Very old IBM (Lenovo) notebooks with blank screen.

[LFernando]

I have two very old IBM Thinkpads (T23 and T30) and, after being off for an year or more, both have the same behavior: you power them up, all the keyboard lights light up, the fan works, if you put a Cd into the CD reader it spins, but both screens are completely black, not a flicker... I tried reseating the RAM sticks, changed the CMOS battery, to no avail. Any ideas?

 

[webworkings]

Try this...

1. Turn the laptop off (not sleep or hibernate but off).
2. Connect an external monitor to the laptop.
3. Turn on the external monitor.
4. Turn on the laptop.

NOTE: You may have to press an "external monitor" button. Could be the f4 button or a button with two monitors on it, for the external monitor to work.

If you can see fine on the external monitor, then your attached display, or the ribbon cable that connects it, are your problem.

If you can't see on the external monitor at all, or the problem occurs on the external monitor as well, then it is probably the graphics card/GPU that is the problem, which may require the motherboard be replaced.