Attempting a display upgrade to 1680x1050 on an R61i

[gbe]

Hi there,

a while ago I noticed there are R61i's out there with a screen resolution of 1680x1050. Naturally, mine with 1280x800 seemed a bit bleak then and jealousy commenced. So I bought a 1680x1050 screen (I got the FRU of the device from the Lenovo Hardware Maintenance Manual) and put it in my R61i. Problem now is, every second vertical pixel row of the screen is white. Resolution is fine, so I guess the EDID data is ok. It looks as if every second vertical row just doesn't get any data. I figured this might be because I only exchanged the display and not the cable leading to the display (because the HMM lists a low-res cable and a high-res cable separately). Is there really any difference between the cables? Could the screen be broken (I think if the column drivers were dead, there would be wider white stripes, but I'm not really sure there)?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated

[ausmike]

hi gb*..
Yip, cable upgrade might be a good idea.....

here a thread might be of use...
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=92367

cheers

[Harryc]

Yes there is a difference in the signals in the cable or else IBM/Lenovo wouldn't sell two different ones. There are (4) different FRU#'s for the WXGA+ cable depending on whether or not your machine has bluetooth and a camera or not, and combinations of this.
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-69708

[gbe]

Okay, sounds good. Do any of you know a place that sells those cables and delivers to Germany/Europe? I found nothing via Google Product search and nothing on ebay. The stores I found on a regular google search (i.e. thinkpadparts.com and such) only deliver into the US or want payment via credit card.

[RealBlackStuff]

Lenovo Germany comes to mind: http://www.lenovo.com/de/de/

[gbe]

The store on the lenovo page doesn't exactly cover these little tiny bits... I guess they don't want users voiding their warranty and complaining "but you sell this stuff! I didn't know it could break my laptop!"... After a bit of digging on the IBM Business store homepage (yes, it looks like at least for businesses, IBM sells the spare parts for Lenovo) I found a German store which according to some friendly mail exchange provides German Lenovo end-users with spares in all forms and sizes. Lets see how the mail order goes (sent the message out tonight, so I guess I'll have an answer tomorrow or the day after tomorrow).

[gbe]

Got the cable today and it works flawlessly. The new screen even has better black values (but that might be highly subjective, given that it is clean and the old one was quite smudgy).