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Thinkpad X230 successful upgrade to 13.3 FHD & msata3.0

X230-X280, X390 Series
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Author
Hikori
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue May 01, 2018 2:09 pm
Location: Warsaw, Poland

Re: Thinkpad X230 successful upgrade to 13.3 FHD & msata3.0

#31 Post by Hikori » Tue May 01, 2018 5:18 pm

Ok, thank you for explaining it to me ;)
Could you tell me also if I should install coreboot before fhd mod or it doesn't matter?

boutch55555
Sophomore Member
Posts: 183
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:18 pm
Location: Quebec, Canada

Re: Thinkpad X230 successful upgrade to 13.3 FHD & msata3.0

#32 Post by boutch55555 » Tue May 01, 2018 6:41 pm

For easier diagnosing, I'd say do the mod first. Once it's working go ahead with flashing, you can restore anyway...

johnbuhan
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2019 9:00 pm
Location: Buffalo Grove, IL

Re: Thinkpad X230 successful upgrade to 13.3 FHD & msata3.0

#33 Post by johnbuhan » Tue Feb 12, 2019 7:52 am

Does anyone know of any durability issues with the build? I heard that some of the support and protection for the screen is now gone...

And is the 1080p connector kit compatible with both the 12.1 and 13.3 inch displays?

Thinkpad4by3
Senior ThinkPadder
Senior ThinkPadder
Posts: 2670
Joined: Sun Aug 09, 2015 9:25 am
Location: N. Bellmore, ny

Re: Thinkpad X230 successful upgrade to 13.3 FHD & msata3.0

#34 Post by Thinkpad4by3 » Tue Feb 12, 2019 6:31 pm

johnbuhan wrote:
Tue Feb 12, 2019 7:52 am
Does anyone know of any durability issues with the build? I heard that some of the support and protection for the screen is now gone...

And is the 1080p connector kit compatible with both the 12.1 and 13.3 inch displays?
Given the display housing has no more than a 1/8" piece of plastic between the display edge and the outside world...well just dont drop your laptop. Hey..atleast the display isn't glued in so a replacement is a few screws away.
Thinkpad4by3's Law of the Universe.

The efficiency of two screens equally sized with equal numbers if pixels are equal. The time spent by a 4:3 user complaining about 16:9 is proportional to the inefficiency working with a 16:9 display, therefore the amount of useful work extracted is equal.

johnbuhan
Posts: 9
Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2019 9:00 pm
Location: Buffalo Grove, IL

Re: Thinkpad X230 successful upgrade to 13.3 FHD & msata3.0

#35 Post by johnbuhan » Fri Feb 15, 2019 5:44 pm

They don't? I thought the 13.3in screen had to be glued in.

Also, what about this paragraph from a different post:
> https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comme ... d/e2b71j7/

About the thinned rib no longer providing some of the protection...

There was also a comment about the internals being a bit messy...

boutch55555
Sophomore Member
Posts: 183
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:18 pm
Location: Quebec, Canada

Re: Thinkpad X230 successful upgrade to 13.3 FHD & msata3.0

#36 Post by boutch55555 » Fri Feb 15, 2019 5:52 pm

It can be lightly glued (serviceable) and still be pretty strong. Like this but with only the corner pads exposed. Slide a thin bendable ruler under it to detach the pads. But yeah, sides are tight. There might be room for 0.5-0.7mm rubber spacer on the sides though.

gelsenbart
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jul 17, 2019 8:48 am
Location: berlin, germany

Re: Thinkpad X230 successful upgrade to 13.3 FHD & msata3.0

#37 Post by gelsenbart » Wed Jul 17, 2019 8:52 am

Sorry if I'm reviving an old thread here, but I have a question about the mod. I just bought the modding kit on taobao as suggested by boutch. I use the docking station a lot and stumbled upon this comment:
boutch55555 wrote:
Tue May 01, 2018 3:30 pm
Without the patch, the original LVDS interface is still exposed to the OS. So when selecting active displays you will still have it doing nothing. AFAIK that's basically all it does, strip it from the exposed hardware. The USB port used for backlight control is one that was on the dock. With more minimal FHD boards like nitrocaster's one, you could keep using the dock with tape on some pins. With all the different sections that would need to be taped with those boards I wouldn't recommend it, so losing that port isn't much of an issue.
Does this mean that I cannot use the docking station on my X230 anymore after soldering the above mentioned taobao kit to it?

bugmenot1
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2020 2:49 am
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Re: Thinkpad X230 successful upgrade to 13.3 FHD & msata3.0

