T60 LCD compatibility?

[Phil21]

Hey all, been a while since I last posted!

I recently was given a T60 w/ a cracked LCD screen, which I am attempting to replace now. This is a SXGA+ 14.1" screen, nothing too fancy.

I trolled ebay for some deals, and saw on thinkwiki.org that the LTN141P4 was listed as compatible with the T60. The ebay auction page also stated such, and I more or less took each at their word. Probably a mistake

However, after installation now all I get is a black screen on the laptop. I can control the screen brightness as I would usually, and that works fine.

I would usually just chalk this up as me not doing my research prior to the purchase (and a shady ebay dealer), but something very strange happens.

If I let the machine boot into windows, and then do the fn-f7 active screen hotkey, when it switches "back" to the LCD screen I see a very short (less than a second) flash of windows (seemingly rendered fine) on the screen. This is the only thing that I can do to seemingly make it display anything.

Since it's displaying (seemingly) properly for a split-second, this leads me to believe it should probably work all the time.

Any ideas?

The old LCD I pulled out was FRU 13N7061 by BOE w/ model # HT14P12-100. This also is listed as compatible w/ the T4x line, so I'm doubly confused why the new display won't function.

IF the replacement LCD simply won't work, if anyone has any 14.1" "yes works for sure in a T60" screens (I don't really care about the res to be honest) laying around they want to sell, I'd be interested.

Really bizarre though how it "flashes" like that.

Thanks!

-Phil

[Johan]

Phil:

Very sorry to hear of all your troubles. Not that I can say for sure what the problem might be caused by, but what however comes to mind in the issue of the EDID in Lenovo LCD's - either search this forum for EDID or e.g. see the thread upgrading LCD on a t60p. If you get the correct Lenovo part - "correct" in the sense the part with the right FRU code (Field Replacable Unit) - then you should be OK. The relevant 14.1" SXGA+ models are listed here --> 14.1 inch LCD service parts - ThinkPad T60, T60p being either 13N7059 (Samsung) or 13N7061 (BOE-Hydis) or 13N7063 (TMD).

Best of luck with solving this very annoying problem!

Johan

[ajkula66]

This is exactly why one has to take the wiki info with a grain of salt and verify it against HMM...

You'll have to get one of the LCDs that Johan listed, what you've bought is not recognized by the BIOS of your T60 as an acceptable screen...

Good luck.

[Phil21]

Figured as much, spent last night reading the forum. From what I can tell the replacement panel is electrically compatible with the T60, but is being disallowed "access" by the machine - flipping between external monitor and the internal LCD must cause a re-read of the EDID, and for a split second it's allowed.

Annoying! This is really my single complaint about thinkpads - the really stupid and pointless BIOS whitelists for hardware. I bought a Lenovo-branded WWAN card (to upgrade the original to EVDO Rev. A) and it wasn't whitelisted. Had to use the very helpful BIOS hack here to get around it. Very pointless extra work involved to really no benefit that I can see to Lenovo.

Thanks for the part numbers link, useful information. Ah well, $100 lesson in doing ones research prior to purchase Still shady an ebay dealer listed it as compatible w/ T60/T60p though.

Thanks!

-Phil

[Troels]

Hmm, wasn't aware that this was an issue on the 14.1" LCDs machines too.
Do you have a link to the ebay auction?
If the seller sells a screen compatible with the T60/p, it must work... i.e. it must be re-flashed to work. This is how these "compatible" LCDs should be made compatible.

You can reflash it yourself, but it really does sound as if this is something the seller should take care of, i.e. send you a screen that WORKS with the T60/p or give you your money back.
This is my numero uno reason i have grown more and more tired of the Lenovo's method of controlling the Thinkpad line - why limit such things as LCDs when the people replacing these LCDs are generally knowing what they are doing. A burned fuse near the LVDS interface already indicates that the user did try to install a non Lenovo approved LCD, and thus warranty is void either way.
They likely do not want us to use 15" QXGA or 14.1" UXGA in the T60/p.

[Phil21]

Troels,

Agreed on the "control" part - dumb in my opinion. For user-replaceable parts like perhaps hard drives and memory, I could at least see the logic behind it. However, I would still disagree with them. The logic behind "locking" you to specific LCD's just makes no sense!

I may have been harsh to call the eBay vendor "shady" - he likely just looked for the info in the same places I did to double-check his listing, and went with it. Most likely a legitimate mistake, just frustrating when I wanted to get this to someone this weekend.

