Tiled display problem -- wrong EDID read? Bubble/glue cause?

[lindycogito]

Hi all, this issue concerns a X61T with the SXGA+ display.

== Executive summary ==

Problem: after a (random) reboot, the resolution is loaded as XGA 1024x768 instead of SXGA+ 1400x1050; but with a 'tiling' so that the 1024x768 fills the top-left corner; and the rest of the space is filled with repeated versions of the display with some black strip separating them [sorry for vague description, I am doing this from memory and have no picture]. EDIT: see pictures below.

Suspected cause: a hardware problem (coming from the oozing glue / bubble in LCD problem that I have -- see this thread) makes EDID data to be badly read sometimes? (as it also happens in BIOS, Windows 7 and Ubuntu) Just speculating here...

Question: how do I make sure the correct EDID data is used by the OS even though sometimes it is loaded wrong? How can I use the SXGA+ resolution when it booted with XGA and SXGA+ doesn't appear as an option?

== Detailed description ==

After a reboot at some point, the screen resolution appeared as XGA 1024x768 in top-left corner with 'tiling' to fill the whole 1400x1050 space of the SXGA+ screen -- as described above. The laptop was purchased in December 2008; warranty expired Oct 2011. It is running Windows 7 x64 ultimate. I have had the same problem while changing the display configuration in the past (e.g. when rotating screen; or plugging external screen, or something like that ) -- but the problem was always resolved after a simple reboot. Whereas this time, the problem was persistent (and even appearing in the BIOS) after reboot.

Note that using an external display works fine, even though the laptop LCD looks fairly weird with tiled resolution. Another weird aspect: if I moved a bit the laptop while holding it in my hands, the laptop display would start to 'wither' (oscillate) -- pressing the rotating screen button would stops the oscillation, until I would shake it again...

After some googling, I suspected that the EDID information was misread by the hardware. I have tried a bunch of things; and the behavior of the laptop hasn't been consistent. But here are things that I have tried:

1) Re-installed the Intel driver and/or the monitor driver; with multiple reboots; and permutation of update/install/re-install. [Didn't fix it.]

2) I tried to change directly the resolution in the Windows registry (as described here). Reboot. [Didn't fix it.]

3) I tried to force Windows to use a tailored EDID loading by creating a .inf file by (somewhat) following the instructions from this page. Here, I didn't fully understand what I was doing, so I am not sure if I did everything as needed... [Didn't fix it.]

4) I booted in Ubuntu using a USB boot disk, and tried a few things there, including trying to generate a newmode with xrandr for the 1400x1050 mode which was missing in the auto-detect, but it answered "X Error of failed request: BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)" while trying to load it. I am a newbie with Ubuntu, so I am not sure what other options I had to try to have a resolution which was not read from the hardware... [Didn't fix it.]

== Other background -- air bubble + oozing glue problem:
I started having the growing air bubble problem behind the LCD screen (as described in gory details in this thread) in July 2011. I tried to exchange the screen while under warranty (Lenovo said to just send the laptop to depot for a screen exchange); but as I was traveling in different countries and using the laptop every day, it took a while before I got the process started and to make a long story short, I got some problems with a service provider in France which prevented me to get the screen exchanged before the warranty expired; so I stayed stuck with it. I think around December 2011, I started to have the oozing glue problem as described in the above mentioned thread (some glue is oozing from the 'rotate screen' and the 'table options' buttons; as well as on the sides and close to the power button -- it is fairly gross, though the tablet is still usable). I understand that the screen hardware situation is not ideal and might be behind the problem that I am mentioning above. But I don't have the time nor the money right now to have the whole screen replaced. And there are no high resolution convertible tablet PCs on the market anymore (WHY NOT??? -- I just hope that the retina display iPad will push Lenovo to bring back some higher resolution tablet PCs on the market...)

== Weird auto-fixes:

I will repeat that I didn't succeed to find a consistency in the behavior of the system... After some reboot, the problem was automagically solved (the resolution was back to SXGA+) -- but this didn't seem to be caused by any of the above changes I mentioned above. In particular, the problem reappeared after another reboot (!); and I wasn't able to fix it until another time it randomly worked after a reboot. At this time, I didn't want to risk having the problem reappear anymore -- so I haven't rebooted my laptop since then (last two weeks). I am hoping that somebody could find a more systematic way to solve the problem than to pray that some random reboot will fix it...

