No lcd on IBM 760 laptop but will run external monitor???

[santuitman]

Hello all
I received an old thinkpad 760el that the lcd "just stopped working" I can run an external monitor enough to see it try to boot so I'm guessing it's not the laptop itself... although it has a boot error but I'm guessing the previous owner formatted the drive. Any yideas what to check next to get the lcd working or verify whats wrong?
Also it was owned by a smoker and stinks like h%ll. Any idea how to get rid of the smell??

Thanks in advance

 

[w00t]

have a warranty on it? have u asked the guy about it? on the ibm laptops i have seen u can buy the lcd's seprate if it recently went out when u bought it get ur money back. or he can replace the lcd screen good luck i am not sure how the smoke could stay in the laptop maybe spray some frebreze around w/e its called.

 

[santuitman]

Well I got it 'cause the fellow that had it tried another lcd and that didn't fix it so he was just going to trash it. Now I'm trying to figure out if it wasn't the LCD at all but something else. unfortuatley I don't know if either LCD was good.
Everything in the laptop smells like smoke... the HDD, the cd, the battery... the whole nine yards. I didn't think about febreeze. Maybe if it was poered down and I wiped some on non electric areas that would work.

Any thoughts anyone??

Thanks

 

[montag451]

Maybe if it was poered down and I wiped some on non electric areas that would work.


Are you trying to fix the lappie, or break it properly?

 

[w00t]

ya i wouldnt pour it just spray it around the laptop.

u can probably send it in to IBM for repair should take awile but hey didnt u get the laptop for free. send it in and u got a working laptop. you said it worked on a external monitor but not the lcd i would think it would be the lcd than but u said u found out it wasnt the lcd. how is that possible works on external and not internal? i am guessing its somthing u can fix urself send it in

 

[santuitman]

"Maybe if it was poered down"
Maybe if I could type correctly I would have typed "POWERED" down All those typing lessons down the tube!
I figured I could try to wipe the stuff around the nonconductive areas. It really does stink!

This laptop is circa 97 and in very rough shape so I was hoping to do a "bailing wire and twine" fix to it. Hopefully I can get it going for a while. I was just hoping someone would have an idea as to what to try next...

Thanks!

 

[montag451]

To get rid of the smell, get some 'essential oil' probably something like citronella, use a few drops in half glass of water, and some cotton wool.
Take the battery out first, and disconnect the power, and don't switch on for a couple of days.

The main prob with the lappie could be [as i see it]:

mobo [with vga onboard]
screen
connector between the 2 above.

me clever.......... ;-)

It may be safe to say it isn't the screen.
If it is the mobo/vga, then the only thing you could do is to carry on using it as you are.
If it is the connector - you may possibly be in with a chance.

Open up the lappie, after taking out battery and disconnecting from AC.
Undo the screws you can see -
Try to get to the screen part, and eventually you will see a little plastic/trace cable[flat, thin, probably orange]. Once you get to it, make sure that nothing can short out the unit.
Plug in battery, switch on, and wiggle that cable. See if you can coax a flicker

 

[Slikkster]

I'm trusting you've done the fn + f7 combo toggling just to make sure it's not stuck in external mode only, right?

 

[montag451]

good point slikkster

 

[santuitman]

Thanks for the replies!!!
The fn f7 combo does nothing as far as I can tell. i am able to use external monitor to get to the onboard testing and so far everything, including the display test, is checknig out fine. The display test ran a bunch of diffferent patterns etc on the external monitor but not a flicker on the LCD. Perhaps I should try the old lcd and see if it was something else. Is there any way to test and lcd externally?

 

[montag451]

Not that i know of.

It probably would be a good bet that if you are steady with some solder, look at the old screen's connector, and you may be able to solder some traces onto a piece of cardboard that you could wire upto an old vga connector.

You'd probably be able to find which wire should go to which connection on the net

 

[montag451]

Ah, just forgot, don't know how you would power it though

 

[Slikkster]

Can you verify that there is absolutely no display at all? It will help pinpoint the problem.

(p.s. Please don't spray Fabreeze in the laptop!!!)

This will require a very bright flashlight to do this test. I found this in a newsgroup about troubleshooting failed LCD screens:

"If the display is present, regardless of how hard it is to read (it will
be faint), then the problem is not in the actual LCD panel [using that
term in the strict technical sense, but the lamps are physically inside
the panel assembly]. In that case the problem is either a bad lamp(s)
or a bad inverter. More likely the inverter.

If no display is present at all, then it's something else.

To aid in seeing if the display is present, shine a very bright
flashlight at the screen from various angles, or, in some cases, it may
help to press it right up against the screen. "

 

[santuitman]

I'll have to try the flashlight thing. I've never seen this before.

And oh yes the fn + f7 combo thing doesn't do anything in test mode but it does when I boot normally to the boot error message it projects two different ways on the external monitor and then goes blank the third way. I assume this is when the lcd should be working. Apparently there must be an autodetect when you have an external monitor set up.

If only I didn't have to work for a living then I could be trying this right now!!

 

[LiLithTecH]

You probably can find a used replacement LCD on eBay that is reasonable in price.
(IBM parts tend to go for higher than normal)

Some versions of that 760EL used DSTN Panels and some used TFT.
You would need to disassemble the Display to find out which.

Is the previous owner a heavy smoker? That maybe what you are smelling.
If so, just clean the top and sides with a damp cloth and let the rest fade away.

 

[santuitman]

Thanks for all the responses. I tried the flashlight and couldn't see a thing so now I guess I'l carefully dissasemble to get to the connector and see if wiggling gets anything.
I'll keep my fingers crossed!

 

[montag451]

good luck.

Let us know what happens

 

[santuitman]

Just an update...
I tried the flashlight thing and couldn't see a thing. carefull disassembly of the system found no loose connectors. trying the second LCD also got nothing so I'm guessing from what I've read on thinkpads is either DC-DC board or video card. I'd find it hard to believe that both lcds were bad... but I suppose that's possible too. I'm about ready to give up unless I find some way to test some of the indiviual parts
At least the cigarettes smell is going away!!
Thanks for all the suggestions!!
santuitman

 

[Slikkster]

You're getting dangerously close to throwing good money after bad here.

I've read about possible inverter failure or flourescent backlight bulb. But it would seem to me that the bulb would be part of the screen assembly, so maybe the inverter card?

I'm out of my element here (I guess that could be a pun). Good luck.

 

[santuitman]

Hello
In case anyone was following this and was curious...
The falshlight really did work after all but I had to do it in a dark room with a very bright light.!! I found that one LCD had a bad inverter and the "new" lcd had a bad cable. Apparently someone must have just ripped it out as the cable into the laptop was full of shorts. lcd now working fine!! (I just have to get the right drivers for the display to go full screen)
The hard drive was just screwed up, period. There was no os and no sys on the drive so the lappie couldn't do anything with it. I was able to use an adapter on my pc and bring it back to life with fdisk and format an put win 95 install on it so now the laptop is up and running!!!!

Thanks to everyone here for suggestions and comments :lol:
Brian

 

[Slikkster]

Nice work, and thanks for the update.

 

[montag451]

yeah well done. Thank you for letting us know - that is a good trick slikkster

 

[Laputa]

tried to use the function key to have both display available???