[ltp] frequent black screen on start-up, good later on

[Mack Stevenson]

Dear all:

I used Linux on my T21 for three years without any hiccups. Then as many 
others I was seduced by Apple's new offerings... I'm now returning to Linux 
(new job), and thus returned to my trusty old thinkpad, which still works 
like a charm (well, almost!).

Now I am running kernel 2.6.11 (slackware) and I've reproduced my old setup. 
Tt runs as nicely as it always did, except for the screen: when I boot, it 
often stays black. Most of the time it lights up in the middle of the Linux 
boot process, sometimes not at all (in those cases I log in blindly and 
shutdown the system).

Pointing a lamp directly at the screen l've noticed that the screen is not 
really *off*: it is just incredibly dimmed. I can see the text scroll by, 
and the colorful IBM logo is also visible right after booting.

Has anyone experienced a similar situation? Can this be a hardware problem, 
even if the screen works perfectly when it is "lighted"? Or is my 
configuration at fault? I only run Linux on the t21, so I can't tell you how 
the Windows boot process goes. Can you think of possible reasons as to why I 
am having this trouble? I remember installing lilo on the MBR; do you think 
this might be the reason?

I have really come to appreciate this great laptop - which does everything I 
need and, performance-wise, is perfect for me - and therefore I don't really 
feel like spending $2k on a new one.

Thank you in advance for any tip.

Best,

Mack

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