The first time the resolution came back to normal was when I moved from the office to home (10 minutes bike ride while it was turned off). So I thought that maybe heat was the issue. But when the resolution got screwed up again, I turned it off and left it in the cold for half an hour -- the problem was still there after turning it on again, so it didn't look like heat was the systematic culprit. Because it is such a hindrance of having the resolution screwed up (in particular, I can definitively not use the input pen as the pointer appears in the XGA part where it should be had it been stretched to the whole size [so there is a proportional offset between where I put my pen and where the pointer appear]), I haven't explored more options after it got working again randomly.

Right now, I have a few windows updates which require a reboot; and some software parts started to have problems as usual (bluetooth headset; thinkpad external keyboard customizer; etc.) -- which is fairly common for Windows and would normally be solved by a reboot -- but I don't want to reboot until I have some paths of solution to this problem (e.g. backing up some correct display information so that when the problem happens again I can just force this display information to be used).

Thanks for reading so far and for any help / pointer!

[ajkula66]

First of all, let me congratulate you on this fabulously written essay that describes your troubles...a great read indeed.

I don't have an answer for you, but will state this much:

Having owned a myriad X61T units that were plagued with bubbles/goop/oozing on/around/just about everywhere when it came to their SXGA+ panels, I'll say that I've never seen anything that even remotely resembles your experiences.

My hunch would be a flaky motherboard. It's a mere guess and let's hope I'm wrong.

Try booting Mint from an USB or a "live" CD - it grabs the correct resolution automatically in my experience unless there's a hardware problem.

Good luck.

[Raceboy]

The LCD cable could be damaged where the EDID traces go and that may cause the tiling issue along with the intermittent "self-fixing".

[lindycogito]

Hi ajkula66, thanks for the kind words!

Try booting Mint from an USB or a "live" CD - it grabs the correct resolution automatically in my experience unless there's a hardware problem.

Well given that the BIOS was also loading with the weird resolution, my guess is that Mint should not necessarily do better than Ubuntu in this case...

By the way, I love this machine! It's just a shame that people are having so much trouble with the SXGA+ screen... Using a SSD drive on the X61t just makes it an amazing snappy & robust experience...

The LCD cable could be damaged where the EDID traces go and that may cause the tiling issue along with the intermittent "self-fixing".

So a question is whether it is possible to have the software circumvent the bad EDID read by maybe backing up the information from a good EDID read and then re-using it when the bad EDID is read?

I have been using the laptop for the last two weeks (without rebooting) and the display works totally fine, even after multiple sleep / hibernate cycles; plugging in and out of a docking station, multiple external displays plugged and unplugged; physical movements; screen rotations, etc. It seems surprising that it can work robustly like that and then a simple reboot would just screw everything up... I don't know much about the laptop electronics, so not sure how this could happen...

[Raceboy]

Just buy a new LCD cable for less than $10 here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Thinkpad-Ta ... 43acd54814

...and test. LCD cable swap is ~40 minutes tops.

I have eliminated the air bubble problem by using X60 Tablet with SXGA+ screen which has the protective glass attached only at the edges. Of course it has only 3 GB memory limit, but I have never needed mora than 2 GB in real life situation and SSD makes it also a very snappy machine. Not to mention that it is cooler and quieter machine. But to each their own I guess.

[lindycogito]

Just buy a new LCD cable for less than $10 here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-Thinkpad-Ta ... 43acd54814

...and test. LCD cable swap is ~40 minutes tops.

I might have a try at this when I will feel adventurous and not too worried to break the laptop... One of my concerns is that the oozing glue problem looks like it might make these repairs a bit more difficult.. See for example the disgusting pictures from trying to fix the air bubble problem (Google translated from German).

[lindycogito]

Update on problem!

Hello all, so as an update on the problem mentioned above, I have finally decided to reboot today in order to fix a few other unrelated software problems with Windows (and apply Windows updates) -- this was after a few weeks of not rebooting while I had the correct resolution. As I feared, the wrong resolution re-appeared just after the first reboot. So I took the opportunity to take pictures this time so that you can see the weird display you get with the 'tiled display'.

Here is how it looks in Windows 7. You can notice a few things:

• That Windows only gives the choice for 1024x768 as highest resolution.
• That display is weirdly distorted around the boundary of the tiling -- in particular, look how the Windows logo has been distorted.
• You can see the air bubbles behind the LCD screen -- e.g. at the bottom of the screen as well as on the right.
• You can see some of the oozing glue at the bottom-left corner of the screen; as well as around the tablet buttons (if you zoom or go to the original image).

(original Flickr link with more info)

Here is how it looks in the BIOS.

