Thinkpads Forum

I've been made very curious by this eBay listing for a 2880x1620 touch screen assembly for the W540/W541. It's inexpensive, returns are offered, and the seller has pretty good feedback. The strange part is that the W540 and W541 were never offered with a touch screen, as I understand it; only the W550s came with such a display as an option.

I would really like to put this into my W540 (originally FHD), but I'm not sure what I need beyond the 40-pin cable, if anything. The original TN display is hideous and I'm keen to get rid of it as soon as possible for the 3K one, which I have heard and seen is beautiful. I have heard some people say the whole lid needs to be replaced, which doesn't make sense to me, and I also notice that the touch display has two ribbon cables coming out the bottom of it that aren't present on the original display. Where might these connect?

Apologies if eBay links aren't allowed, I didn't see them mentioned in the rules of the road so here's the link: https://www.ebay.com/itm/180874859381

W541's PSREF says no multi-touch offered, I'd figure the laptop is not provisioned for it and there would be nothing to plug the touch matrix into on the laptop. I'd recommend look for a non-touch to be sure of compatability. You'll definitely need the 3K lcd cable, which is probably simply a 40 pin cable versus the FHD's 30 pin version.

Thanks for the suggestion. I've went ahead and purchased the non-touch panel for this machine as well as the 40-pin LCD cable, it seems like the touch panel isn't really meant for the W540 at all as it just lacks the connectors on the motherboard for the touch matrix. Funky.