Hey,

I thought I'd post here because there are some techie people and maybe you'll know what the problem is.

I have an IBMThinkPad, and it's at least 3 years old. A week ago, the screen of my laptop started flickering black. I tapped the top of my screen and it stopped flickering and functioned normally.

Yesterday it flickered again, and I tapped it again, and it was OK.

Today it flickered, and I tapped it, but it blacked out (I couldn't see anything). It didn't respond to tapping, moving the mouse (which is a wireless if that helps any), or using the up and down arrow keys. I didn't want to restart, so I put it on Hibernate and it responded, and went to sleep. I woke it up again, and everything was just as I'd left it.

I tried googling this but all I could find were people saying their screen blacked out but they could still see a faint outline of Windows - the solution given for that was to replace the screen inverter. Since mine actually blacks out completely and I can't see anything, I'm not sure if I should use the same solution or if it's a different problem.

My laptop was connected to a power cable, and the battery is fully charged.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks. :)

Well, I've had it before that my laptop screen went black and didn't want to come back on. It was on stand-by mode, though. It got out of stand-by when I pressed a keyboard button, but the screen remained black and it didn't respond to anything.

What worked for me was holding the on(/reset) button for half an eternity, and it started restarting. But I'm sure you've done that (still, just putting it out there ;) )

Is the laptop still on?

Good luck, anyway!

Hmm. Actually I haven't tried holding the on/reset button, because that would just cause it to shut down, then I would have to start it up again, and my laptop takes about 10 minutes to get from start to a screen I work with :S Yeah, it's shocking, I know. Putting it on sleep and waking it up takes much less time (like 10 seconds).

Yes, the laptop is still on. It flickers and blacks out when it's on. I wouldn't know if it blacked out when it was off? Lol.

I'm just worried the thing is going to fall into a coma and never wake up one fine day. And that'll be the end of that. I want to fix it so I don't have to worry about it. Or get a new laptop.

I think if it's fixed by tapping it means there's a loose or dodgy connection somewhere inside. I've read somewhere that things like that happen a lot in LCD displays because the contacts between the electronics and the display are only held together by pressure, so can come lose more easily than if they were held by other methods. (?)

I've had at least 3 hardware related problems with my own laptop screen.

One involved the whole screen going black, permanantly and was fixed by replacing the system board.

One was similar to yours, but only affected the bottom third of the screen, but then spread to the middle third (as I was on the phone to the support guy). That was due to a faulty backlight in the LCD display, so that could also be the problem.

Hmm, okay. Yeah it could be a loose connection.

If it's going to fall to pieces, I might just get a new laptop =| It's getting on, anyway.

Or you could, ya know..... get it repaired?

Yeah, but it has been with me for 3 years, and with someone else for I-don't-know-how-many years. So it's old. It'll probably come up with another problem once this one's sorted.

I was kinda hoping someone would say "uh oh, that's a baaad sign, better get a new laptop straight away! You don't know when this one's gonna die". Thus giving me a valid reason to get a new one. XD

Or give me a really simple suggestion like - open it up and clean it, or something.

Oh Id's say issues like that are a valid reason to get a new laptop. :biggrin:

Are you being sarcastic? Lol. I can't tell.

Are you being sarcastic? Lol. I can't tell.
Was more cheeky then sarcastic.

/me is an expert at manufacturing reasons to buy new equipment whether needed or not

Haha, OK... Salesman much? xD

No computer ever should be allowed to hibernate or going into stand by. That just messes everything up, in my experience anyway. Disable hibernate if you can. It's better to be either completely on or completely off.

Yeah, DEFINITELY always shut it down at the end of the day. It takes so long to start up because everything is cluttered up, and not ever shutting it down adds to that.


I put it on stand-by only when I'm off for about an hour during the day.

Still, try the restart. You can lose 10 minutes, right? I mean, better than not being able to use the laptop again, and losing all your files. It may not be the solution, but you could give it a try

No computer ever should be allowed to hibernate or going into stand by. That just messes everything up, in my experience anyway. Disable hibernate if you can. It's better to be either completely on or completely off.

Yeah, DEFINITELY always shut it down at the end of the day. It takes so long to start up because everything is cluttered up, and not ever shutting it down adds to that. ...

Let me clarify: I generally don't use the Hibernate/Standby function. I always, always shut down my laptop if I'm not going to be using it for more than an hour. I used Hibernate that time because it was easier than shutting down and restarting.

... Still, try the restart. You can lose 10 minutes, right? I mean, better than not being able to use the laptop again, and losing all your files. It may not be the solution, but you could give it a try

Nay, I'm not sure how that would work though. It could be a solution - by the time the laptop shuts down, restarts and reaches the desktop screen the black out would've righted itself - but it doesn't address the root of the issue.

Well, you could always back your files up and reinstall windows with the recovery disks, if you have them. If it's a software problem that'll do it, but if it's a loose wire or something like that, then a technician should be able to fix it.