Upgrading E5400 CCFL display to LED dipslay from E6400?

After 4.5 years of faithful service, my E6400 is on it's last legs and I just received my new E6430u that will be replacing it. I'm fairly certain that my E6400's motherboard needs to be replaced and it simply isn't worth the time and effort, given the age and condition.

I bought a Refurbished E5400 for my mom about several months ago. The specs are basic (2.0Ghz T7250 (Merom) processor, 5400rpm hard drive, 2GB RAM and standard 14.1" WXGA (1280x800) CCFL display. But it was only $249 and looks/feels brand new, so itwas a steal and sufficient for her use.

My E6400 has a 14.1" WXGA+ (1440x900) LED display. The original display (same specs) died about eight months ago, so this one is less than a year old. It's much better than the display in the E5400, so I'd like to move it to that machine. The E5400 was available with the WXGA+ LED eventually (later production), so I'm pretty sure it can be done.

What does it take to replace a CCFL display with LED? Will the higher resolution (1440x900) vs (1280x800) cause any issues?

I also have a 128GB Samsung SSD and additional 2GB of RAM to transplant. I'm uncertain about upgrading the processor. The P8600 in my E6400 is ancient by technical standard, but it's a generation newer (Penryn) with a higher clock rate (2.4Ghz) and more L2 cache (3mb vs 2mb). It don't think it would make a huge difference in performance, but the lower TDP (35W vs 25W) and additional energy saving technologies might improve battery life and (hopefully) run cooler.

Any input on making any of these upgrades is welcome and appreciated!

 

I can't talk about a 5400 to 6400 but I did the same swap (CCFL to LED & 1400x900) on an e6400 and it was totally plug and play.IMHO the CPU would be a worthwhile upgrade and again is very easy to do.

 

So as far I know, the E5400 never shipped with an LED screen (though someone correct me if I'm wrong on that), so I don't think you can do the swap with stock parts. Yoy may be able to do it with minor modifications though. Basically you need to get the E6400 LED screen(s) with the separate inverter board with the old style plug. I don't know what's a good way to search for it, but it has a little ribbon sticking out the bottom like this:

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/14-1-LCD-Screen-for-Dell-Latitude-E6400-LED-WXGA-Laptop-Display-Panel-PN-0jj443-/00/s/NjAwWDgwMA==/$(KGrHqJ,!ngE-5nv2B2RBP8VMBV,2g~~60_12.JPG

So now the problem is that the display cable to inverter connections are probably mismatched in location and maybe orientation, and that's where you might have to do the modding the part: you might have to fold the ribbon cable funny such that the inverter board faces the right way, or/and modify the display cable such that the connectors line up.

Disclaimer: I've never done this mod before, so I'm just speaking from what I remember about the E5400/E6400 and doing a D630 LED mod.

EDIT: I don't think any of the WXGA+ screens have the right connector, so if you want to do that, you may have to like rewire display cables, and I don't know or if it is possible to do that. Also, all of the Penryn CPUs that work in the E6400 should work in the E5400.

 

I'm afraid that you're right. It was available with a WXGA+ CCFL upgrade and even discrete graphics toward the end, but not an LED display. The E6400 had a standard WXGA CCFL on the earliest models (first few months), with a WXGA LED and WXGA+ LED optional. The WXGA LED became standard on the E6400 after a few months.

I was thinking that since the WXGA+ was LED in the E6400, it was probably the same one used in the E5400. The E5410 and since have shared displays, but that's probably because LED was the standard across the board by then.

I'm not going to tackle any attempted mods at this time. I'll wait until the one-year warranty is expired and then might consider trying. In the meantime, I'll install the SSD, memory and CPU and mom will have have a snappier system with a display that she has no problem with.

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying my new E6430u. I'm very pleased with the performance and the display brightness is much better than average, if not quite as good as my E6400. I also like the 'island-style' keyboard better than I expected, even though it lacks the feedback and key travel of the E6400 (there's only so much that can be done when the whole thing is 0.8" thick). I'm still trying to acclimate to the 1600x900 display, which feels so much wider than my previous 1440x900. But at least I didn't sacrifice any vertical pixels. I'll adapt, if I must.

I'm also amazed at how cool and quiet this thing runs....the heat and fan noise are two things I DO NOT miss from my E6400! =)