Hi, i just bought an idtech 15" QXGA screen similar to that used in the R50p as CTO option and tried to connect it to my T60p replacing the UXGA screen but the screen did not come on it stayed black. Is there a possibility of making this mod or should i just give up? Does it help to get the R50p QXGA inverter and LCD cable or is the problem elsewhere? The cable and inverter from the T60p connected fine.
Appreciate any input. I just don't want to get rid of the QXGA screen and don't want to step back in performance to a T60p.
I would appreciate any help form someone who has been through this process already with the T60p.
Thanks

pianowizard is the resident qxga wizard around here. you could pm or wait to see if he sees this post.

great thanks, i will try to pm him...

Hi,
I have tried to complete the same mod on my T60p, but alas, the best i even got was 1600x1200 when i flashed the EDID from the UXGA panel to the QXGA panel. Since i found out the QXGA had a pressure mark, i got fed up with it, and returned it.

The problem is definitely with the EDID, and that it is not listed as compatible with the T60p resolution configurations. With the T60-series, the screen resolution is identifiec by the EDID, which, at the same time, allows Lenovo to blacklist all but their own approved LCDs.
That is, until you copy the EDID from a Lenovo OEM LCD to a non-Lenovo OEM LCD with the same resolution.
Since it is QXGA, and it wasn't supported with the T6x series to begin with, getting it to work is a Overused word.
You will need to figure out the correct EDID and also include the correct manufacturer string, which is set by Lenovo.

However, i must say, that when i just connected the QXGA LCD, right from stock with factory set EDID, it displayed red-blue-white horisontal bars.
When flashed with the EDID from the chinese 51nb forum, which supposedly makes QXGA work, all i get is a black screen like you do.

Did you modify the EDID in any way?

I expect that since you said similar, yours is an IAQX10N? Mine was a original R50p CTO LCD, IAQX10S, and i'm wondering if that makes the difference. Idtech does not answer any emails it seems, so i can't find out what the differences are between them, other than the N-marked LCDs were never used in IBM notebooks, while S was always used.

You are correct it's an N not an S... What a shame we can't get this to work...

Also see this: http://forum.51nb.com/thread-576191-1-1.html
Maybe it actually WILL work on a IAQX10N?

There must be some way of getting it to work - this shows an R60E with the QXGA in action:
http://blog.tianya.cn/blogger/view_blog ... er=0&Key=0

Troels,
Thanks a million, it looks like there is hope but i don't have experience with flashing eeprom (even though i have a bs in eecs....). Any quick helpful tips before i delve into it? thanks again

You'd need a way of communicating with the eeprom on the LCD, it's a basic 24C02.
I used PronyProg2000 (latest beta) http://www.lancos.com/ppwin95.html

and the parallel to i2c circuit as shown in:
http://www.lancos.com/e2p/easyI2Cbus.gif

So you'll need a pc with a parallel port for this.
You don't need C1.
All you need to do is connect SDA, SCL, Vcc and GND - and you will need a JAE 30 pin connector (the male LCD connector found on the LCD cable. Instead of buying a single one at inflated prices, find a cheap or broken T4x or R5x 15" SXGA+ or UXGA cable and solder on thin wires to the LCD connector, and the other end of the wires to the circuit.
Ignore all what is done to pin 7 in that circuit.

Troels, thanks again, i am going to go build the circuit tonight and give it a shot; i am only having trouble landing a JAE30 connector, i may try to see if i solder a wire at an alternate location if possible, otherwise i will have to order a cable and wait :cry. i will keep you posted and thank you for your time.

Oh no, i forgot to tell one more, but extremely important thing .
Instead of the +5V noted in the circuit, it must be +3.3V. I hope you see this message before you get everything assembled.

http://www.idtech.co.jp/en/products/pdf ... 910-02.pdf might also be a bit help.

yeah, if you've got steady hands (unlike me), getting to solder onto the lcd connector side might be just fine. The reason i suggested a broken / old T4x/R5x SXGA, UXGA 15" cable, is due to the space available for soldering, see.

http://users.cybercity.dk/~dsl35822/edidconnection.jpg

Oh, and one more thing, when the parallel-i2c adaptor works, extract the stock edid from the lcd, just to have a backup, incase the "51nb edid" doesn't work.

Troels, thanks again, i was not sure actually after reading the idtech manual whether to use 3.3 or 5v and i was going to start with 3.3 but thanks for the confirmation. Will keep you posted!

No problem Thanks, i'm very interested in the outcome of this also, it's very interesting!
I don't know what will happen if 5V is connected instead, most likely nothing, but since everything else is 3.3V and who knows if another circuit does use the Veedid pin.... not likely, but it's too expensive to risk anything

WOW Troles..I am very impressed
Is there anyway you can post a step by step guide
(pics would be great ) for us dummies on wishing to get a QXGA into a T60p..
so is the qxga working on your T60p?...how did u guys solve the
case issues since the Qxga is thicker into a T60p case..and the ribbon too ?

