Upgrading X220/X230 to FHD 1080p

[nitrocaster]

Found this on Taobao:
http://taobao.ua/p/0U3FO9aCKdQba

But didn't found any info about this on youtube or somewhere else (except chinesse forum).

What do you think?

IIRC, I mentioned that somewhere. Back in the beginning of 2016 I planned to buy one of those kits, but the seller refused to sell me the kit itself (aside from that he wasn't particularly responsive at all) so I started my own project. Eventually I got a pre-owned Chinese kit and found that for some reason it doesn't work with my AUO display. It also had a pretty cheap and unreliable design which I couldn't trust without gluing the adapter board to the motherboard with epoxy, which I didn't really want to do.

[nitrocaster]

I noticed some weird behaviour using the battery slab. No picture in bios when plugged on boot, lose image in Windows when inserted. It does work in Debian though, both from boot & inserted. Tried changing the default display in bios, same result. Is the fix just covering all the DOCKB_* pins (every odd pin 69-105) ?

What do you mean by a 'battery slab'? A slice battery?

[boutch55555]

Yeah, the 19+ slice.

[nitrocaster]

Check if it has DP#2 pins. If so, they have to be taped.

[sdellysse]

I'd like to be in on the 3rd batch as well. Just got my X220 and it's a great machine for my uses but 1366x768 is killing me after being used to a 1920x1200 display the last few years.

EDIT: Or if anyone wants to give up their spot in line I'll gladly take it

[phage]

Just a curiosity, what is the general time window for development for the tablet versions?
Would we be able to help in some way, possibly to chip in for a motherboard for you, @nitrocaster? Certainly no rush.

[inq]

I could be wrong, but i think the whole point is that the new FHD screen IS your docked output, so you lose the ability to dock by using the kit. I'm open to correction on that, but that's the understanding i got.

Wrong. You can always dock with single DP station and you can also dock with double DP station after you tape certain pins inside the docking connector. The manual has to be updated on that, as inq mentioned.

How can this be done? Which pins do I have to tape? What does tape mean?

[nitrocaster]

inq: ATM I don't have good pictures that could help you understand that, but I'll try to find time and add a note on that to the manual. Maybe some experienced users like boutch55555 could figure that out and post some pictures too.

Just a curiosity, what is the general time window for development for the tablet versions?
Would we be able to help in some way, possibly to chip in for a motherboard for you, @nitrocaster? Certainly no rush.

About a month to make a prototype. The motherboard itself won't be enough - you need to fit the adapter board so that it doesn't get in the way of installing the keyboard and makes possible to use the same eDP cable that I ship with non-tablet kits.

[boutch55555]

How can this be done? Which pins do I have to tape? What does tape mean?

Like this : http://imgur.com/XjGmbz3

Zoom in, you need to put tape between the red lines. I put too much but don't care since they aren't used for the battery, only for dock.

[rkan]

Any update on the March 15 ~ETA? Was the last Google Form a preorder thing? I'd like to know if I'm on it..

[TankPad]

I could be wrong, but i think the whole point is that the new FHD screen IS your docked output, so you lose the ability to dock by using the kit. I'm open to correction on that, but that's the understanding i got.

Wrong. You can always dock with single DP station and you can also dock with double DP station after you tape certain pins inside the docking connector. The manual has to be updated on that, as inq mentioned.

Ah, thanks for the info. Looking forward to building one of your kits.

[BalthazzarCorr]

Hey I am new here and I was wandering do you have a set number manufactured (pre-ordered) . I am very interested of your kit

[vim_all_day]

Greetings! New member here. I discovered this thread via Reddit and am very interested in an FHD upgrade kit for my X220.

Thanks for the great work, can't wait to get this thing upgraded!

[TheChuckster]

How goes the fuses?

[SlavicPolski]

Been interested in this topic and even thought of trying to make my own adapter pcb but then I saw people were already doing this!

I am willing to sign up for one of your batches when one becomes available and order it on the spot.
How active is the OP in terms of progress updates and batch production?

[vim_all_day]

I am willing to sign up for one of your batches when one becomes available and order it on the spot.
How active is the OP in terms of progress updates and batch production?

