Upgrading X220/X230 to FHD 1080p

[TheChuckster]

So far I got 22 good adapters and managed to get a affordable quote for oursourced assembly to finish the rest of the second batch. Meanwhile I'm going to dispatch these 22 kits and fix ones which failed testing, then dispatch remaining kits.

My local post office was working like a complete garbage last time I visited it to send stuff: I waited about 3 hours because of their new software was constantly freezing and hanging. Hopefully they will do better the next time when I come with all these kits

Cool! You should join us on the IRC channel I emailed you. We have a few hackers interested in meeting you (a few from Russia as well as Silicon Valley, one is designing his own FPGA GPU from scratch). Some of the smartest, most successful people I know are on that channel.

[DonnieX]

Hello Nitrocaster!

Count me in for one unit of the 3rd batch, looking forward to it!

Thank you for creating this awesome kit — making the wonderful x230 even greater!

Cheers, Donnie

[iamfullertho]

Definitely interested in the 3rd batch!
Thanks again for doing this~

[nullspace_dev]

I too am interested in the next batch.

[Wyre]

Nitrocaster, I am extremely interested in purchasing an upgrade kit once they are available.

[theterminator93]

Out of curiosity, for those of us who put in our order when 1st batch ordering was still open last year - and received an email that we were on the wait list for the 2nd batch after it was determined there were more orders than stock, are there enough finished batch 2 kits to fulfill all those orders? If so, when should we (I) expect to be contacted with payment instructions? Or, will some of us (admittedly, I am asking on behalf of myself) have to wait for outsourced production of the remainder of batch 2 to come back?

[nitrocaster]

Some of those users already made payments and I have their kits ready for shipping. Others have to wait until the rest of batch is finished.
Those who received 'Reserved' email when the first batch form was active are on the second batch list.

[nitrocaster]

I decided to reopen pre-order form regardless of having tested kits in stock.
Meanwhile first orders were shipped and I'll be shipping next ones during the week.

[life_on_marx]

pre-ordered thanks man!

[theterminator93]

Those who received 'Reseved' email when the first batch form was active are on the second batch list.

OK. Patiently (yet anxiously) awaiting email with payment instructions.

Any guesses on a shipment timeframe for the rest of us on the batch 2 wait list? Are orders fulfilled in the order they were received?

[6sicSIX]

Hi there,

I am in the same situation as theterminator93 at the moment, I am on the 2nd batch list and anxiously waiting (with my pre modified lid and 1080p lcd)

Thank you very much Nitrocaster

[frstua]

I decided to reopen pre-order form regardless of having tested kits in stock.
Meanwhile first orders were shipped and I'll be shipping next ones during the week.

Thanks!

[phage]

Has anyone tried screens other than the one in the original post? In particular, I'm wondering if this board handles the Dell XPS 13 9333:

www.laptopscreen.com/English/model/Dell ... oCAx3w_wcB

51nb seemed to be able to do it, with a bit of bezel modification and timing tweaking on their original board.

https://forum.51nb.com/thread-1699046-1-1.html

If it's not cool to link other forums on here, let me know and I'll remove it.

Would be pretty nice if we could squeak another inch or so in there.

[TankPad]

Has anyone tried screens other than the one in the original post? In particular, I'm wondering if this board handles the Dell XPS 13 9333:

www.laptopscreen.com/English/model/Dell ... oCAx3w_wcB

51nb seemed to be able to do it, with a bit of bezel modification and timing tweaking on their original board.

https://forum.51nb.com/thread-1699046-1-1.html

If it's not cool to link other forums on here, let me know and I'll remove it.

Would be pretty nice if we could squeak another inch or so in there.

A 13.3 inch mod can be done indeed but there's plenty of modification needed. I'm doing the same thing and a user on here has a thread with plenty of great info on his experience doing this mod too. Have a quick search, it's shouldn't be very far back.

[phage]

The post that Tankpad referenced is ostensibly:

viewtopic.php?f=43&t=123089&p=799335#p799335

for anyone wondering.