Troels, back of QXGA does not show the eeprom chip so i am going to have to buy a jae30 connector or get a used one from somewhere and solder on to it as you mentioned. So this is going to take a few days to gather all the materials; i will keep y'all posted over the nxt week...

@troels

Quick thing you have a copy of your uxga dump ?

Chazz,
Well, maybe, someday when i get the time, but i do not currently have any QXGA screens to play with.
My QXGA never worked as intended for the T60p. But this was an IAQX10S, and not an IAQX10N as what was used on all of the chinese foums, or blogs. I couldn't get an IAQX10N at the time, and i thought it woulnd't matter. Maybe it actually does.

Catdog is just getting a black screen with the stock/factory edid, while mine showed red/blue/qhite vertical bars. So there must be some kind of major difference between these editions. I decided to flash it with the edid from my stock UXGA LCD that came with the T60p, and the QXGA used 1600x1200 pixels to show UXGA, while the rest was just black - that was as far as i got.
I had to return it since it had a pressure mark, which would really be horrible to look at, even if i got it working. So i flashed back the factory EDID and returned it. This was the last IAQX10S, so i could get no replacement.

With regards to the cable: Yeah, it's a bit too long. I looped it up kinda like an "8" figure and taped it to the backside of the LCD.
There were no fitting issues whatsoever, there's enough space for the extra thickness inside the lid of the T60/T60p.

Catdog,
Digikey seems to have JAE connectors... but the last time i checked the only one they didn't have in stock was the one needed for this project -the FI-X30H. But i'm usunre if you can solder directly on this, or you need some stupidly expensive crimping tool. The easiest would still be a whole LCD cable

Xyz,
Sure, i'll send you a PM immediately.

Troels, much progress and also disappointment. I dove right in and soldered wires onto the T60p LCD cable as you showed nicely in your attachment. Then i spent >$150 on electronic stuff and breadboarded the parallel-to-i2C circuit and hooked it all up and using my X61 tablet using the parallel port from the dock and using the version 1 of pony prog. With that it said there was some problem with the connection. I am running vista so i uninstalled version 1 and tried pony prog 2000 which now worked like a charm. I first read the stock file from the QXGA N-variant panel then burned and successfully verified the recommended file that was posted on http://forum.51nb.com/thread-576191-1-1.html called BOE_HYDIS_HT14X9_110_FORIBM.rar (203 Bytes). This was all successful so i was salivating. I hooked up the thus-flashed QXGA panel to my t60p and fired it up. For the first time the backlight came on but everything was black, no startup or anything showing up. At this point I put the stock UXGA back on and after starting normally put the machine to sleep (running vista 64); i then swapped back to the QXGA and got the machine out of sleep and lo-and-behold a glorious high-res picture came up but it was only 1600*1200 and was only on the left side of the display and overlapped underneath the screen. At this point i tried to resize the display in ati control panel but nothing showed beyond 1600*1200 (UXGA) and restarting the machine gave back the backlight on with black screen.
So, needless to say I am very very disappointed and am surprised that the bin file from the 51nb folks which the moderator swore worked in fact failed even on my IAQX10N screen.
Anyone out there with insight?
Troels, i saw you are on the other forum and thanks for all yout help; this confirms your experience with the other variant. Do you have any idea if there is another edid file that may work better?
Best wishes

Catdog,
More than $150? How did it get to that amount?
Yes, Ponyprog 1.xx doesn't work as it should for this purpose, probably it was made before the parallel-i2c interface was created, so there would be no information about which parallel port pins to use etc.
The 1600x1200 image you got was exactly like mine - yes there's a little overlap at the bottom due to different timings between the uxga and qxga lcds.
I understand your disappointment, i seriously do. I had to return mine, because i could see that even though only the backlight was on and no image in that region, i could see a purple mark when viewing the lcd from above... which means that if i ever got it to work, it would always have a dark spot in that point, because someone or something had put constant pressure at this point for a longer time.

The next step i think would be finding someone who understands english and chinese, and can write both. The english 51nb forum section is rather empty for knowledge compared to the chinese parts of the forum.
Also, if we somehow could contact someone who has one of those blogs with pictures of the QXGA in action.

So, does anyone in here understand (and can write in) chinese ?

Troels, again thanks to your help, i downloaded the phoenix edid editor and started looking at the .bin files; it seems that the file recommended by the 51nb forum is initially seen as not a valid file format whereas the dump from my X61 sxga screen gave no such problem. So i am going to try to load up my x61 sxga screen into the qxga eeprom and i am also going to copy the image from the t61p UXGA screen and load that into the qxga and see if any of these permutations work.
If anyone has any information of the edid structure it may be possible to rewrite the appropriate file from scratch. Obviously our colleagues in China have already done that but i can't seem to communicate in Chinese on to their forum to make the appropriate request; i posted in the English sub-forum but i am not sure anyone is reading that.... $150 yes because the local electronics store is a rip-off artist...

