1. I saw a legit NOS Hydis LED (HV150UX2-100) on ebay from a US seller, for a cheaper price than another seller was selling a used Hydis non LED panel (HV150UX1-100). Since the right side of my UX1 was going yellow a replacement was required, and the cost made sense.
**Shout-out to that ebay seller. I don't even know who they are but he is a member of this site so hopefully he see's this message of thanks.**
2. Well, if you get a LED panel you need the cable. Enter RealBlackStuff., He's known worldwide for the quality of his work and given my experience with him I cannot recommend his services highly enough. Still amazed that mail from Ireland ended up on my door in So Cal in 5 days. I know why, but I've seen longer NY to LA postal times.
3. My happiness over my new lid was tempered by one thought. Are you really going to put that lid on a Intel board?!?! That struck me as kind of a waste, so I set out to acquire a NOS T61 board.
Enter RealBlack , Don Dakota & The Board Room.
I mentioned my need for a NOS board to Real and he pointed me to Don. Don, like RBS went beyond the call and even modified a frame that I sent him. First off, I was an idiot. Don sent me a perfectly good NOS board and I spent 8 hours taking boards apart and putting them back together to no avail. I simply couldn't get the board to boot. I knew it was something at my end but I couldn't figure it out. I finally sent it back to Don after getting careless and bending a NOS fan.
Turns out I had the CPU upside down (facepalm). I like to think I eventually would have figured it out

Anyway Don't helped my helpless butt out, figured out my mistake and did a frame mod for me.
The board upgrade was/is completely worth it. Graphics are much better and the board is much faster the the Intel board I originally had. Temps idels around 48c on Linux / higher on 57 on Win7 (dual boot).
Overall I couldn't be happier with the result. This mod is long in the tooth but honestly, for my purposes the cost it was completely worth it. The speed and responsiveness of this on Linux is impressive considering the build concept is 2006-ish. It also feels like a laptop of some substance / sturdiness.
Again, thanks to Real & Don. Without them this wouldn't have been possible.
Finished T601
https://ibb.co/9NQ07bW
https://ibb.co/1fnzM2s