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Anyone interested in a Hi-def (1920 x 1200) mod for PB/MBP?

skippy911 said:
I actually have the LQ154M1LW02 sharp panel from a dell d800 laptop. I will try the mod out either tonight or on Saturday and post my findings. Hopefully it works as well as the OP did on his powerbook :) Am I right in believing noone else has tried the LQ154M1LW02 sharp, just the LQ154M1LW12 sharp right??
Click to expand...

what machine do you have? CD or C2D?
and can you post pics of the whole process?
I'm still trying to find a panel...
 
tknomel said:
what machine do you have? CD or C2D?
and can you post pics of the whole process?
I'm still trying to find a panel...
Click to expand...

I have a CD and yes I will take pics of the entire process. Hopefully it works :) My mbp is CD 2.0ghz, 1gigram, 80gig hd.
 
jrsade said:
Don't expect too much ;-)
Click to expand...

Anyone have an easy way to get the metal brackets off? On mine there is no rivets it is just one solid piece of metal. I am afraid if I try to cut them off the lcd may get damaged. Thanks :)

Edit: Try to cut them a little but they are very hard. Any tips on how to get them off would be great.
 
col22 said:
A really easy way to get rid of those of those rivit-welds is just with flush snips (wire cutters with one side flat so you can cut things flush with a flat surface). Just angle them as if to cut through the welds, and you can pop them right off. It WILL bend the metal casing a tiny bit, but not enough to matter or damage anything. Its purely cosmetic, and who is going to see it anyway?
Click to expand...

Is this what you are talking about??
x_sprue_cutters.jpg
 
baxterbrittle said:
Sorry I haven't been around to help. OK.. Those brackets if you look earlier in the thread I have a pretty good suggestion for removing them - but basically you crimp it with some cutters along the line in which you want to remove them. After that roll the pieces of metal along the length of the display and it should tear quite easily along the lione that you crimped - you can't cut them with cutters they are too strong but if you try the way I said they will come off without damaging the panel. If you try bending them towards the panel they will just pull and deform the rest of the panels outer trim.
Click to expand...

Baxter: If you still read this thread can you post a picture of what you used to crimp the pieces? I figure since we have the same exact panel you would be the best to ask :)
 
Hacksaw got them off but GDAMN my arm is hurtin!. I did very tiny movements with the hacksaw so as to not cause too much vibration on the screen. Tomorrow is the big day!
 
Bad news all. I broke the screen trying to remove the metal pieces doing that crimp and rolling method baxter described. So I am out on the whole HD mod. G/l to anyone else trying.
 
skippy911 said:
Bad news all. I broke the screen trying to remove the metal pieces doing that crimp and rolling method baxter described. So I am out on the whole HD mod. G/l to anyone else trying.
Click to expand...

Well, as a general rule: You should first remove the display rear housing, attach the inverter and the LVDS cable to the new panel leaving the old one in place - and test the new one EXTENSIVELY. If it doesn't work as expected, just put the cables back to the original panel - and everything remains in mint condition...
 
jrsade said:
Well, as a general rule: You should first remove the display rear housing, attach the inverter and the LVDS cable to the new panel leaving the old one in place - and test the new one EXTENSIVELY. If it doesn't work as expected, just put the cables back to the original panel - and everything stays in mint condition...
Click to expand...

Good idea ill try that if I ever get another panel :)
 
I managed to break my MBP CD screen on Sunday, and so I came upon this thread :) I've purchased a d800 screen on ebay, so fingers crossed I'll be trying this shortly... just wanted to thank the pioneers.
 
Faye said:
I managed to break my MBP CD screen on Sunday, and so I came upon this thread :) I've purchased a d800 screen on ebay, so fingers crossed I'll be trying this shortly... just wanted to thank the pioneers.
Click to expand...

You're welcome, though we really haven't accomplished much.
We haven't confirmed that panel working, so best of luck with it.

As of now I think it's only the Samsung panel that's working.