I have one of the panels, by accident, that Boutch55555 has referenced, from Bunnie's Novena. Should be about the same size as the others that people are trying.

It wouldn't fit if you don't cut the metal "frame" off the sides of the panel. It's gonna be tricky, so I ordered two of the panels from the DELL XPS 13 9333 (N133HSE-EA3). Guaranteed that I'll break at least one.

[TheChuckster]

If anyone needs help installing their mod board, just shoot me a private message here or email me at me@charlesmoyes.com -- I'm happy to perform installations (and screen replacements) for you!

[RealBlackStuff]

SUCCESS! My X230 now has the FHD-mod.

I blew my original X230 motherboard and the new PCB by making a silly soldering mistake.
Trying to solder the sens-wire to capacitor #3, I hadn't realized my iron was still set at a temperature of ~420°F (~215°C) for doing some "heavy" soldering.
It needed to be that high so I could repair a loose hinge on a pewter box.

Regular 60/40 or 63/37 solder melts around ~365°F (~185°C), so when I tried to prepare that capacitor #3,
THREE capacitors (#3 plus #2 and #4) decided to join the party and have a "swim", that's how hot it was!
Having been confronted with plenty "displaced" parts during my early SATA-mod days, I thought I could fix them. NO SIR.
It looked perfect when I was finished but when I tried to start the X230, I only got some flashing on the screen.
No steady picture, just one for a few seconds and then nothing, play with the FCC cable, more flashing but nothing decent.
The 'old' FHD-PCB also got very hot during this!
Finally, after days of trying everything I could think off, I had to admit defeat.
So I ordered another X230 mobo plus another kit from nitrocaster.

When I got everything, I made sure to set my solder iron temperature to ~370°F (~188 °C) and use some flux as well (thanks to advice from nitrocaster).
This time everything went as it should, and in no time I had my X230 up and running.

So an important lesson to be learned here: DO NOT OVERHEAT YOUR SOLDERING IRON!

Now for the nitty-gritty.
In the X230 now sits a new LP125WF2-SPB4 LCD from win0win on eBay, arrived in perfect condition.
In the BIOS the Config/Display setting is : ThinkPad LCD.
I copied W7-Pro 64-bit from my X1C1 (which has the same Intel HD4000 GPU) onto a 256GB Sandisk X300 mSATA SSD.

But after looking at Windows for a while, I found that FHD (1920x1080) was too small for my eyes, so I reduced the display to 1600x900.
Still looks absolutely perfect and much better than the standard 1366x768.
FYI: my graphics driver is Intel 8.15.10.2696 from 3/19/2012

Thank you nitrocaster for making this HUGE improvement possible!

[kingofkya]

OH man, Did you lift any pads? If you a heat guy and some solder past will probbly fix it, if you figure out the value of the caps off the "new" board.
Flux as you learned really helps with smd work though, desolder wic is also handy.


Also after watching louis video, and his compalaing about how the doc connector pins are too short.
Just a tip for nitrocaster you can get ultra thin pcbs for little extra cost 0.6mm is very handy for mods like this. (really flexable too) Its also cheaper to ship due to less weight when you do a small run.
https://www.elecrow.com/5pcs-2-layer-pcb.html Thats the mfg i use.

Picture for scale top board os 0.6 and the other one is standard pcb. U.S. quarter for scale.
https://postimg.org/image/g4m87r52z/

[nitrocaster]

I don't want to go below 0.8mm because of mechanical durability. Although Louis finds these pins sitting too low to be soldered, in reality I have no trouble soldering them without micropensil iron. You just have to put good flux in the holes, touch the pad with hot iron, feed solder into the hole and wait about 5 seconds to ensure proper heat distribution. Heat is transferred to the pin through solder that fills the hole.

Shipping costs are negligible compared to other expenses.

[nitrocaster]

Another X230 motherboard with pre-installed FHD kit: http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/172695843005 (my listing).