Ebay link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0018366444

I'm honestly not sure if this panel even has a chip on it. I did look at the PCB, and didn't see anything very obvious like the screenshots here showing blank spots for "EDID", etc. In the system information utility it simply says "Thinkpad LCD" with a resolution of 1024x768 - but no other information I can find on it. I guess I should pull out my other (working) T60 and see if it displays more info than that, as I'm not sure I'm looking in the correct spot.

Regards,

-Phil

[Phil21]

Just curious.. Posting here before I run out, but I'll do the research myself later if no one knows offhand.

Will the modded bios to skip the Mini-PCIe (WWAN in my case) check work for this assuming the screen I have in-hand does indeed have an EDID chip on it?

I currently am actually running it on my personal laptop as mentioned above. Might be worth a shot if so, as I don't mind re-flashing this one.

Thanks!

-Phil

[Phil21]

Answering my own question here..

Modded BIOS T60 does the exact same thing. So, no joy on that path.

Looks like a manual reprogramming of this panel would be required, if it does indeed even have the EDID chip on it.

-Phil

[Troels]

But then again, the seller writes that what he is selling is used in the T60 - which is not true... but it already sounds like you lose on the shipping by that text

The panel does have an EDID on it, it is normally situated on the otherside of the PCB, facing towards the LCD. Sometimes there are test points/pads on the visible PCB side, marked Vdd, GND, SDA and SCL, but it's not very comon.
All thinkpad LCDs from the T6x and onwards require the LCD to have an onboard EDID, if not only to blacklist non-certified panels, but also to tell the BIOS which timings the panel requires.

The modified BIOS (from Zender) will not bypass this black-list unfortunately. I believe Zender is very busy, but i think he has the skills to remove the black list feature, but i fear that he felt it will be very cumbersome to do.
Reflashing the EDID is probably the easiest you can do now... i.e. take a copy of the EDID from the cracked panel, and extract onto the now incompatible panel, although you'd need some components, a parallel port and the proper 30 pin connector.

[Phil21]

Thanks for the kind words and help

I'll search the forums a bit more on the EDID re-programming. Messing with adapters and stuff doesn't scare me too much, but if I have to solder things that may be going a bit far.

Just curious, I tore into the cracked panel a little bit searching for the EDID chip, just for the heck of it. Where the panel says "Touch sensitive area" appears to come off the actual LCD when you lift up the PCB to look underneath it. There are about half a dozen little mirror looking "contacts" that are in this location. Not knowing too much beyond this point, will lifting this PCB up and then setting it back down cause problems? Mostly out of my own curiosity I ask that

Thanks again folks! Hopefully this thread gets viewed by some folks in similar situations, and they can avoid the hassle.

-Phil

[Phil21]

Troels,

Thanks again! Just read your posts in the pinned thread, and that cleared up a lot of confusion now that I had a solid base to go off of.

Someone should start a EDID reprogramming service, although it would likely hardly be worth it I could likely handle creating a cable from the LCD panel to a programmer, but building the circuit myself would be a long shot to say the least. If there were a complete USB(parrellel) -> LCD connector kit that would certainly be interesting.

I think I'll just cut my losses on this one, and chalk it up to a lesson learned. Proper FRU's for a T60 are going for $140ish on ebay, so it's not too horrible.

Still sucks to have a perfectly usable LCD you have to let go to "waste" though!

-Phil

[Troels]

Hmm, as long as you are careful doing it, lifting the PCB will no cause problems. The "glass" you see are the LCD column drivers, which are mounted as shown in here: http://www.hitachi-displays-eu.com/doc/ ... ethods.pdf
most likely using bent TCP.

Not sure if there are any kits in productions.. that would be cool. It only had to be like this: http://www.lancos.com/e2p/easyI2Cbus.gif
and the use PonyProg2000 to read/write to the EEPROM.

Are you sure you'll just cut the losses, maybe the seller would happily take it back and refund?

[TomKroscavage]

This is exactly why one has to take the wiki info with a grain of salt and verify it against HMM...
You'll have to get one of the LCDs that Johan listed, what you've bought is not recognized by the BIOS of your T60 as an acceptable screen...
Good luck.

I take the HMM with a grain of salt as half the mods I have made to thinkpads over the years are not shown in any IBM documents.

I have a LTN141P4 without an EDID I would just remove it.

[xyz]

Just check if you have an edid present, if you do just reflash it with the correct parameters, If thats within your capanbilities, or just email the seller and jsut tellhim item is not as described as he has put t60 in the title of the auction, so he should be refundning everything on your part..

