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Today I will be removing and replacing the LCD screen in an IBM ThinkPad T43p laptop. You can use same set of instructions for ThinkPad T43 and some other IBM (now Lenovo) laptops.
Failure description: the laptop starts with a reddish screen (white color appear to be pink). After a minute or two the backlight goes completely off but you still can see a very faint image on the screen if you look very closely. When you restart the laptop, the screen lights up again but a minute later the light goes off.
Solution: the laptop has a failing backlight lamp which is a part of the LCD screen. The whole screen has to be replaced.
Let’s disassemble the display panel and remove the LCD screen.
STEP 1.
Carefully remove four screw seals from the bottom part of the display bezel.
You can remove them with a sharp object.
Remove all four screws found under the seals.
STEP 2.
Remove three screws (found under seals) from the left side of the display panel.
STEP 3.
Remove four screws (found under seals) from the right side of the display panel.
STEP 4.
The display bezel is glued to the LCD screen with sticky tape. You can separate the bezel using a guitar pick (as I do) or another piece of plastic.
Insert the guitar pick between the display bezel and screen and carefully move it along the side until the bezel is separated.
STEP 5.
Continue removing the display bezel with your fingers.
STEP 6.
The screen inverter is mounted under the bezel and can be replaced without removing the bezel completely. I’ll remove the display bezel because I have to replace the LCD screen.
STEP 7.
The display bezel has been removed.
STEP 8.
In order to confirm the backlight lamp failure I did the following experiment.
I unpluged the LCD screen from the right side of the inveter board and pluged in an known good backlight lamp. After that I turned on the laptop and tested it with my backlight lamp for about 10 minutes. My backlight lamp didn’t turn off and worked fine all time. That means the backlight lamp inside the screen is bad.
If your laptop doesn’t work with a known good backlight lamp, most likely you have a problem with the inverter board.
STEP 9.
Unplug the inverter board from the video cable.
Remove the inverter board.
Do you need a new inverter board? Find a new inverter here.
STEP 10.
Carefully separate the LCD screen from the display cover. Do not forget to release the cable with night lamp. Simply pull the cable from the display cover.
STEP 11.
Now you can access the back side of the LCD screen and unplug the screen cable.
Remove sticky tape securing the connection and pull the cable connector from the LCD screen.
STEP 12.
Remove the LCD screen from the laptop.
The LCD screen has been removed.
Be careful with this piece of plastic. Try not to remove it from the display because it will take some time to figure out how to connect it back together.
I believe this piece of plastic is designed to prevent the screen cable from breaking when you close the display.
STEP 13.
Remove two screws securing the display mounting brackets.
Remove the bracket and move it to a new LCD screen.
Do the same with the bracket on the other side of the screen.
You can find a new LCD screen using two different part numbers from the back side of the defective screen:
1. The model number of the LCD screen. In my laptop it is N150U3-L01
2. FRU part number. In my laptop it is 92P6753.
Looking for a new screen for your IBM ThinkPad T43/T43p laptop? You can find a brand new screen here.
July 7th, 2012 at 4:30 pm
I’ve searched a number of sites for different laptop repair/disassembly manuals and while I’ve found a few this is by far the most comprehensive. Thanks for the post and thanks for your efforts.
( If you have any info on a quick fix for a BIOS/startup password reset please let me know. I can’t get past the power on or even into the BIOS.)
Thanks
May 2nd, 2012 at 12:40 pm
Info was very helpfull, thanks!
Henk Udo
The netherlands
February 24th, 2012 at 2:17 pm
@ Hasan,
Find laptop service manual here: http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/guides-and-manuals/detail.page?LegacyDocID=MIGR-39298
The service manual has step by step disassembly instructions.
February 23rd, 2012 at 3:47 am
These are a great set of instructions. I have two T43′s. The screen on one went black. Anyway, while replacing the LCD I have managed to damage the LCD connecter cable and now need some advice on how to replace the cable. At the moment I have one machine that I can cannabalise.
I would appreciate some similar set of instructions as above.
Thanks
December 14th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
@ jthendrix,
Most likely this is inverter failure or CCFL failure (backlight lamp inside the screen). Cannot tell without testing the laptop with another inverter or lamp. If you have to guess, try replacing the inverter board first. There is a good chance you’ll fix the problem.
December 13th, 2011 at 5:22 pm
right now my t43p’s screen goes out regularly, every 2-5minutes. sometimes i see something faint in the background, more likely if i have white-colored windows opened when it happens. but most of the time i see nothing at all back there. and my usually white letters aren’t reddish or pinkish at all. i can’t figure it out. i’ve gone through BIOS tweaks, multiple scans for malware, going through settings, but nothing so far, and it’s been almost 4 days of constant approaches. can anyone help me out with this? please do if you can
) thanks!
October 24th, 2011 at 3:47 pm
Thanks for such a great posting. I just replaced my LCD screen on my t43p and everything was exactly as shown in the pictures, even the screen model number and FRU part number were identical. New screen works great. I was worried as I had no way of knowing if it was the screen back light or the inverter that was bad, but the way the symptoms were described (with the pink colors) fit what I was seeing so I took the chance. My screen had actually completely died (no light at all, even when first started up) but it had shown the pink color symptoms for a while before it died. It still worked fine on an external monitor though. The full replacement took less than an hour.
August 24th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
I just want to really thank you. I was looking for about 2 hours on how to find the panel model number for my screen and you really helped me out.
March 25th, 2011 at 11:06 am
HI, just want to ask you if I could use a compaq nc 6220 to replace it on my IBM thnkpad T40
it seems to me they both have the same dimentions and size
any repply would be much appreciated
lcd screenless in Seattle.
October 4th, 2010 at 8:18 am
mikiki,
Unfortunately, there is no way to tell what is wrong without testing the laptop with another KNOWN GOOD SCREEN.
It’s possible that when you installed a “wrong” XGA screen you damaged something on the motherboard OR maybe fried the video cable.