But if nothing else, you can use the D800 panel and have an awesome hi-def Windows laptop :p
 
I've a Toshiba LTD154EZOD - one revision off from Belldandy's. Was from a seller on Ebay selling replacement panels for the D800. It's completely virgin and has never been inside a housing from the looks of it. It doesn't have any big hardware on it, just thin flat tabs with holes in, two on the top, two on the bottom but it does have the inverter mounted between the tabs at the bottom, hopefully that's not too hard to remove... maybe it just fits there conveniently for flat packing, I haven't even had the panel out of its antistatic wrapper yet. I have someone at work who's agreed to help me fit it and I'm going to leave it safe until it actually goes in.. and I'm waiting to hear from ifixit about the feasibility of the wireless upgrade before I take the laptop apart.


Faye
 
Success again

OK. It doesn't fit in my laptop yet, but IT DOES WORK.
Toshiba LTD154EZOD Lots of PRAM resets (but probably most were unnecessary) Getting correct apple at boot was easy, but getting the right mode in SwitchResX was tough. I felt really depressed when all it would do is show pretty coloured lines, or white-out, but when I saw the Blue apple backdrop appear I was elated! Not near my laptop at the moment, but it was either CVT or GTF which worked, and make sure you select 56Hz for the timing.
 
Timing parameters for the custom resolution:
1920x1200 55.939Hz
Use simplified settings CVT

Everything else greyed out.
 
OK, I managed to break it while attempting to fix the brightness.. and in the process learned more. I'd have brightness, but only with the other display plugged in. Without, it would return to its normal non working state.
Resetting the PRAM gave me the funky colours. Getting the Apple back to being Grey scale (nice grey scale) with another PRAM reset or two fixed that. I had the other display plugged in too.. with alternate PRAM resets, it would switch to making that other display primary boot display.

SwitchResX seems to incrementally add rubbish to the file. I don't know why, but it does.

particularly if you see "trng" in there and you're trying to make this work, get rid of it.

Code: 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.co
m/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>DisplayProductID</key>
        <integer>40022</integer>
        <key>DisplayVendorID</key>
        <integer>1552</integer>
        <key>IOGFlags</key>
        <integer>4</integer>
        <key>DisplayProductName</key>
        <string>Color LCD</string>
        <key>dmdg</key>
        <data>
        AAAAAg==
        </data>
        <key>scale-resolutions</key>
        <array>
                <data>
                AAAEgAAAAtAAAAAB
                </data>
                <data>
                AAAEAAAAAwAAAAAB
                </data>
                <data>
                AAAEAAAAAoAAAAAB
                </data>
                <data>
                AAAFAAAAAyAAAAAB
                </data>
                <data>
                AAADIAAAAlgAAAAB
                </data>
                <data>
                AAADIAAAAfQAAAAB
                </data>
                <data>
                AAACgAAAAeAAAAAB
                </data>
                <data>
                AAAC0AAAAeAAAAAB
                </data>         
        </array>
        <key>dspc</key>
        <array>
                <data>
                BUaAlHKwKkB8zjYAAAAAAAAA
                </data>
        </array>
</dict>
</plist>

Is my current file.
All I kept from the SwitchResX file was dspc.

Brightness now works (thanks to this thread).
I haven't tried scaled resolutions (although they're present from the previous test)

I haven't tried removing SwitchResX.. might be interesting.
 
Removing SwitchResX seems to be a bad idea. It has just been a nightmare trying to fix the screen again.

Fixing bad colour: attach external screen (doesn't matter what res - at least it doesn't have to be same as lcd).. reset pram for 2 bongs.. grey apple should show on external screen (if not try pram resets until it does)

Once it's started on the external display, you should have correct colour on your local LCD (assuming it's showing the right resolution on your local display)

Fixing wrong res on reboot when it was previously working. you need switchresx installed for all, auto start on login, and with the default emergency hotkey. You also need your external display connected. Boot up, wait for the screen to go wonky... press option command fn F11 and it should return you to the nice safe res you already configured.

