How I successfully flashed my T601F's EDID (Pictures)

[Robsa990]

Hello, just wanted to share the experience of managing to successfully flash the EDID of a screen for the first time with no idea how to go about it. It's similar to this https://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installi ... reparation but it's more of a slower, manual way of doing it and easier to follow.

Some Backstory:
I have a 14.1" T601F I built last year and got a Quanta display for it, specifically the QD14FL07 panel. I LED modded it with a cheap chinese kit off Aliexpress and all was well and good, or so I thought.

I have Windows 10 installed on it and occasionally Windows updates would want a system restart. After going to Start > Power > Restart, the laptop restarts as normal until the Windows logo appears before the login screen. Usually at this point the caps lock and scroll lock lights would flash, there would be a beep and the screen would briefly turn off and then on again.

The scroll lock and caps lock lights did flash but there wasn't a beep and then the screen turned off but wouldn't turn on again. The system would carry on as normal but I would not be able to see anything. I tried shining a light on the screen thinking the backlight died but still nothing could be seen.

To fix this I'd hook up my VGA to HDMI adapter to a TV while the laptop is off, turn it on and let it load into Windows. I open Monitor Asset Manager and close it, then turn the system off. For some reason this worked but I would have to repeat this every time the monitor bricked itself.

Recently I decided to install Windows 11 PhoenixLite OS as a dual boot OS and started to install drivers to see which ones worked. During the graphics driver install you know the message "your screen may flicker"? the screen turned off and bricked itself again. I did my fix in windows 10 which worked but upon shutting the laptop down and then powering it on again the boot manager won't load for some reason and it would just go straight into Windows 10. To get the boot manager to load I'd have to do the soft restart which would then brick the screen again so, I was effectively locked out of choosing my OS unless I wanted a bricked screen.

I figured out a way around this by booting into Windows 11 with the bricked screen and an external monitor, going into Nvidia Control Panel > Workstation > View System Topology and loading EDID information on a text file from an LG Philips flexview screen LP150E05 A2-K1 (as for as I know this option is only available to "Nvidia Quadro" cards). It worked and the screen came back to life but all that did was change the registry file loaded in Windows at the time, it would be wiped upon rebooting the laptop and would still pull the EDID info from the physical EEPROM so, it was only a temporary solution.

Searching these forums and doing google searches revealed a few ways of flashing the EDID, the main ones I came across were: use a paid version of PowerStrip, using EDID_Writer in a DOS environment or using Linux with i2c tools.

I wasn't able to purchase PowerStrip as it's not offered anymore and the DOS tool didn't work but then I came across this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IMkGdeXcS4 showing someone using i2c tools on a Ubuntu Live CD to flash the EDID. (Props to this guy!)

I noticed he was changing the hexadecimal values one by one but for his problem he only needed to change 2 values. I wondered if I could do the same but change all 128 values instead.

I was able to do this my first try and didn't need to have an external display as the Quanta screen worked in Ubuntu Live CD during the process.

Here's what I did:

Download Ubuntu Desktop and create a bootable usb using Rufus and a USB 2.0 drive as MBR and Fat-32

The Ubuntu Live CD only works on 64-Bit CPUs (I did this with a T9300 CPU on a T61P motherboard with the FX570M graphics)
Plug usb into laptop, power on and hit F12 to boot from usb
Choose "Try or Install Ubuntu" in the first UI screen
Choose "Try" in the second UI screen (use ubuntu as a live cd and don't actually install it)
Open the app drawer on the bottom left, go to settings and make sure the laptop is connected to the internet.
Open the Terminal from the app drawer.
Then I entered the following commands:

sudo modprobe i2c-dev
(This enables the i2c devices)

ls /dev/i2c*
(this will list the available i2c devices, e.g. /dev/i2c-0 /dev/i2c-1 /dev i2c-2 /dev/i2c-3)

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) universe"
(Wait for this to download some packages from the website)

sudo apt-get update
(Wait for this to update the packages)

sudo apt-get install i2c-tools
(Wait for this to install)

