T42 LCD is dark, external monitor sometimes works, Presentation Director seems worthless

On Friday, my LCD went dark. When I looked really hard, I could see all the screens that I'd been working with, but I couldn't bring them to light. If I shut the cover and waited for the machine to suspend itself, then opened the cover, I'd get the LCD back, for 10-15 minutes. Then the LCD would go dark again.
When I connected the T42 to an external screen, the LCD contents appeared on the other screen, and then the the LCD came back. While I had screen(s), I did a bunch of system updates (from Lenovo) and ran PCDoctor several times. Everything checked out.
When I disconnected the external drive, I lost the LCD again. I tried to work with the Presentation Director, but the T42 just doesn't want to obey. The Fn F7 keys are working inconsistently. I am in doctoral student hell, facing (what feel like) already impossible deadlines and I have to get this thing working. Does anybody have any suggestions?
Here's info that may or may not be relevant. Thank you in advance....
T42 2373
XP Professional
BIOS 3.23 IRETDRWW
ATI Mobility Radeon 9000
ATI Control Panel 6.14.10.5154
ATI Hydravision 3.25.0006
ATI Display Driver 8.133.2.1.1-061116a-040094C

Welcome to the forum!
Prior to this last episode, was your LCD reddish/pinkish on initial boot, or when running on battery?
Good luck and let us know.
Cheers,
George
In daily use: R60F, R500F, T61, T410
Collecting dust: T60
Enjoying retirement: A31p, T42p,
Non-ThinkPads: Panasonic CF-31 & CF-52, HP 8760W
Starting Thursday, 08/14/2014 I'll be away from the forums until further notice. Please do NOT send private messages since I won't be able to read them. Thank you.

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[rant]
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[/rant]

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conejo61 wrote:
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