Thinkpads Forum

Hi,
Anyone know what kind of connector (or part number, ideally) the screen connector is on the motherboard?
Not the one on the back of the screen itself, that was answered by RBS in response to vavet's similar request last year.
Thanks!

R

It may not make a difference as the systems are probably similar, but just in case, exactly which system are we talking about?

X61, in this case. It seems to be the same in the X200 series, but all the tablet versions might have extra pins for the digitizer. Good point, sorry.

R

It looks like a Molex connector. I don't have an X61 with me at the moment but something like this should be fairly close:

http://www.molex.com/molex/products/dat ... EADERS.xml

I would download the PDF drawing and measure it against what's on the motherboard.

Sorry, I was way off on that connector. I looked at one of my X61 systems and took some measurements:

http://www.kawakami-ca.com/images/x61_lcd_connector.jpg (120KB; 896x420)

The closest thing from Molex that I can find is this:

http://www.molex.com/molex/products/dat ... TACLES.xml

however some of the dimensions are off. I can understand if my pin 1 to pin 59 measurement was off (14.28mm vs. 14.5mm in the datasheet) but the receptacle width is listed as 4.1mm, whereas I measured 5.0mm. The length agrees (17.60mm) and my measurement of the plastic block width inside the connector of 1.67 is very close to 1.65mm. I've looked through what I believe is the entire Molex catalog, so either this is a custom Molex part or it's not made by Molex. You can search starting here:

http://www.molex.com/molex/common/stati ... ct+Catalog

Since the pin pitch is about 0.5mm, there's only catalog section A that covers those types of connectors.

edit: Okay... I took apart the X61 for a second time since it was bugging me that the pin-to-pin spacing didn't agree with the drawing. If the pin pitch is indeed 0.5mm then that dimension should be 14.5mm (0.5 x 29). I used my Luxo LED magnifying lens and got 14.48mm this time. Close enough to 14.5mm. I also verified the 4mm dimension again and added a couple of more results to my original annotated photo. The basic problem is that the connector in the X61 is wider and about half as tall as the 54102-0604 Molex part. The connector itself is 5mm wide (drawing is 4.1mm) and the pin width is 7mm (drawing is 5.3mm). Height is about 1.1mm. The Molex spec is 2.00mm.

I think it's referred to as MLX-CONN60A-9-GPU.

Also as SMC-CONN60A in some other documents that also shows it being used as the LCD connector. I'm looking around Mouser.com... some connectors look promising but I'll have to download some .PDFs and compare dimensions.

I found this one poking around Mouser.com: http://www.molex.com/pdm_docs/sd/547220604_sd.pdf

About the only dimension that is off from what I measured on the X61 motherboard is the overall width of the connector. That is, from edge of one leg across the connector to the other side. What's in the X61 is 7mm. The 54722-0604 datasheet says 6mm. Whether this connector would work or not depends upon the pads that exist on the motherboard.

ref: http://www.mouser.com/pdfdocs/Molex_SlimStack.PDF Molex catalog; see page 4 for SlimStack 0.5 connectors

Wow, thanks guys! I didn't expect this level of engagement, this is super awesome.

axur-delmeria wrote:I think it's referred to as MLX-CONN60A-9-GPU.

You are correct, but that doesn't seem to be a part number. That was the first thing I tried but came up short.

rkawakami wrote: I found this one poking around Mouser.com: http://www.molex.com/pdm_docs/sd/547220604_sd.pdf

About the only dimension that is off from what I measured on the X61 motherboard is the overall width of the connector. That is, from edge of one leg across the connector to the other side. What's in the X61 is 7mm. The 54722-0604 datasheet says 6mm. Whether this connector would work or not depends upon the pads that exist on the motherboard.

That looks promising. I don't so much care about the connections on the motherboard, since I'm making my own footprint. As long as the connector mates, it should be fine. Time to get some samples!

R

Quick update: The Molex parts work. As mentioned above, the one on the motherboard is (or is equivalent) 54722-0604 and the mating part is 55560-0607.

R

I'm intrigued as to why you're looking for that connector. Going to fabricate your own LCD cable, perhaps?

axur-delmeria wrote:Going to fabricate your own LCD cable, perhaps?

Not quite. I'm experimenting with eGPU things, one of the major gripes is that you can't get it on the internal LCD without Optimus, which requires an Intel HD card. So, what would happen if one ran the LVDS pins from the screen cable to the eGPU instead of the motherboard? I'm hoping to find out...

R

Hm, looks like a few posts were lost. I'd written a long-ish post about why I was looking for this in response to the question.
Here's the short version, I can't quite be bothered to type it all out again

Someone over on the German forum found that an MXM 3.0 Type A GPU card exactly fits in the dimensions of the regular 2.5" HDD (!) and asked whether one could install one like that as a GPU upgrade, specifically in the X2xx series because there was room for an mSATA drive in other places. MXM GPUs are meant to be installed in high-end laptops and some desktops, so they support native LVDS output.
Since I'm primarily interested in the X6x series and given it's lack of Optimus support, I want to see if I can route these LVDS signals to the internal screen and get a nice GPU power boost.
I'm designing an (external, test) PCB that carries the MXM card, provides HDMI and VGA ports and is powered via a regular ATX power supply, but I also want to make a small board that sits between the motherboard and the LCD cable to "steal" the LVDS pins.
That's why I needed to know the connector part number

R

Yeah, I read that post too before it was lost.

Besides the LVDS issue, you have to contend with heat coming from the MXM GPU.