Hello,

For a long time now I am trying to find a high quality IPS or AFFS display panel for my ThinkPad R500, which unfortunately employs a TFT panel of rather lousy quality. The only IPS or AFFS panels that I managed to find are of 15 inch size.

Does anyone know if replacing the original 15.4 inch widescreen display with 15 inch display would be allowed by the ThinkPad BIOS and the display controller?

Thanks.

I'm just curious as to how you plan fit a 4:3 15" screen into a 16:10 15.4" notebook?

FredGarvin,

To be honest, I do not really care if it does not exactly fit. I will drill holes where necessary (to the vertical holder bars) and possibly build a custom cover. My main problem at the moment is that the current TFT panel is totally useless for my standards and I am always using an external monitor. Maybe I have so many good memories from my old VAIO X-Black dual CCFL LCD panel and I can't get used to this one...

Cheers.

milo77, does your R500 have the 1280x800 screen? It's the WORST laptop LCD panel I have ever seen, and can't imagine using it for more than 2 minutes. If I were you, I would sell this laptop ASAP and get something else. Pretty much any laptop (Sony, Thinkpad, etc.) would have a nicer screen.

Indeed!

Like pianowizard says - sell the machine and get a machine with a better screen. If it has to be IPS, make it a T60/p or a tablet, or the new X220. Even among TN screens there are likely to be far better options (the WSXGA+ models on Z60m/T60/T61/T500 for instance).

If you wish to perform notebook surgery, putting a 4:3 T61 motherboard into a T60 that has the IPS screen already seems like a better choice.

Unfortunately yes, it's the 1280x800... But you are possibly right, maybe that's the right way to go as even by getting a proper (15.4 inch) replacement panel you can never be really sure about its image quality unless you have seen it live!

Txs!

LOL

Would love to see what abstract artwork you are going to create with a 15 inch IPS monitor on a 15.4 inch machine body.

I have the 1280x800. It's not great but it's better than older Thinkpad displays like the one in the x60s.

Supposedly you can put in a LG 1920x1200 display in the R500. Not IPS though. I was considering trying it but I have other issues with the R500 apart from the display.

Hello,

Since some of you wanted to see how it would look like I have posted a few pics. I found an LG Philips LP150E05 15'' S-IPS panel and fit it with a few modifications. I found out that the only requirement about the BIOS was that the panel employed EDID information in an EPROM chip (otherwise it was not recognized during boot time). EDID info was not employed by this panel I therefore soldered an ATMEL AT24C04 EPROM chip to the LVDS bus and flashed it directly from Windows it using PowerStrip. Then I used two plastic bars to construct an internal frame for fitting the panel in and proper tools. I am quite happy with the results and I really do not care about the looks. There is a big difference in image quality to anything else that I've seen in modern laptops. Here are the results:





Cheers,

This is true engineers work. Congratulations!

Nice work milo77. Gotta love hardware hacks like that...

Am I correct in thinking that the LP150E05 should work in a 15" T60?

Interesting project, but I don't understand why you would rather do this than to sell this R500 and then buy a T60/T60p preinstalled with an IPS screen. That would have cost you much less money and time. By performing this mod, you are stuck with an ugly laptop that no one would ever buy from you.

Oh well.. I would n't say that I find it ugly lol, but you are right about not being able to sell it. I will just give it away to a -not so techie- friend when it gets old:) As it concerns the total cost, it was 60$ for the panel (refurbished) and 0.5$ for the chip. A T/R60 with IPS fitted could be an option but it would cost more and they are older generation than the R500s. They dont take more that 4GB RAM for one. This one takes up to 8GB I think, has DDR3, faster memory bus etc.

Thanks ThinkRob! Yes, an LP150E05 should directly work in a 15'' T60, provided it is one with an EDID chip (from a T60 and not from and older ThinkPad model such as a T4x), otherwise you will have to add it on your own as I did. You can have a look here for more details about ThinkPad panels and models: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/TFT_display

Great work, but I don't think it is the most practical thing ever. Is It easily portable, eg can you close it with that screen sticking out? So basically you have a stationary laptop with a nice panel retro-fitted. A nicer solution would have been to just get an external ips monitor; at least than the laptop could still be portable or sold in the future.

You still have my respect for the effort, no doubt. You must know what you want to get from it to justify putting in that kind of effort, and that's all that matters.


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I disagree, because you would have offset the cost of this T/R60 by selling the unmodded R500.

Epic.

A nice little project if you just want to test the boundary of your engineering and modding skills. But not so great in terms of usability and aesethetics side. You could just as well use the laptop with an external Dell 2007FP.

I think you can get back some of the aesthetics by slathering it with duct tape.

Seconded. On the other hand, if you're actually serious about doing this I wonder if some sort of clear coat would be possible? That could be a nice look for the lid of a ThinkPad.. you could even move the logos to the top of the duct tape.


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