Change the resolution (on the internal display) to something to break it again using Display... Gather Windows on the external display and reset it back to the working resolution. Shutdown and disconnect the DVI.


I hope this helps someone.
 
Faye said:
Removing SwitchResX seems to be a bad idea. It has just been a nightmare trying to fix the screen again.

Fixing bad colour: attach external screen (doesn't matter what res - at least it doesn't have to be same as lcd).. reset pram for 2 bongs.. grey apple should show on external screen (if not try pram resets until it does)

Once it's started on the external display, you should have correct colour on your local LCD (assuming it's showing the right resolution on your local display)

Fixing wrong res on reboot when it was previously working. you need switchresx installed for all, auto start on login, and with the default emergency hotkey. You also need your external display connected. Boot up, wait for the screen to go wonky... press option command fn F11 and it should return you to the nice safe res you already configured.

Change the resolution (on the internal display) to something to break it again using Display... Gather Windows on the external display and reset it back to the working resolution. Shutdown and disconnect the DVI.


I hope this helps someone.
Click to expand...

I really can't follow you there, haha. But it's probably because I'm rather tired.

Thanks for all the great work, though :) Maybe I'll give this whole display craziness one more shot now that I have a working notebook again (you know, I just can't stand to have a working laptop :p).

After all, being the first to start the MacBook Pro display mod madness, I guess it should be fitting for me to finally have one of my own :]

- Tim
 
I was quite tired when I posted it. But now I have a laptop with a nice highres screen, working brightness controls (automatic and manual).

The only thing left to solve is the scaled resolutions. Several of the existing Display overrides have custom EDID entries. The problem exists (I think) on this panel because it gives false EDID information - either that or we're doing something wrong trying to configure those settings.

It declares only a 60Hz mode, and the working settings are a 56Hz mode. I believe that the scaled resolutions are going back to using this 60Hz mode which gives the vertical coloured lines and white-out.

I think probably all of the problems can be resolved with a corrected EDID, but I don't have time to investigate this right now.


Faye
 
Holy crap. Attempting Faye's color solution tomorrow (the lady of the house is asleep in the same room as my MBP right now). I miss bringing my MBP to campus, it's been sitting on my desk hooked to an external monitor for the past few months. :(

EDIT: Can you give more details about your color-fixing procedure? It didn't do anything for me. (Admittedly, I'm using a different screen.) Still stuck in bad color land. :\
 

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Those definitely look like my funky colours.

In my case, I managed to fix the funky colours by connecting to my 1080i plasma TV (I'd left my monitor at work) so I would think it would work with any external monitor..

Turn the laptop off and connect the monitor, in powered on state (standby is ok)

Hold down option command (alt apple) P R all at the same time immediately after powering on the laptop. First time you'll get a bong and a grey screen on the laptop screen. I think if you're not getting the grey screen at boot time, then there's something more wrong. I just had a "big apple" when my colours were wrong. I think as a result of setting my colour depth to 256 at some stage.

Keep the keys held down until the grey screen starts to appear on your external monitor. It may take several bongs for this.

Release the keys as soon as you see the grey screen on your monitor and wait for it to boot.

If you are still having problems, go into display, and make the external display the primary one, by going to arrangement and dragging the menu bar to the other display.

Set your internal display to 1920x1200 millions of colours and close preferences before rebooting. If you still have strange colours, then try the pram reset loop again until your apple logo is on the external screen again. This time the screen should come back in blue. One other thing, make sure that SwitchResX is running on startup, particularly if you're using the ID hacks to make the brightness control work. You'll know it's running (if you haven't registered) because the little reminder will be in the bottom left of your display.

I'm really out of ideas after that.


Faye
 
AznAstronaut said:
EDIT: Can you give more details about your color-fixing procedure? It didn't do anything for me. (Admittedly, I'm using a different screen.) Still stuck in bad color land. :\
Click to expand...

There has only been success with the Toshiba models so far.
If you do succeed in fixing your colors, you will be hailed a mighty warrior ;)

Best of luck!
 
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