Thinkpads Forum

Hello everyone!

Recently my T23 fell off the desk and the LCD broke. It was 14" SXGA+, and now it has 1cm of vertical strips from the right border. I was a bit tired of this lap, mainly because of the USB 1.1, dead battery, and of course the marvellous S3 Savage. As it wasn't viable to buy some SXGA+ LCD for it, I've bought myself a T61. It was cheap and in a good condition (I hope, because it's still on it's way), but with a 14" XGA LCD. I've also found quite cheap IPS UXGA LCD with complete lid (antennas, hinges etc.) from R50p (LCD FRU: 92P6683).

Now the main question is:
-can I put the T61 14" XGA LCD to T23?
-is it only a matter of programming EDID to make the R50p /T60 LCD work in T61?
-do I have to change the whole lid on T61 or is it just LCD bezel if I want to convert from 14" to 15" (of course 4:3 we're talking about)?

I'd be glad if the response was quick, because the auction of the LCD lasts till Monday.

Hello there,

Aww, sorry to hear about the accident!
It appears that the 14.1" LCD in the T23 could only be an LG Philips LP141E2. Luckily, accoring to the data sheet it has a 30-pin LVDS interface. It has no onboard EEPROM to store an EDID, so apparently the T23 doesn't use one and determines the LCD timings by the use of different cables. Datasheet available at http://www.phys.szote.u-szeged.hu/bbala ... p141e2.pdf
I don't know the model number of the 14.1" XGA in T61s, but it must have an EDID and have a 30-pin interface too (no-one makes 20 pins interfaces any longer).

What you'd need is an XGA LCD cable for the T23. Part number is 27L0640.

About the other project of fitting the 15.0" LCD into the 14.1" T61: It would never fit. The hinges design between R50p and T61 is vastly different, and so is the distance between the hinges (because of the larger screen)
Only chance is to buy a T60 15.0" base cover, palmrest keyboard bezel, hinges, lcd bezel, lcd top cover, lcd flat cable, hard drive cover and probably more stuff too, to fit a T61 motherboard in a 15.0" T60 base - but it can be done.

Many thanks for the reply.
If I understood you well, 15" and 14" T61 are whole different chassis? Of course I didn't want to place the lid or bezel from R50p into T61, just the LCD panel.

EDIT:
Ooops... I had to miss, there wasn't ever T61 with 15" 4:3 LCD. So the question above is dumb...

And so my only way of getting better resolution is some SXGA+ 14", am I right?

Well, the 15" LCD panel will be approximately 1.5 cm too tall and wide. I know it looks like the T61 may have a lot of excess bezel so that it could fit - but since the T61 has a magnesium display rollcage behind the LCD, the LCD must be 14.1". Next to the lcd they also mounted antennas for WLAN (and optional WWAN) so those would also get in the way.

EDIT: Yes, 14.1" SXGA would be the only solution if you want a higher resolution.

Thanks again. As I said above, I've read too much T60 LCD threads and it gave me false hope.

And once more in question of EDID:
If I'd choose some older SXGA+ with compatibile interface (like T4x LTN141 P1 L02 (photo on the bottom of the page)), but of course without EDID EEPROM, could I just solder the EEPROM chip to the corresponding pins of LCD cable, or is it rather impossible to make it work this way. There was this idea in some thread, but I didn't find a conclusive answer there.

Ín theory it would work soldering it to the lcd cable, but there's very little space. At some point i think someone bought a 15" HV150UX1-101 which doesn't have an EEPROM either and it just worked, when plugged into the T60p. So i'm not really sure anymore what exactly the BIOS looks for at boot-up and if there's a "safe-mode timing" or if this only was a feature of the T60/p.
So I guess it's best that someone else give a better answer.

The abovementioned LCD is said by the seller to replace LTN141P4-L02 LCD.
Thinkwiki says, that LTN141P4-L02 LCD was used in T40-T61, so it could have at least a place for EEPROM on its PCB.

I have an idea on how to test the T61 and older SXGA+ LCD.

What if I just tried to put in my old broken SXGA+ from T23 (it's 30pin and thus the cable should fit, am I right?) and if no reaction ocurred, I could try to solder EDID EEPROM to it. It's broken already, so it would be a good guinea pig (and it displays the whole picture just without a 1cm vertical strip on the right).

Is there some difference (in signaling etc.) between T4x and later SXGA+ LCDs and T23 SXGA+ LCD?

Thanks in advance for the answers and nice discussion, I try to look for specific LCD models datasheets, but it's not so easy and some of them even google hardly heard of.

That's a great idea, now that you have a broken screen

To compare, you can also try datasheets for the 15" Flexviews - for example the N150U3: http://assam.iic.hokudai.ac.jp/~josch/I-N150U3-L06.pdf
It appears that pin 4 of the LP141E02 T23 LCD is connected to ground. The T61 tries to feed Vdd of +3.3V at this pin for the EEPROM, so you'll likely blow a fuse somewhere on the motherboard.
Pin 5 is also grounded, but this should be left floating (i.e. not connected). Disconnecting pins 4 and 5 somehow, should make it testable in the T61.

