Thinkpads Forum

Hi all.

After reading tons of threads for months and acquiring all the stuff I need to do the SXGA+ upgrade on my ThinkPad X61, I finally could start the project.

I purchased the following screen:
BOEhydis HV121P01-100, P/N 42T0304 (should be the best SXGA+ screen to use)

For the upgrade I use a spare X61 (no "s" and non-tablet).

I also acquired the converter cable for the new screen.

Now, what I did was the following:
1. I took the Laptop screen apart
2. I attached the converter cable to the original screen cable
3. I connected the new LCD screen
4. After powering up the laptop, the screen would work normally, but only in XGA, not SXGA+
5. In Windows (or Linux) I could not select a resolution higher than 1024x768
Windows identifies the screen as: Wide viewing angle & High density FlexView Display 1024x768
6. The screen showed no signs of tiling or other asynchronous behavior

After this I did the following:
7. I installed the Middleton X61 SXGA+ BIOS mod

No change, same result as before.

I have no clue to what may be wrong but I sincerely fear that the HV121P01-100 I have got is somehow only an XGA panel.
After searching for some hours on the web today I found no indication that an XGA HV121P01-100 would exists.

Before I made the purchase I explicitly asked the vendor about the product number and resolution. Everything was a perfect match.
The back of the screen clearly reads the correct product identification.

Is there any possibility on how establish/identify that a panel is XGA or SXGA+?
Have I missed something?

There's another BIOS hack, not middleton's, that's required to get the the X61 to run the LCD at SXGA+ resolution. You can read about it here.

Hi ZaZ,

I did the 1400x1050 display change on my x61S, Loaded te Middleton BIOS and the screen was recognized as 1400x1050.

For the OP - I have no explanation for what you are experiencing.

Good health, Weogo

Hi all.

Thanks for all your answers.

It turned out that the panels I received were labeled incorrectly and only supported the XGA resolution.
I got a full refund and was able to acquire the panels somewhere else with the correct SXGA+ resolution.
So, now I was able to complete the upgrade mod and am fully satisfied.

I noticed a small difference between the two shipments I've got. All product and model numbers were exactly the same with the following difference:
[*] The wrong (XGA) panels were labeled: "Made in China"
[*] The correct (SXGA+) panels are labeled: "Made in Korea"

Not sure if this actually means anything.

As an additional information I can reveal that the Middleton X61 BIOS patch with SXGA+ support worked great. On top of enabling SXGA+ it comes with some additional nice features (like SATA-II support).