[GRLUG] screen problem (continued from November)

[Eric Beversluis]

On 2/15/2011 9:15 AM, Michael Mol wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 2:29 AM, Eric Beversluis
> <ebever at researchintegration.org>  wrote:
>> On Thu, 2010-11-25 at 08:22 -0500, Eric Beversluis wrote:
>> Just today the screen popped back on after not working for several
>> weeks. During that time, there would occasionally be a flicker of life
>> in the screen (typically the Lenovo splash screen showing just for a
>> second or so); there seems always to be a very faint image (eg, I can
>> just make out the form of the logon screen and once I log in I can
>> ever-so-faintly make out the Desktop).
>>
>> What happened just before screen popped on: I had been running an NX
>> session as usual. From terminal in NX I did 'sudo init 0'. Then before
>> the Lenovo had completely shut down I removed the power cable to use it
>> on another box. Just as the shutdown completed I saw ever-so-briefly the
>> Ubuntu logo. When I rebooted after a couple of hrs (without the power
>> cable), the screen worked perfectly. Plugging the power cable in after a
>> bit did not affect screen operation.
>>
>> Experiment: hibernate and restart. Result: screen came back fine. But,
>> based on past experience, I'm expecting it to go out again at any time.
>>
>> Web research suggested that this kind of problem related to the screen
>> power inverter. After a frustrating month, I finally got a new inverter
>> delivered and that did not make any difference.
>>
>> Lenovo 3000 N100.
>>
>> Thanks.
> Sounds like it might be an electrical or mechanical problem. Outside
> the power inverter, I'd guess your cable might be flaky, or possibly
> the video controller. We've got similar problems with one of our
> laptops. Though our case is probably slightly different; if you leave
> it alone long enough, it looks like this:
>
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/28208534@N07/3767294627/
Right about electrical or mechanical, I'm thinking. Mine doesn't show 
that much image when it's "out"--much fainter image.

This morning it was "on" for about two or three minutes after startup 
and logon and then went "out" again. When I shut it down remotely using 
"sudo init 0" the screen came back on during the shutdown. Haven't 
restarted since then.  Does this suggest that it may be software?

I'll probably bring it in to a repair shop; hopefully they'll have some 
diagnostic equipment that can see what's happening. The Lenovo 
supposedly has something called PC-Doctor built in, but (1) I don't know 
if it would work with a Linux install and (2) the instructions say to 
create a set of floppy disks--but there's no floppy drive on the box and 
I'm not about to go out and buy an external one, from which they might 
not boot anyway.

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