5920G LCD Upgrade

Anyone knows what WXGA+ or even higher resolution 15" LCDs are compatible with this acer?

 

You'll have to add like 8 more wires to your LVDS cable.

 

Yes, the mainboard supports dual-LVDS, but no known pre-made cable exists.

Perhaps starting with a 7720G cable and rearranging the wires is easier.

 

I got one some time ago and there are two problems, although not that big:

1. It's longer.
2. The inverter connector has more pins.

It's better to get 5920 cable, get 8 wires out of it, arrange them properly and you're set. It's like 20~30min job. I'll upload the schematics next week, as I'm away now.

Also what is the resolution you are going after, we can recommend you some good quality displays. You know it's not just the resulution, but viewing angles, matte/glossy, color gamut, response time and etc.

 

Since you haven't responded I think that it's too much of hassle for you. I have successfully upgraded to a nice 90% 1440x900 display. In the end I've used 7720G cable and rearranged it accordingly, as .NetRolller 3D suggested, it seems to be of a higher quality than the one used in 5920G. Got the camera and inverter ones from the 5920G's cable though. It's not big deal, but you have to play like an hour to rearrange it and double check everything, as we don't want to get *puff* in the end

Tip: Multimeter set to measure "Continuity" is very useful.

I'll upload the needed information later in case someone is interested.

 

Sounds great how does the screen look at lower resolutions with games? does everything look smaller? do you still have the same screen you told me about in PMs? do you still have/need dual inverters? Is the cable easy to get? Does the higher resolution help with productivity and web surfing? Can this screen come in semi gloss or is bright enough that it doesn't matter if it's gloss?

 

I'm playing at native, I hate going lower, hence the 1440x900. Also my eyesight seems to be perfect for that resolution, anything above and I'll pushing it. A bit smaller - one more row and more column of icons on the desktop (just for example). I still have the previous display with AG filter, not the best application, but it does its job pretty well. Both run on single lamp only, can't find time to mod the dual-lamp one. I'll do my best to be sometime soon, as I want to see it in all of it's glory. The cable is up to you, as I said, an hour or so, but the extra length of the cable and the dual inverter would cause some headaches, as the space would become REALLY constrained. Yes it helps, with VMs as well. It depends on the display.

Here are the display options, the best ones I know, do note that all of them are 3mm taller and may require some grinding. Also since they are DualCCFL, contrast and brightness are usually high enough to be mentioned and as a "side effect" all of them are glossy. If you ever get to the point of buying either one of them ask the seller prior purchase, they usually ship compatible, BUT lower quality one.

1280x800
Samsung LTN154XB-L01 - 90% gamut, good angles, 16ms, single LVDS, 2CCFL
CMO N154I4-L04 - 72% gamut, good angles, 5ms, single LVDS, 2CCFL

1440x900
AUO B154PW03 - 90% gamut, good angles, 8ms, dual LVDS, 2CCFL - REALLY hard to find, I'm waiting my third one
CMO N154C4-L01 - 72% gamut (I'm guessing here), good angles, 5ms, dual LVDS, 2CCFL - haven't seen it in person, it's easier to find
Samsung LTN154BT01 - 72% gamut (I'm guessing here as well from what I saw), bad angles, 16ms, dual LVDS, 2CCFL - a seller send me one with B154PW03 sticker on it, and thinks I wouldn't notice! It would do the job, but not at that price!

1650x1080
I couldn't find 2CCFL one, so it was out of a question, at least for me. Here are some anyway:
LG LP154WE2-TLA3 - CCFL
AUO B154SW01-VB - CCFL after the dash is Vee Bee, but it corrects me every time
CMO N154Z3-L03 - matte, CCFL - of the 3 CCFLs, I would pick this one
AUO B154SW02 V3 - 72%, WLED!
CMO N154Z6-L04 - matte, WLED!

1920x1200
Not that I'll put one of those, but it could be useful for some.
Samsung - LTN154CT04-D01 - 100%+ gamut, RGB LED, all M4400 hail at this panel. No schematics, proprietary connector - good luck running it. Bought a cable and reverse engineered it, just for fun, 5920G is 2 connections short of running it, just FYI
LG - LP154WU2-TLA2 - 72% gamut, good angles, 16ms, dual LVDS, 2CCFL

 

My concern in loss of FPS, out GPUs aren't new and pushing the resolution will only drop the FPS further. Of course at some point the icons and text are gonna get really small.

EDIT: does running dual lamp displays on a single lamp effect lightning evenness if not how does it work well with only 1 lamp? also I took note of the eBay listings, that's kind of messed up.

 

Lightning is perfect, probably the max contrast and brightness are affected, but it's OK for me, I never push a display above 80%. Consider this as SLi or CrossFire - adding second GPU/lamp/whatever doesn't necessarily mean that you'll get twice the performance. So I guess once I make it to run with two lamps, I don't expect anything mind-blowing. We'll see, soon hopefully.