(original Flickr link with more info)

Fortunately, I was able to quickly fix the problem this time by re-doing something I had done last time: I shut down the laptop while it was on its own (not connected to my docking station or external screen). I moved from my office to home (15 minutes break). I then turned it on again while it was on the docking station (which is connected to an external screen, meaning that the boot screen is on the external display). Magically, the resolution was correct again when the Windows screen appeared...

I didn't attempt to see whether this phenomenon is reproducible in a systematic manner, given that I don't want to risk having a broken resolution for a while again... But I do remember now that the exact three times the resolution was fixed so far was after shutting down the laptop while it was on its own and then booting it while it was on its docking station connected to an external screen... Note though that the first two times that the problem appeared (wrong resolution) was after rebooting on the docking station. The third time was today when I rebooted on its own... Next time I really need to reboot, I can see whether I can reproduce this behavior...

Given that the cost to buy a new SXGA+ screen + the labor of replacing it (with the risk that the glue problem cause future problems) is basically the same as buying another X61 tablet SXGA+ on eBay, I think I might just buy another X61 SXGA+ on eBay which can hopefully lasts 1-2 more years in the meantime that Lenovo can hopefully release a decent high resolution convertible tablet (after the competitive push from the retina display iPad)...

[Raceboy]

You would be better off buying X60 Tablet SXGA+ screen and retrofit in to your X61 as it will never give you problems with air bubbles.

[lindycogito]

You would be better off buying X60 Tablet SXGA+ screen and retrofit in to your X61 as it will never give you problems with air bubbles.

Hi Raceboy, what's the FRU for the screen that you are talking about? The SXGA+ LCDs that I see advertised on eBay with the FRU 93P5609 quoted by my local dealer gave seemed to be advertised for both X60 tablet and X61 tablet (see this one e.g.).

And is the retrofit doable for sure?

Finally, I am concerned that the oozed glue might screw up the chances of any new LCD to function nicely in the machine...

[lindycogito]

As yet another follow-up, this video seems to show a similar resolution display issue to the one I had, though Linux is able to load the right resolution after the BIOS -- though the problem there was the wrong BIOS for the hardware, as described in this post.

So perhaps this gives some hope that Linux Mint could actually load the right resolution even though the BIOS failed for me, as ajkula66 suggested? I'll try this next time I get the wrong resolution...

[ajkula66]

@lindycogito:

FRUs can be somewhat misleading when it comes to these screens...I've seen the same FRU appear on both...

Hydis part # for the X60T SXGA+ screen is HV121P01-100

X61T SXGA+ LCD is HV121P01-101

Do bear in mind that the LCD cables are different between the two, and that you must use one that matches the screen. Retrofit is most certainly doable.

Should you decide not to swap the screens, but get another X61T instead, feel free to PM me - I have several bubble-free units available.

Good luck.

[crashnburn]

@lindycogito:

FRUs can be somewhat misleading when it comes to these screens...I've seen the same FRU appear on both...

Hydis part # for the X60T SXGA+ screen is HV121P01-100

X61T SXGA+ LCD is HV121P01-101

Do bear in mind that the LCD cables are different between the two, and that you must use one that matches the screen. Retrofit is most certainly doable.

Should you decide not to swap the screens, but get another X61T instead, feel free to PM me - I have several bubble-free units available.

Good luck.

In the case of LCD cable change, which cable / part number do we need to get for the -100 x60 LCD?

[twistero]

Everything I've read about indicates that the HV121P01-100 and -101 LCD panels have the exact same pinout and locations, meaning they use the same LCD cable. It's the digitizer that may need different cables: -100 panels usually come with a "G4" digitizer while -101 panels usually come with "G5". In any event, you can simply remove the digitizer from the old panel and install it on the new one, so no new cable is required.
However, since the glue have probably already messed up the interior of the LCD assembly, I suggest buying and replacing an entire LCD assembly. This way you don't have to worry about anything not matching inside the assembly or whatnot. Just post a WTB in the marketplace, and you should get an offer soon enough.

[ajkula66]

Everything I've read about indicates that the HV121P01-100 and -101 LCD panels have the exact same pinout and locations, meaning they use the same LCD cable. It's the digitizer that may need different cables: -100 panels usually come with a "G4" digitizer while -101 panels usually come with "G5". In any event, you can simply remove the digitizer from the old panel and install it on the new one, so no new cable is required.

I stand corrected - this indeed is the relevant info.

[crashnburn]

PS: Do the new replacement LCDs on the market come with bonded glass or without? I was gonna talk to the Laptop/LCD repair shop in Singapore about it for future proofing.

[lindycogito]

Hello all, here is yet another update on my problem (last update was this one)...