(Now to find the device storing the EDID, mine was device 3)

sudo i2cdump 0 0x50
(returned XX's)

sudo i2cdump 1 0x50
(returned XX's)

sudo i2cdump 2 0x50
(returned XX's)

sudo i2cdump 3 0x50
(returned EDID for Quanta Display QD14FL072)

sudo i2cdump 3 0x50 > Documents/edid.text
(This command dumps the device's edid information into a text file in case it's needed for reference later. I plugged in another FAT-32 formatted USB drive so I could save files to it during the Live CD)

(I had a reference of the EDID I wanted up on another screen, I didn't have to change all the values as there were some that were already set correctly. I got mine from the T6x EDID Database on these forums viewtopic.php?f=29&t=82149&start=30)

(Then I go ahead and start flashing using the sudo i2cset command)

Here's an example of the flashing process:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1n3TlsT ... sp=sharing <---EDID Comparison
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TuFq2O ... sp=sharing <---Example
It's essentially just targeting specific values using the row and column structure of the EDID and applying the desired hexadecimal changes with the sudo i2cset command.

(If the changes aren't reflected on the EDID when checking that means the EDID is write protected and unfortunately I don't know how to get around that)

This took me about 1 and a half hours of focus and crossing my fingers upon rebooting but in the end my 14.1" Quanta QD14FL07 display is now seen by the ThinkPad as the 15" LG Philips LP150E05 (A2-K1) display and works like a charm!

Here's a link to a paste-bin of my terminal console history that shows my process: https://pastebin.com/qCPSf7BR

A quick disclaimer: if someone wants to follow this process I am not responsible for any damage caused. I don't know anything about this linux method other than it worked for me!

Thanks for reading!

[sentabrina]

Interesting share!


I am currently thinking of upgrading my 14.1 T60 1400*1050 screen with LED from aliexpress.
It's a T601 with nvs140m.

Where did you buy your screen, what is the difference vs original one?
What is your experience with aliexpress led kit?
Did you buy the T60 kit or T61 kit?

You seem to have some experience and I am all questions
Much appreciate your help

[Robsa990]

Hi sentabrina,

I bought my displays off ebay by a seller named vrassets.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32915359388.html these are the LED kits I've bought from Aliexpress and they work well for TN screens, I'd get between 220-259 cd/m^2 peak brightness using a SpyderX Pro colorimeter and DisplayCal to measure it.

I tried modding a 15 inch SXGA Philips Flexview display (LP150E05 A2-K1) and got some annoying mirror reflections at the bottom of the screen because one of the light diffusion sheets (the one that yellows over time) causes these reflections. So I took apart another 15 inch TN panel that wasn't a Philips one and swapped 3 diffusion sheets for the 1 yellowed sheet and that gets rid of the reflections. I unfortunately got some dust in between the layers but now I also have an LED modded Flexview display that isn't yellow! However these IPS/Flexview displays allow less light through compared to TN displays and with the same LED kit I get 150 cd/m2 peak brightness which is still better than its 120 cd/m2 CCFL brightness it had before.

Oh yeah and one last thing about those kits, the inverter board it uses doesn't have the little magnet thing in it to trigger the screen to turn off when the lid is closed so you'll have to put the laptop to sleep manually.

[sentabrina]

Hey Robsa,

thank you for sharing your exp

I have found a video tutorial which shows how to install the LED without tearing apart the screen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L5mJTr ... l=ChrisKay

My screen is 14.1 4:3 SXGA 1400x1050. Original one from lenovo, no idea if it is Philips or Samsung or what else brand

And finally I bought a led kit from here:
https://www.iccfl.com/product_info.php? ... 8n8ga766h1

Cheers

[chomik]

Interesting, i tried a HV150UX1-101 display in my T601F. Backlight worked, screen would light up. Soldering EDID chip to it didn't help. Panel worked in a T42p before.

[sentabrina]

Okay gyus.

I've managed to upgrade CCFL to LED. I thought I'll crap my screen but finally it was an easy job.
According to the manual i posted before - plug and play.

I've bought one faulty Display Assembly in a very good shape for 5 Euro which had SAMSUNG screen.
Luminosity of LED is incredible, works great in the daylight.

Cheers