A tale of two bezels

[TrowaBarton]

Hi there, for those who haven't read my previous posts I've been trying to fix up some butterflies, the front bezel for my 701c is cracked along the bottom and attempts to repair it aren't working out very well.

I keep an eye on on ebay to snatch broken ones in hopes of using their bezel, and I managed to get a hold of one with a cracked screen recently, its bottom bezel was better than mine, and its top board was pristine, the standby battery was clearly removed long ago before it could leak. The front bezel also looked fantastic, a little chip in the top corner, but structurally sound.

Then I start merging the best parts from each machine together working my way up, get to the bezel, and find out THEY AREN'T EVEN THE SAME???? Again, both machines are 701C, this isn't a C vs CS mixup or anything. The top of the bezel is noticeably thinner on the new one and thicker on the bottom, basically they don't line up with my working LCD.

Cracked bezel

Both bezels

Any HMM I look at only lists one FRU for the C bezel and one FRU for the CS bezel. I can certainly imagine the thicker bottom would make more sense, as mine seems to re-shatter no matter what type of glue or epoxy I try to piece it back together with.

Seeing as a bezel is basically impossible to find, and I don't really have much desire to continue buying additional machines for single pieces, is there any remote chance that someone here has a 701c LCD panel that would match the non cracked bezel for purchase? (I'm also looking for a left shift key)

[RealBlackStuff]

As per HMM, there are 2 bezels:
LCD Bezel (ThinkPad 701CS) 04H8325
LCD Bezel (ThinkPad 701C) 04H8332

Check the P/N or FRU of what you've got/need.

[TrowaBarton]

As per HMM, there are 2 bezels:
LCD Bezel (ThinkPad 701CS) 04H8325
LCD Bezel (ThinkPad 701C) 04H8332

Check the P/N or FRU of what you've got/need.

Thank you for posting that information, I suppose I could have included those...

That being said, the part number on the cracked one is 30H0195, while the other one is 73G7601. Searching with 30H0195 and numbers in its range yield nothing helpful, while the other part number shows up here and there, but nothing in stock (and also NOT the part I'm looking to replace.

Due to the near impossibility of acquiring a working bezel, I'm instead shifting gears and hoping anyone may have working LCDs for sale.

[ilakast]

Looking at those two bezels it reminds me of the two different bezels of the 770X/Z across the two different screens. But the butterfly only comes in one screen size flavour. Could it be a difference between US and Japanese models? Here's twistero's butterfly with the thick version of the bezel.

[TrowaBarton]

Hrm, nice find ilakast. As far as I know both are US models, keyboards certainly are. I'll check the labels on their bottom bezels and see if they say anything noteworthy. I remember that the thicker bezeled machine had an old school inkjet printed label for some US school district attached to its back when I first got it.

[RealBlackStuff]

The one 701c that I worked on (a few years ago), also had the wide bottom and narrow top on its LCD bezel.
Maybe look for a different lid, to fit the 'higher placed' LCD?

[Norway Pad]

Interesting point brought up. I have always assumed the different positioning of the LCD was a C vs. Cs (TFT vs. Passive Matrix LCD) thing. There are two pictures on ThinkWiki.de (Germany) that I always thought supported that.

Thinkpad 701C

Thinkpad 701Cs

Until.. Until I opened up my own 701C and realized I have the thin bottom part too. So at that point there seems like something changed along the way, that moved the 10.4" LCD. The off-centered position doesn't look natural, so one would think that the goal is to have the LCD centered. Maybe a new and slimmer version of something inside the lid made that possible? Or maybe the thin bottom was too weak and cracked to easily, so they reinforced something in there that pushed the LCD up? Could go either way. It would be interesting to see the inside of a thick bottom'ed lid to see exactly what it is in there that dictates the position of the LCD.

[Saucey]

Interesting interesting...
I too have a bezel that is thin on top like Twistero's.
Maybe Lenovo was doing homage to the 701C when they had made the 4:3 T61.