I encountered the same screen blanking problem on my ThinkPad T30 during 
installation.

In addition I have the same problem with RH8.0 during normal operation. I 
can 'fix' it by putting the machine into suspend by pressing the suspend key 
or closing the lid and bringing it back again (display cycle with Fn-F7 does 
not work on the T30).
But this does not work during phoebe installation. Instead I had to keep 
moving the mouse during installation to prevent the screen blanking from 
occuring.

The screen blanking is not a problem with normal operation after install on 
phoebe.

I suspect it only happens with APM enabled, and phoebe uses ACPI. So I guess 
that the phoebe redhat-boot kernel used during install has APM.

Some more information.

I have encountered this screen blanking problem with several generations 
ThinkPad's (at least the T20, T21 and T30) and a host of Red Hat Linux 
releases. But generally it has not been a problem during installation, but 
rather after install is done in either text or graphical mode.

What happens is that if your not in ACPI mode that if you don't use the 
keyboard/mouse for a while is that the machine blanks the LCD (black screen) 
and turns off the LCD backlight. When you then press a key/move the mouse it 
turns the LCD backlight back on, but the display remains black.
In most cases forcing a display refresh by putting the machine into suspend 
and bringing it back clears things up, but not always.

You might try to start the install with apm=off as a kernel boot option.

Tried "linux apm=off" (No Joy)...I too have experienced 'screen flicker' and
'loss-of-backlight' on the A30p but with BIOS upgrade from IBM site and move to
newer XFree86 (psyche) the effects were significantly reduced. The A30p
sometimes   fails to respond if left on overnight.

F.W.I.W: Hardware accelerated X works well on the ATI Mobility RADEON M6 with
psyche..but I lost sound for 'TuxRacer' (worked on 7.3..Valhalla...but desktop
sounds continue to function)

I have never had a 'loss of backlight', rather the contrary. backlight is the
only thing that comes back on after the the screen blanks and I press a key.
I have seen screen flicker, but that only happens when I use an AC adapter not
meant for the ThinkPad (Amp rating to low) in combination with a drained
battery, so it has problems getting enough power out of the AC adapter.

>Bad: IBM ThinkPad A30p LCD blanks on graphical install.
>Bad: IBM ThinkPad A30p LCD blanks on text install
>Bad: IBM ThinkPad A30p LCD blanks following "linux acpi=off"

If this occurs with or without XFree86 involved, then I am inclined to
believe it is not an XFree86 related problem at all.  More likely it is
APM/ACPI/weirdo hardware issue, or a kernel issue with APM or somesuch.

>I have encountered this screen blanking problem with several generations 
>ThinkPad's (at least the T20, T21 and T30) and a host of Red Hat Linux 
>releases. But generally it has not been a problem during installation, but 
>rather after install is done in either text or graphical mode.

Again, if it occurs when XFree86 is not even part of the picture, then that
implies it is not an XFree86 problem, but is a hardware/kernel/apm/acpi
issue of some kind.

Reassigning to kernel component.

I just installed Phoebe2 (8.0.93) where ACPI is no longer enabled.
It still has the same screen blanking problem as the first public beta during 
install.
But now the problem is also back after install (like in RH8.0 and before) due 
to the fact that ACPI is disabled ;-((

I spoke to someone at EmperorLinux at LinuxWorld (they resell laptops with 
Linux installed, including the T30).
I was told to go into the BIOS and disable Screen Blanking to resolve the 
issue.
I found the option under 'Config' -> 'Power' and it did indeed solve the 
screen blanking problem!.

Ahh..  so I was right.  ;o)  It is an APM/ACPI/BIOS/weirdo problem that
is hardware specific.  ;o)

BIOS issue confirmed. Closing

Actually, I suspect (untested by me) that the following patch which was 
recently included in 2.5 bitkeeper fixes the issue

http://linux.bkbits.net:8080/linux-2.5/cset@1.1243.52.9?
nav=index.html|ChangeSet@-7d

From: Samuel Thibault <Samuel.Thibault>

Some fixes for console blanking: on some laptops, doing VESA blanking after
the bios did an apm blanking because of a screen closure thrashes the
recovery (the video board doesn't seem to have synchronisation registers
correctly initialized, since the LCD panel progressively turns white, maybe
damaging it ?).

I hence moved the schedule for vesa powerdown after the apm blank hook
call, so that if it succeeds, it won't be called.  I also moved the apm
unblank & palette restoration after the vesa unblank, to have a more lifo
scheme (also required, or the screen remains black).

Btw, why del_timer_sync was called twice in timer_do_blank_screen when
vesa_off_interval==0 ?

--- 1.45/drivers/char/vt.c	Wed May  7 23:26:53 2003
+++ 1.46/drivers/char/vt.c	Thu Jun  5 23:36:44 2003
@@ -2712,14 +2712,7 @@
 	hide_cursor(currcons);
 	if (!from_timer_handler)
 		del_timer_sync(&console_timer);
-	if (vesa_off_interval) {
-		console_timer.function = vesa_powerdown_screen;
-		mod_timer(&console_timer, jiffies + vesa_off_interval);
-	} else {
-		if (!from_timer_handler)
-			del_timer_sync(&console_timer);
-		console_timer.function = unblank_screen_t;
-	}
+	console_timer.function = unblank_screen_t;
 
 	save_screen(currcons);
 	/* In case we need to reset origin, blanking hook returns 1 */
@@ -2730,6 +2723,12 @@
 
 	if (console_blank_hook && console_blank_hook(1))
 		return;
+
+	if (vesa_off_interval) {
+		console_timer.function = vesa_powerdown_screen;
+		mod_timer(&console_timer, jiffies + vesa_off_interval);
+	}
+
     	if (vesa_blank_mode)
 		sw->con_blank(vc_cons[currcons].d, vesa_blank_mode + 1);
 }
@@ -2771,12 +2770,12 @@
 	}
 
 	console_blanked = 0;
-	if (console_blank_hook)
-		console_blank_hook(0);
-	set_palette(currcons);
 	if (sw->con_blank(vc_cons[currcons].d, 0))
 		/* Low-level driver cannot restore -> do it ourselves */
 		update_screen(fg_console);
+	if (console_blank_hook)
+		console_blank_hook(0);
+	set_palette(currcons);
 	set_cursor(fg_console);
 }