I wud chase up the seller first.. hes in the wrong for selling you a panel that does not comply with what he has said it is.

[richk]

The easiest way to access the chip is to leave it where it is. Take an LCD cable (I use one from a T40) and cut all but the last 2 inches off leaving the 30-pin panel connector. You can solder wires to one side of the plug. You need 4 wires - 2 data wires, ground and +5v

[yurkol]

It really looks like all T60 screens by OEMs are interchangeable. After long search, I decided to give it a try, and replaced today my bad LTN141XA-L01 (P/N 13N7050) by a completely different one, LP141X14 (A1), P/N 92P6726. As you can see, I am having no problems whatsoever

[Peak2Peak]

yurkol - Welcome to the forum

I also have tried an LG LP141X14(A1) 14.1" LCD Panel - FRU:11P8354 (P/N 92P6661) pulled from an old T40 in a spare T60 currently with an Intel GPU which works flawlessly both with XP & Win-7 - On inspection of the LCD Panel's PCB, it does not seem to have an EDID chip onboard - The panel also proved ok on an x1300 ATi board too!

[RealBlackStuff]

As long as you are talking about XGA (1024x768) screens, they more or less fit across the board (in the same size machines).
SXGA+ and UXGA screens for a T60 require an EDID chip though!

[derick]

I have T60 with 15inch XGA LCD panel.I have also old R50 with 15inch SXGA+ panel.I dont try change it still,because I know about bios incompactibility.I have LPT interface and Ponyprog for touch EDID,but I dont have dump for T60 compactible SXGA+ LCD.Can I change dump from compactible XGA to SXGA+ LCD panel?

[RealBlackStuff]

Find the required info here: http://www.computersolutions.cn/blog/20 ... y-used-to/
Including the requested EDID info.

[nntamass]

Hi! I have a T60 with a cracked screen. The LCD panel's FRU number is 13N7061. The HMM lists 3 FRUs:
13N7059
13N7061
13N7063

Are these totally compatible LCDs, the only difference is the manufacturer? Can I simply replace my 13N7061 with 13N7063? Do I have to do anything else other than replacing? (EDID reprogramming, anything else?)

[ZaZ]

Should be a straight swap.

[Bobroberto]

Having been through this a couple of times, found a clunker on ebay, next year found good deal thru the Forum. Are new replacements still available?

Are any LED lit screens compatible, maybe with some modification?

[nntamass]

Should be a straight swap.

Yesterday, I received my 13N7063 panel. Replacing my old 7061 with it was indeed a simple swap.
Thanks for the help!

[RealBlackStuff]

@Bobroberto

New replacements are still available, categorized under NOS (New Old Stock).
You should always buy screens with IBM/Lenovo P/N or FRU.
What they want to flog on feeBay may be marked as "100% compatible", but usually is NOT! Careful!
Check with TuuS for NOS 15" SXGA+, and also new 15" LED screens that require some cable and inverter modifications.

[derick]

I tried change 15" XGA panel in my T60 to IPS N150P3 from old r50.After swapping panel wont start.I have also broken N150P5 panel.I read fw from this,and reflash N150P3 with fw N150P5.After this panel starts OK,my T60 recognize it.Inverter is old 42T0077.Still working OK,but I think is quite warm.Can I use inverter from broken T61 (41W1478)?

[RealBlackStuff]

The inverter from a T61 will work, but it will not fit, as it's shape is different.
Get one of these instead:
- 13R1014 / 13R1015, made by Sumida
- 42T0078 / 42T0079, made by Hitachi, also has marking INVC753
- 41W1012 / 39T5658, made by Hitachi, also has marking INVC753

[derick]

Thanks for info,I will lookinkg for any from these.

[systemBuilder]

You should always buy screens with IBM/Lenovo P/N or FRU.

This is what IBM/Lenovo wants you to think !!!

The fact of the matter is, IBM/Lenovo locking down hardware interfaces, is as illegal in 2006, as it was in the 1960's when they lost an anti-trust lawsuit to 3rd-party disk drive makers, and were forced to publish their interface specs and their CPUs were forced to inter-operate with 3rd party disk vendors!

This practice by IBM/Lenovo is 100% illegal.

It should be opposed on all fronts.

Please see the T60 LCD Display database for EDID numbers. You can get a generic Samsung display (13N7058/59 = Samsung LTN141P4-L02) and flash it, check out the directions in my last post on that thread - there is a free tool available to flash displays.

http://www.thinkpads.com/forum/viewtopi ... 29&t=82149