• An interesting observation is that in the last week (with the correct resolution), when coming back from hibernation, the screen would first appear with the wrong resolution (in the POST phase as well as when the Windows logo saying "resuming" would appear), but then when finishing loading the hibernate state, the correct resolution would come back! This is why I really think there should be some way to use software tricks to load the correct resolution even when I boot with the wrong resolution (by using some backed-up correct resolution display information). I have to admit that I am actually surprised that nobody has yet suggested a way to do that in Windows or Linux. Anyone?
• I recently rebooted to apply a bunch of Windows updates (and to upgrade to 8GB of RAM). The wrong resolution appeared after reboot as usual. I took this opportunity to try booting from Linux Mint 10 live USB, as suggested by ajkula66 -- it also booted with the wrong resolution (as for Ubuntu). Using my previous trick of turning off the computer; let it cool down for 30 minutes; and then turning it on while it was on the docking station; the correct resolution came back again!
• Unfortunately, last time the correct resolution came back, I got a different Windows bug (namely, I got the "C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\Desktop refers to a location that is unavailable." when logging in my profile (my guess is that my profile got corrupted while doing some Windows update). I then lost access to my profile, which required me to do a few reboots to solve the problem (the first reboot of course brought back the resolution problem). I did succeed to fix my account corruption, but now for some reasons I am not able to get back the correct resolution. I tried multiple times to let the laptop cool down outside the docking station; put it back on it and turn it on -- to no avail... And to increase the weird behavior, the last time I was in Windows 7 outside the docking station, I had the display 'withering'/oscillation problem mentioned in my first post, in the 2nd paragraph after the "detailed description" title, this time systematically. I couldn't fix it by pressing the screen rotate button this time (it would come back fairly quickly). I don't have this oscillation problem while in Linux or when the laptop is in the docking station though (even though the screen resolution is still screwed up).

I have ordered a replacement X61t SXGA+ from ajkula66 (smooth transaction), but it will take some time to receive it and right now the laptop is unusable as a tablet while it has the wrong resolution (the pen and display are not aligned when writing). Can anybody suggest any pointers / routes for me to explore how I could use some software solutions to force load the correct resolution even after it booted with the wrong one? The fact that it can switch from the wrong problematic one to the correct one when coming back from hibernate seems to indicate that this should be possible... Thanks!

[RealBlackStuff]

Since nobody mentioned this yet, I am going to suggest to update/refresh your BIOS.
There is none better than Middleton's BIOS, so apply this: http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo- ... ost6501443
It's the third one down (1.25-1.02) and both XGA and SXGA+ machines use the same BIOS.
I have applied this BIOS on numerous X61t with SXGA+ screens, and all work absolutely without problems.
(ajkula66's machine that's on its way to you in France also has this Middleton's BIOS!)

I have found the best method to be:
make a bootable USB flash drive, extract the files from the .iso (in the dwonload) and copy them onto this flash drive.
Insert the flash drive, power on and hit F12 to select the USB drive to boot from.
Once it has booted onto this flash drive, type in command.com and about a minute later it is all done.
When the machine reboots (when the Lenovo logo comes up), quickly remove the flash drive.
Press F1 to go into BIOS, then press F9 to load BIOS default values, then press F10 to save and reboot.
Hopefully things are better now.

[lindycogito]

Thanks RealBlackStuff for the BIOS refresh suggestion and instructions -- I will try it next time I get the wrong resolution.

As a further update: I succeeded this morning to get back the correct resolution. I tried the same thing as yesterday: turn off the machine outside the docking station; let it cool down for 30 minutes; then turn in on on the docking station. I don't know why it worked today and not yesterday! But well, now I am glad to have the resolution working again -- I will probably avoid rebooting until I receive the unit from ajkula66... .

I took the opportunity to take a picture of the 'oscillation' problem which was fairly systematic this morning in W7 until the above mentioned procedure solved everything:

(original Flickr link)

[RealBlackStuff]

Did you ever try to reseat LCD cable (on both ends) and inverter?

[twistero]

It sounds like the OP have never taken the LCD assembly apart. Which, as a tinkerer, I do not approve. But the OP actually depend on this computer for work

[lindycogito]

It sounds like the OP have never taken the LCD assembly apart. Which, as a tinkerer, I do not approve. But the OP actually depend on this computer for work

As a follow-up, I did finally open-up the machine this week (as explained in this thread for troubleshooting a problem with another laptop). Reseating all the cables didn't fix the resolution problem. Putting in a different screen (with no bubbles) also didn't fix the resolution problem. Cleaning the glue / adhesive from the PCB boards also didn't change anything.

I will try finding a LCD cable replacement to test at some point and report back. Though no time right now...