Here's how to fix the "broken display backlight" on your ThinkPad 560X--maybe.
The Problem
If your ThinkPad 560X has suddenly lost the ability to light its backlight, but you can still sort of see shadowy pictures moving around on your LCD, maybe you have violated the unwritten rule. Actually, it is written down, plain as the nose on your face!
It's All Your Fault
If you pull down the User's Guide for TP 560X and scroll down to logical page 114 (physical page 128), titled Suspend or Hibernation Problems, you will see the following.
- The LCD is blank after resuming.
- Check if an external display was not connected before entering suspend mode. Do not disconnect the external monitor while the computer is in suspend mode or hibernation mode. If no external monitor is attached when the computer resumes, the LCD remains blank and the output is not displayed. This restriction does not depend on the resolution value.
See, it's all your fault. Don't you feel better now?
Things worthy of note:
The description is inaccurate.
- First, the LCD doesn't "remain blank"--the only problem is that the backlight isn't lit. You can use your laptop just fine as long as you tilt the display just right and mush your nose up against it.
- Second, you can achieve this wonderful state either by disconnecting or connecting an external monitor while you're suspended. So be careful out there, especially if you're an absent-minded professor trying to project class slides from your laptop.
Observe how much help the User's "Guide" gives you for getting out of this pretty pickle. Rebooting doesn't do it. Turning the machine off and yanking the battery and pressing the little blue reset button doesn't do it. I wonder why the User's "Guide" doesn't explain how to fix the problem short of mailing your laptop out for service. I wonder if maybe nobody at IBM knows how to fix the problem? Surely not!
Something I Stumbled Upon In Sheer Desperation
- Suspend or turn off your 560X.
- Connect an external monitor.
- Restart your 560X.
- Frob with Fn-F7, Fn-F3, and/or Fn-F8 (the mostly-undocumented "LCD Expansion" control) until you get a viewable image on your external display.
- Boot Windows into safe mode (It's F5, right?).
- Frob with Fn-F7, Fn-F3, and/or Fn-F8 (the mostly-undocumented "LCD Expansion" control) until suddenly your backlight turns on.
No, That Wasn't It
But once I resurrected it by suspending it without an external monitor, connecting it, and resuming it. Whee!
What I'm going to try fron now on is using Fn-F7 to set the video to LCD-only, then unplug the external VGA connector, then suspend.
Wish me luck!