The phoenix edid editor is a half way finished piece of software, or at least it feels like it, since it doesn't always construct the edids correctly.
It will not read the .bin files directly because it is just badly designed. Believe it or not, it only takes ASCII files in the format mentioned here:
http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p ... stcount=19

I'll look in some of the Boe-Hydis datasheets i have, and see if there is some information about the edid which can be put to use on other LCDs...
Hmm, and here was i, thinking nothing but radio shack existed for retail electronics components.. What was the most expensive part?

UTTER, TOTAL AND COMPLETE SUCCESS!!!! YEAH BABE!
Troels, here is the deal:
Extracted the stock T60P UXGA eeprom data, manually entered it to make the edid editor read it then modified only the clock rate and the height and width of the QXGA and then exported it out and then burned it into the QXGA panel. So only thing modified was the clock, 1600 to 2048 and 1200 to 1536. Did not change anything else and presumably the secret lenovo data got transferred from the UXGA to the QXGA panel.
Fired up vista and thinkpad sign at bios now shows up and the screen is glorious. I am going to upload the bin file when i can figure out how to do that. Thank you again for everything, you really provided all the pieces and am indebted to you. Now i hope my wife talks to me again since i wasted the whole weekend. Best

Addon: can't figure out how to attach bin file, here is the byte table that worked as shown in phoenix edid editor:

EDID BYTES:
0x 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F
------------------------------------------------
00 | 00 FF FF FF FF FF FF 00 30 AE 46 40 00 00 00 00
10 | 00 0F 01 03 80 1E 16 78 EA BD 30 91 54 4F 8B 26
20 | 21 50 54 21 08 00 81 80 A9 40 01 01 01 01 01 01
30 | 01 01 01 01 01 01 29 40 00 30 82 00 32 60 40 C0
40 | 13 00 30 E4 10 00 00 19 29 40 00 30 82 00 32 60
50 | 40 C0 13 00 30 E4 10 00 00 19 00 00 00 0F 00 A9
60 | 43 32 A9 43 28 14 02 00 09 E5 00 00 00 00 00 FE
70 | 00 48 56 31 35 30 55 58 31 2D 31 30 30 0A 00 AC

Nicely done ..

Catdog,
Woohoo!! Congrats on the QXGA T60p in action!
How wonderful this will look in all it's glory! Mind posting any pics of the QXGA in action?
I must confess i simply gave up with the phoenix edid editor... not knowing what not to change, but still keep the Lenovo's string intact.
And no problem, it has been fun and challenging, and when this finally ends with a success, time isn't wasted either.

Nicely done!

Wow! Amazing
congrats ...please pics of T60p with QXGA in action!

catdog,

Congratulations!

FYI, speaking of the 51nb file that you grabbed, I couldn't help but notice that you said it ended in the extension ".RAR" and that it wasn't identified as a valid EDID file format. I wouldn't normally point this out since I would just think it was assumed that we were all on the same page, but just in case you DON'T know...

...RAR is a compressed archive file container format, much like a ZIP. You would need to unRAR that file first and, after having done so, I presume you would be presented with the actual EDID file to flash to your LCD.



-- Nathan

Nathan, of course I unrared it and had a file that was readable by pony prog and I actually burned that file into the qxga panel eeprom successfully but the panel was not recognized on startup, although at least the backlight came on. The file name contain the word boe_hydis in it but when you inspect it using phoenix edid it actually is for an xga panel... Not sure why the wrong file was posted but it caused a waste of time. If any on you guys want the successful .bin file that I burned send me a pm and I will email it to you. Alternatively use the matrix of values I pasted above inside phoenix edid editor then export is as a .raw file, then change the suffix from .raw to .bin and import it into pony prong to program the panel and it will work!
Thanks; if you are on the fence just do this mod, it's awesome. The toughest part was soldering onto the lcd panel as shown by Troels. I used my surgical 3.5x loops...the circuit is easy. Btw used 3.3v not 5v, thanks

Ah, gotcha. Yeah, I figured you probably knew and at first hesitated posting it (and I should have followed my instincts!), but for some reason the way I read your previous posts made me think you were trying to flash the RAR itself directly to the panel's ROM!

Anyway, congratulations again, and thanks for being a pioneer and for sharing your findings publicly! I'm sure many others will benefit directly from your work.

-- Nathan

Ok so does this effect your Vista performance scores at all? And I believe I read that this panel is thicker and will not simply drop in?
Is that correct or not? My eyes are getting way to old for this, would you be willing to burn this into a panel for someone wanting to do this upgrade?

Thanks
David

Nathan, no offense, also got the knowledge from this forum and its great users so least I can do is share info back.
DAH I have a busy job and the modded soldered lcd cable is back in the laptop. PM me in a few days when I get the replacement lcd cable and then I could use the old one for burning eeprom again.
By the way my panel fit without problem and I was able to click the bezel back in place except one spot at right lower quadrant where it bulges a little. Problem is the screw location is off on right and left but the front screws are ok and after bezel is in the panel is firmly in position.