#38 Post by bugmenot1 » Sat Jan 25, 2020 11:00 pm

gelsenbart wrote:
Wed Jul 17, 2019 8:52 am
Sorry if I'm reviving an old thread here, but I have a question about the mod. I just bought the modding kit on taobao as suggested by boutch. I use the docking station a lot and stumbled upon this comment:
boutch55555 wrote:
Tue May 01, 2018 3:30 pm
Without the patch, the original LVDS interface is still exposed to the OS. So when selecting active displays you will still have it doing nothing. AFAIK that's basically all it does, strip it from the exposed hardware. The USB port used for backlight control is one that was on the dock. With more minimal FHD boards like nitrocaster's one, you could keep using the dock with tape on some pins. With all the different sections that would need to be taped with those boards I wouldn't recommend it, so losing that port isn't much of an issue.
Does this mean that I cannot use the docking station on my X230 anymore after soldering the above mentioned taobao kit to it?
yes, you can, but you have to tape over ports 21-40. I got instructions from my TaoBao seller and used Google Translate to translate them to English. Wechat is also a great communication tool provided you can use Gboard to translate from English to Chinese and vice-versa.

bugmenot1
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2020 2:49 am
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Re: Thinkpad X230 successful upgrade to 13.3 FHD & msata3.0

#39 Post by bugmenot1 » Sat Jan 25, 2020 11:02 pm

I just wrote a Python script to do the brightness on this mod without using the Chinese software (call me untrusting but I am just a darn good American)

Thanks to #python for helping me out
You need Python 3 and pip install wmi and pip install pywinusb before running this

I'm putting a .bat file in my startup folder containing "pythonw C:\files\thisscript.py" to get it to autorun

Code: Select all

#script that changes brightness on 51NB thinkpad X230 X330 FHD 13.3" LCD modification
#detects changes in Windows system brightness and sends a command to the LCD driver
#change vendor_id and product_ID to fit your hardware device under Device Manager->Human Interface Devices

import pywinusb.hid as hid
import wmi

def sample_handler(data):
    print("Raw data: {0}".format(data))


#sends HID command between 0-255 to USB LCD controller 
def updateBrightness(brightnesslevel):
    filter = hid.HidDeviceFilter(vendor_id = 0x10C4, product_id = 0x83CE)
    hid_device = filter.get_devices()
    device = hid_device[0]
    device.open()
    device.set_raw_data_handler(sample_handler)
    out_report = device.find_feature_reports()[0]
    cmd = (0,
    brightnesslevel,
    )
    buffer = [0x00] * 2
    i = 0
    for x in cmd:
        buffer[i] = x
        i += 1
    out_report.set_raw_data(buffer)
    out_report.send()
    device.close()

#detects changes in brightness 
def brightnessChangeDetect():
    c = wmi.WMI(namespace='wmi')
    watcher = c.WmiMonitorBrightnessEvent.watch_for(
      notification_type="Modification",
      delay_secs=1
      )
    event_happened = watcher()
    brightnesslevel = int((event_happened.Brightness)*2.5)
    updateBrightness(brightnesslevel)


#main program
while True:
    brightnessChangeDetect()
Last edited by bugmenot1 on Sun Feb 02, 2020 7:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

boutch55555
Sophomore Member
Posts: 183
Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:18 pm
Location: Quebec, Canada

Re: Thinkpad X230 successful upgrade to 13.3 FHD & msata3.0

#40 Post by boutch55555 » Sun Jan 26, 2020 6:11 pm

Hey, tkx for that code. Do you mind if I put it up on Github with my Linux wrapper ?
bugmenot1 wrote:
Sat Jan 25, 2020 11:02 pm
call me untrusting but I am just a darn good American
And you still sticked an unknown USB HID device from Chinese ebay into your computer ?! The code is clean, I decompiled it. Thinkpad modding community is made from individuals, not companies / government. Please don't judge by country, there's real nice people everywhere.

bugmenot1
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Jan 22, 2020 2:49 am
Location: Tokyo, Japan

Re: Thinkpad X230 successful upgrade to 13.3 FHD & msata3.0

#41 Post by bugmenot1 » Sun Feb 02, 2020 7:42 pm

boutch55555 wrote:
Sun Jan 26, 2020 6:11 pm
Hey, tkx for that code. Do you mind if I put it up on Github with my Linux wrapper ?
bugmenot1 wrote:
Sat Jan 25, 2020 11:02 pm
call me untrusting but I am just a darn good American
And you still sticked an unknown USB HID device from Chinese ebay into your computer ?! The code is clean, I decompiled it. Thinkpad modding community is made from individuals, not companies / government. Please don't judge by country, there's real nice people everywhere.


Yes you can! And yes I agree, the Thinkpad community (especially from China) have been extremely helpful and kind. And thanks for your code, I used it to write my script actually.

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