Thinkpads Forum

Hi all,

I recently bought a nice 390X in almost mint condition for a few euros. CMOS battery was dead, but now that I replaced with a new one, this nice (and heavy !) Thinkpad works flawlessly.

I reinstalled Win98 SE on it to use it as a vintage DOS/win9x gaming platform alongside my 600X (used, among other things, for the same role).

Everything is working nicely, except...
The screen colors are very "blue-ish" (excuse my english).
Here are 2 quick pictures i took with my phone :





I'll try to explain what I'm seeing : all the display is over satured with blue ranged colors.
What I already tried to fix this :
- Installed the monitor.inf file found on this website, didn't change anything.
- Same color distortion in both 8bits and 16/24bits rendering
- Installed various version of the display driver, no difference.

I also tried to boot to linux and Windows XP portable, colors weren't accurate, it doesn't seem to be OS-related.

So I guess the LCD panel is just old and nothing could be done to enhance/calibrate the colors ?

Any tip here to enhance the color rendering ?
Nvidia drivers for instance allow to customize the colors, but i didn't see any similar options with NeoMagic's driver.

thx in advance

It's possible that the backlight has aged but they typically go pink/red. You might be able to find a "gamma" adjustment in the Neomagic driver to alter the colors. The only other thing I can think of is a bad/dirty connection between the motherboard and the LCD panel. That means unplugging both ends of the LCD ribbon cable (motherboard and back of the panel) and then plugging them back in.

Could be indeed a faulty connector as you suggested.
I quickly removed the led bezel and the keyboard last night to see how could I reach this connector, read the 390x manual, it looked like it requires some time to perform this...

Before going deeper in this job, I checked the neomagic driver options and no color adjustment was available..
Maybe you know a generic win98 tool to calibrate the colors?
It could help my problem without having to unscrew all the screen.
Back in the days I used to use RIVA TUNER with my nvidia gpu...

Here are some drivers from the competition for your NeoMagic's MagicMedia256AV video:
SONY: http://esupport.sony.com/US/p/swu-downl ... group_id=8
DELL: http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/ ... rId=R20219

Also check: http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33803929

these are the same drivers i'm currently using, thx for the input though.

I'll try to unplug the lcd ribbon this week end, don't have enough free time this week.

Then, again, as I think about this some more, it could be a defective panel or motherboard. Re-seating the connectors is a no-cost try but before you spend some time to do that, try an external monitor first. If the same discoloration is seen there, then that would point to the motherboard. If external video looks normal, then it's back to the cabling and/or panel as the source of the problem.

Thanks rkawakami,

I just did a quick test with an external monitor, and as you thought, color rendering is perfect.
So I think my next move this week end will be disassembling parts to check the LCD ribbon as you suggested.

I'll keep you informed here.

This makes me think, though, using an external monitor could be great too to play retro games....
Did the test on my spare full HD 24", no contest when you compare the brightness/contrast with the 390X's screen...

Just disassembled the 390X to reach the LCD connector...
After dusting and cleaning, no result, still the same blueish colors...

Had a look on Ebay to find a replacement LCD, prices are way too high to consider this as a fair option.

I think I'll be using this nice 390X...on an external monitor

Except this screen problem, this 390X is in perfect condition, bought it for 8 euros, I think it worths it.

Thanks for the help anyway.