaken it to get the screen back to regular brightness.

Now, the screen goes black every so often (a couple of times a day) and I believe the computer is frozen, e.g. if I press the caps lock key when this happens, I do not see the indicator light go on/off.

When I try to reboot it usually takes multiple attempts, as many times nothing happens - I do not think the HD comes on.

Any thoughts on what may be going on?


Thanks,

desidude

 

[paul878]

You previously problem is an indication of a dying back light.

Down load a copy of PC-Doctor from Lenovo for your model and the full test.
Chances are the HD is a problem after 6 years of usage.

 

[desidude]

Thank you Sir. You seemed to have identified the likely problems.

1) Where & which replacement backlight can I get to replace the current failing backlight?

2) I did replace my HDD a couple of years ago with a 3rd party HDD. Which HDD can I replace it with now?

I have a T43 model type 2669.

Thanks,
desidude

 

[sm625]

I bet this will take some research

http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problem_with_non-ThinkPad_hard_disks

 

[mrblotto]

Think Pad T43 ........... running Windows 7.

wow......I salute you!

Take a look in the event viewer under 'Windows Logs - System' to see if there are any 'disk' or 'NTFS' error messages.

I have an old T43 here, but of course it just hangs on the BIOS screen....so I can't verify if I can boot to the USB Key with the Lenovo Hard Drive quick test on it. But here's the link anyhow, just in case:

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=DS013820

Edit: I tried the Lenovo HDQT from a USB stick on a T42p and it worked, so it may indeed work on yours as well.

As far as replacing the backlight, I only know it wont be cheap.

 

[paul878]

http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?LegacyDocID=MIGR-56222

You need this version of pcdoctor. You must test out the entire laptop before you spend money replacing parts, there might be more problem than that.

You can used any Hard Drive, just update the bios and it will bypass the 2010 error.

As for the Backlight, you might want to replace the whole lcd. The corner plastic usually get burned and become very brittle which make it a pain to replace just the back-light. If you have no experience replacing back-light you going to break a few before you get it right. You can get the entire top assembly including on ebay for dirt.

Again, hook laptop to external screen, run Pc-Doctor full test and make sure you have no other problem before spending money buying parts.

The cost of fixing an old laptop something exceed the cost of getting the same unit refurbished.