Thinkpads Forum

I am doing some upgrades to my R500, which have included a memory increase to 8GB and swapping out the HDD for a 512GB SSD, which has given me a significant improvement in speed/operation.

I just updated the BIOS today with V 3.15 from the Lenovo site. It went well, though there were some anxious moments during the black screen time of the process-- one must be patient and trusting. I did find a modified version of the 3.15 BIOS update that would remove the whitelist and give me options to upgrade the wifi hardware, but I must admit that I was hesitant about using it, not knowing if it was a trustworthy source.

Since I have gone back to using the R500 again in recent months (even before I began to do upgrades), it has always had a dim, washed-out look to the screen at start-up (from a cold start after sitting overnight, etc.), but once it has been in use for 10-15 minutes, it seems fine.. the color is good and it is at a normal brightness.

From what I've seen elsewhere, I'm wondering if the problem might be coming from the LCD inverter, or whether it might be the panel itself. Or something else entirely. It isn't flickering or cutting off, so I don't suspect the LCD cable.

It would be tempting to just start throwing parts at it, but I'd rather see if someone recognizes this problem from prior experience. I just replaced the thermal paste with PTM7950, and taking this thing apart was an adventure. I hope to have a pretty good idea what is happening before I try it again.

Thanks in advance for any help.

i want to say this is simply the nature of the incandescent backlighting that R500 use. it’s like the same technology as a fluorescent lamp, it has a warm-up time. they do wear with usage, it’s normal.

the LCD is replaceable. virtually all R500 were sold with a cable that only supports the economy-tier 1280x800 screens. if you will be replacing a part, it’d be the screen or possibly just the CCFL tube inside the screen.

in this economy i want to say it’s cheapest to not worry about it.

i think entire R500s (and R61 15.4”) are as cheap if not cheaper than a replacement screen, at this point. if you want a donor laptop to pull a screen or lid from, any R61 15.4” lid can be transplanted onto an R500.

Thank you, TPFanatic. This helps to clarify what is happening. Since it does improve to what would probably be 'normal' after a short warm-up period, I will just continue to use it as is. I wasn't sure if it was on the verge of failure, but if it does fail, I will proceed from that point.