[boutch55555]

Although Louis finds these pins sitting too low to be soldered, in reality I have no trouble soldering them without micropensil iron. You just have to put good flux in the holes, touch the pad with hot iron, feed solder into the hole and wait about 5 seconds to ensure proper heat distribution. Heat is transferred to the pin through solder that fills the hole.

I'll add : if the solder forms a dome like a half ball on the pad it probably didn't go through. Or there was way too much solder. Looking closely, you can see the solder being dragged down from the tip once it hits the right temperature.

[RealBlackStuff]

Did you lift any pads?

No, only the capacitors slid around.
Someone else may be able to "fix" them properly back in their original spots.

When I pressed the PCB (with Kapton tape on the bottom) onto the dock tips, they showed up a tiny bit above the top of the PCB!
After soldering with 0.3mm 63/37 solder wire with rosin core/flux, all 7 PCB holes were fully filled and visually flat, no "blobs".
And like I already said, everything works perfectly!.

As a curious aside, my X230 has a W8 sticker (burgundy/purple) on the bottom, as well as a W7 COA in the battery bay.
No W8 in the BIOS though, it has W7 Slic2.1 (TP-G2).

[nitrocaster]

Today I handed the remainings of the second batch for manual assembly. ETA is 20 days. In the mean time I got everything prepared and packed, so once I get assembled boards the lead time will only depend on your payments.

Speaking of which: 9 pre-orders are not paid after 6 days from the email with payment instructions. About a week ago I cancelled 4 pre-orders after 10 days of waiting for payments. I do not understand it. If you want to get your kit - make a payment after you got the instructions. If you don't want it anymore - let me know and I'll reallocate your kit to somebody who is ready to pay right now.

[TheChuckster]

EDIT: I got it working!!! I was an idiot and I didn't reconnect the LVDS cable after moving the wire over.

@nitrocaster for rev 4, I was getting backlight but no video output, and I saw your note about aux power getting soldered to the pad. I moved the power wire from the Rev 3 pad to the Rev 4 pad, and now there is no backlight at all. Should I move it back to the Rev 3 pad and solder an ADDITIONAL other power wire to the pad on the left? I only see fake display EDID on Linux, and I double-checked my dock connector pin solderings.

[nitrocaster]

In rev.4 aux power wire is solely responsible for both adapter board and display logic supply. However, soldering this wire to the rev.3 pad won't damage anything.

[TheChuckster]

In rev.4 aux power wire is solely responsible for both adapter board and display logic supply. However, soldering this wire to the rev.3 pad won't damage anything.

Maybe you should update the manual on the Google Drive to indicate this? I know you're busy, so if you'd like to give me edit access to the original doc, I can even help you do it for you?

Check it out:
https://twitter.com/chuckmoyes/status/8 ... 2896830464

Also, it's a real shame to hear that people committed to buy something from you and didn't end up paying for it.

[nitrocaster]

I just don't have good pictures to illustrate the installation process yet. But I work on it!

Also, it's a real shame to hear that people committed to buy something from you and didn't end up paying for it.

Eh, they didn't really commit to buy. They expressed 'interest in buying', not more. Do you think I'm wrong here?

[TheChuckster]

EDIT: Actually I didn't break it... hmm. Once booted into Linux, the display is there again. Maybe it's the "sense wire"?

AND I broke it... I was reconnecting everything and didn't realize the power was connected and when I plugged in the ribbon cable, I saw some sparks. Lovely. Is there anything I can do to help diagnose it? This really sucks. Happy to buy another board off of you to test more.

[nitrocaster]

Why the flower don't you people disconnect the power?...
OK, first check if there's something burned on the adapter board. Next, check for a short to ground on VCC3P with/without connected LVDS cable. Next, connect the power and make sure you have VBL20 on LVDS connector. Let me know the results.

[nitrocaster]

Sparks that you saw most probably came from VBL20 due to low impedance ESR capacity connected to it on the display board. Another way to get sparks is to short VBL20 to VCC3_BRG/VCC3P or to ground, but doing that will make some magic smoke to escape, leaving you at least without backlight.