OP is fairly active, I think it's suppliers that take some time. I'd be interested in making my own PCB as well, but it's a bit over my head...

3rd batch should have been sometime this month, but so far nothing.

[boutch55555]

So, I finally fixed rewt's kit, it's installed on a i7 x220 motherboard so I listed it on ebay : http://www.ebay.ca/itm/-/332168181597

Since I don't like making too much money off other people's work, the first 30$ will go to rewt to pay for the kit (I already sent 20$). The next 110$ will pay for the motherboard. Next 50$ is for my time fixing it. Anything over that will be split 50/50 between nitro and myself.

[life_on_marx]

Hello everyone and congrats to nitro for the amazing job that he has been doing.
I would like to sign up for one of your batches when one becomes available and order it on the spot.

[theterminator93]

At this point all I want is to make sure I have it ready to go before a trip to Japan at the end of October...

[snottierwhale]

Hey I'm new here, I saw this mod on reddit. I'm definitely interested in picking up one of the next mods. I ended up with the TN panel so that is the only thing I am unsatisfied about. Got a new keyboard (kinda wish i got backlit), 12Gb of ram, and today i just got a 256gb 850 evo. This laptop is great on Arch.

[paperfactory]

Did anyone get the modkit running in a hackintosh macos environment?
Everything seems well till the apple loading screen, then the screen goes black.
Could it be that the system doesn’t get the right EDID?

[nitrocaster]

I guess that's something with the display config, like it starts in dual display mode but then switches to single display mode. Hook up an external display and see what's happening.

[TheChuckster]

Hey I'm new here, I saw this mod on reddit. I'm definitely interested in picking up one of the next mods. I ended up with the TN panel so that is the only thing I am unsatisfied about. Got a new keyboard (kinda wish i got backlit), 12Gb of ram, and today i just got a 256gb 850 evo. This laptop is great on Arch.

What DE/WM are you using? Might consider installing Arch on mine as well.

[recyclojunk64]

Hey I'm new here, I saw this mod on reddit. I'm definitely interested in picking up one of the next mods. I ended up with the TN panel so that is the only thing I am unsatisfied about. Got a new keyboard (kinda wish i got backlit), 12Gb of ram, and today i just got a 256gb 850 evo. This laptop is great on Arch.

What DE/WM are you using? Might consider installing Arch on mine as well.

Also running Linux here, Manjaro (which is based on Arch) with KDE on my x220t. Can't recommend KDE enough, I'd say it's the best DE in existence for anyone who's a power user. There's features and customisations for pretty much everything (just look at kwin-rules for example) and the theming is very consistent, even with GTK applications. There were quite a lot of bugs when KDE 5 first came out, but as of 5.9 it's relatively bug-free.

If that's true, I could take an attempt to make a prototype. In tablet versions of X220/X230 LCD cable is combined with the camera cable. Since I'll be using standard eDP cable, camera cable would have to be separated from the combined cable and connected to the adapter board. Anyway, I would need to get a working tablet to design and test the kit. If you want it right now - use plain X220/X230.

I'm not in that much of a hurry, I think I'll wait it out for the tablet version kit. Did you want any pics of the inside of the multitouch version tablet screen?

[snottierwhale]

What DE/WM are you using? Might consider installing Arch on mine as well.

I'm using xfce4. I switched from mate(on laptop) and gnome(desktop). It is low on resources but provides great functionallty.

[TheChuckster]

Ah, I was looking at Openbox. Used to be a huge Fluxbox fan back in the day when I was still running Gentoo. Wonder how FHD mod will fare with Linux.

[nitrocaster]

Good news: I got the fuses.

[frstua]

Good news: I got the fuses.

Good news!

So, the pre-order will be opened soon?

[nitrocaster]

Not really. Today I finished assembling 24 boards (from 120). I hoped to complete it quickly by using a stencil (which became much more important since the new design uses smaller passive components), but I'm not getting a sustainable quality, so for now I just solder every single part manually. But I'll try to find a way to use a stencil again.

With the first batch I begun to accept payments after the whole batch was ready. Maybe it would make sense to split the current batch into sub-batches and dispatch them separately. We'll see.

[TankPad]

Great stuff. Looking forward to hearing more on these.