Thanks for the answer, I very appreciate your help. Since I'm new into the LCD signalling topic, it's nice to have some guidance.

Isolating two pins shouldn't be hard. I remember the old times, when overclocking wasn't another function in BIOS, and to force 100MHz FSB on Slot 1 Celeron, one had to cover one of the pins with nail polish. It isolates, and it's quite easy to clean with remover.

I looked at these two datasheets and I think it could work. I'll definitely try, even if it voids the 3 months seller warranty.

Troels wrote:That's a great idea, now that you have a broken screen

To compare, you can also try datasheets for the 15" Flexviews - for example the N150U3: http://assam.iic.hokudai.ac.jp/~josch/I-N150U3-L06.pdf
It appears that pin 4 of the LP141E02 T23 LCD is connected to ground. The T61 tries to feed Vdd of +3.3V at this pin for the EEPROM, so you'll likely blow a fuse somewhere on the motherboard.
Pin 5 is also grounded, but this should be left floating (i.e. not connected). Disconnecting pins 4 and 5 somehow, should make it testable in the T61.

Hmmm. This is a worry for me. I have a T60 (2007-7KU) with a 15" SXGA+ FlexView (LG-Philips I think) that I'm rather partial to. I also have an R51 with a 15" SXGA+ FlexView (1829-E5C, IDTech I think, I'm not sure how to check). The R51 is actually a better screen IMO and I'd thought about changing them around sometime. I've put a 15" XGA from a T60 into an R51 before (R51 was broken, I had a spare lid for my T60 but with the XGA screen) and it worked great.

So, if I understand this correctly I could blow a fuse on my T60 motherboard if I swap FlexView displays with my R51?

Cheers,

The Flexview LG Philips has the following datasheet: http://www.lcdsolar.com/UpFiles/LcdKits ... 01.20).pdf (flaky server at the moment). It has the same pinout as the IDtech Flexview - i.e. N150P3-L01 and the N150U3-L01, so you should be safe by swapping them around. Question is if there's something wrong with the EDID of the Idtech, so that the T60 wouldn't show an image.

The only problem in this thread is that the T23 SXGA+ has what can be considered an old/non-standard pinout, which will not work in a more recent thinkpad without slight modification.

If you add ).PDF your link will supply a datasheet.
Or you can try this http://www.lcdsolar.com/UpFiles/LcdKits ... 01.20).pdf

Troels wrote:The Flexview LG Philips has the following datasheet: http://www.lcdsolar.com/UpFiles/LcdKits ... 01.20).pdf (flaky server at the moment). It has the same pinout as the IDtech Flexview - i.e. N150P3-L01 and the N150U3-L01, so you should be safe by swapping them around. Question is if there's something wrong with the EDID of the Idtech, so that the T60 wouldn't show an image.

Thanks. I think I'll just keep the R51 around for now as a spare machine and if anything happens to the T60 LG Philips display I'll try the R51 IDTech display in the T60.
Good to know that it shouldn't do any damage, just maybe no picture....
Cheers,

Posted this thread long time ago, but didn't have motivation to buy the 14" SXGA+ display until last week. For less than $20 i bought an infamous (on this forum, in relation to T4x machines) Quanta QD14FL07 from Compaq nc6000 (also seen in some Dells D6xx). I've seen a post on other forum, that this worked out-of-the box in T60, and AFAIK these have 100% pinout compatibility to T61, i've decided to take the risk and connect it in place of CMO N141X7. No EDID manipulation, no pinout analysis. POST logo and BIOS displayed fine, so did the Windows 7 loading animation, and after switching to desktop resolution there was the only problem.

The screen was torn horizontally, disrupted by horizontal pale strips (like some overexposed interlancing), but to some degree I could see what's on it and went to Display Properties in Intel Drivers. Unfortunately, the only choice of resolutions I had was between 1024x768 and 800x600, both 60Hz and both disrupted, system restart was not helpful. But as the LCD worked flawlessly in POST and loading animation (640x480), i chose the option of running in that resolution from Windows 7 boot menu after pressing F8. Then the desktop displayed fine (in an unacceptable resolution), but after checking the Display Properties again, i saw the 1400x1050 resolution as an option to set. After setting it, everything went back to normal, and I'm now writing this post on it.

I can't directly compare those two LCD's, but overall impression is:
-far better contrast and colors on QD14FL07
-N141X7, even starting to get the red tint, is way brighter (Quanta is quite dim)
-the contrast has it's price, Quanta has the worst viewing angles I've ever seen (even on my old T23 SXGA+, 600E, some budget Acers and so on), I feel like working on an ATM

As soon as I get the motivation and some time, I'll try to study pinouts of the T23 and possibly have the broken SXGA+ replaced by N141X7.

tl;dr summary:
Quanta QD14FL07 from Compaq nc6000 and Dell D6xx works in T60/T61.
No additional preparing of the ribbon cable, EDID or anything is required.
If it doesn't show desktop correctly, boot into 640x480 mode and set 1400x1050 resolution.
If you work much outdoors or in direct sunlight, or like to watch photos/movies with friends, Quanta QD14FL07 may not be the best choice.