That's why I said "Ask prior buying", those questions have won me a handful of cases, where the seller doesn't play fair. They just list "random" part numbers, and in most cases you get compatible, or the worst case - FAR inferior product. Example one - you want B154PW03, but you end-up with LTN154BT01 - same res, worse angles, slower response and etc. BUT there is option two, and I have seen plenty of those (and you can't say nothing if you buy it, as it listed "properly") - you want B154PW03, but they give you some 1280x800 complete POS which is not even 2CCFL, but if you haven't read the listing, get yourself a bottle of ice-cold water.

 

Hi triturbo, I was wondering if in your opinion LTN154MT06 could be a good display for a 5920g; and if you could tell us the exact steps to do this mod 1 ch -> 2 ch you are speaking about (some sort of tutorial, dunno). Thank you

Obviosuly the same request to share is for NetRoller with his FHD monitor

 

Basically you'll have to fill the blanks As for the display, I know nothing about it. If that's what you have as a gift or for pocket money, it's OK, but I wont spend money on it. I already said few posts above about my preferences. Here you are, and good luck:

View attachment 5920G 2CH LVDS.zip

Edit: Here's a link that can give you some basic guidance. Sorry, I can't post thorough guide as I don't have time lately.

 

Thank you for you answer, so basically the mod consists of adding more wires to the existing connection, between the motherboard connector and the lcd connector? I think it requires a lot of precision during solding, do you agree? Maybe is not for everyone..

 

Depends on the cable. I have a handful of cables - some with soldered wires, others not. I end up rewiring 7720G's cable - DC02000E100 as it seems to be of higher quality, but it's longer, so I'm thinking for a way to shorten it a little, without cutting it.

 

ok, so actually, higher resolutions are technically allowed by this increment of pins, or I could find a screen with higher resolution than 1280x800 with only one channel? I ask you this because I found a QUANTA QD15AL01 rev 03 1680x1050 which I see supports one channel (on various sites) but I'm unsure about this..

 

No 1680x1050 screen can work with single LVDS. The laptop has dual-LVDS, the screen needs it- it's just the matter of finding or making the proper cable.

 

That's REALLY strange. Less than couple of weeks ago, I was helping another user, and I came across another display which is high res, yet 1ch LVDS. It's LP140WD2-TLE1 - 14" 1600x900 listed as 1ch LVDS. I don't know how is this possible, but since there are 2 (and maybe more), it could be. The only way is buy-and-try IMO it's better to make a cable and pic higher quality panel instead, but it's just me

 

I see..
Thank you both for your courteousness however

 

First of all, i am sorry to perform necromancery on a 6 month old thread,but its about some relevant information only triturbo can provide. First of all, how can the 5920g drive the 1658x1050 LED screens AUO B154SW02 V3 and CMO N154Z6-L04? Is the 2ch lvds rewiring enough or is there a need to tap to the inverter cables? And getting to the point, i am helping an amateur photographer friend of mine upgrade his 5920g screen on a budget, and he would go the extra mile to get the WUXGA RGBLED LTN154CT04-D01 if he knew if we could somehow get it to work. So if it isn't much of a hassle, could you triturbo, upload your findings in reverse engineering the screen pinout in regards to the dell m4400 schematics, as well as the 2 missing connections from the 5920g mobo? This panel looks like the cream of the crop as far as TN panels go, so it would be a meaningful challenge trying to fit it in our beloved 5920g.

 

First of all - How it can drive LED? It can't... by default, but with some modding and/or using special inverter/adapter, it would be able. I know that it is done for the Thinkpads, and few others, but I don't know exactly how, hence the exclamation point.

Now the second, it is quite of a story, but you'll have to read it before we go on. It was the craziest of my projects, it involved quite A LOT of research, just like any other. BUT after a lot of my time wasted, and a lot of people asked, I decided that it is not doable. That's why I call it the craziest At least it's not within my knowledge as of now. During my research the only thing that kept me on track was that, as you already know, it's the best TN period and the best one which has even slight chance to be compatible. I knew that it's not exactly for my eyesight, but the time passes, and now I'm looking at WUXGAs again. I'm suggesting LP154WU2-TLA2, as it is COMPATIBLE (it is yet to be proven, but the chances are FAR greater), relatively wide gamut (72%) and matte. But to move on. LTN154CT04-D01 has proprietary connector, from there, quite modding unfriendly DELL cable (you'll have to cut and solder 40 tiny wires with 5920G friendly connectors), and then comes the is-this-pin-out-correct thing, as well as what kind of inverter should power the back-light of this thing. As for the last bit, I did find a RGB LED inverter over various places, with ridiculous pricing, but that's another story. The funny thing is, it seems that it is not needed during the upgrading process. I've contacted numerous people, that went CCFL->RGB LED, but none of them responded, since I was like 2 years late, and they are no longer active members. As I said, none of them seems to have used this inverter, strange isn't it? Are you still volunteer? Here is the package I've used for the reverse engineering, minus the hardware stuff, i.e. - multimeter and cable. As with all of the stuff like this, the usual warning that "I'm not responsible for anything" goes on Happy modding

Just to point it out - I'm still looking after this display

 

Thanks for the tons of information. I hope that now that the community has a starting point(your researched pinout) someone with the right tools will try to get this project to fruition. So apart from the proprietary connector, we are missing SMB_DATA and SMB_CLK(probably needs a special inverter/led driver board) and CONNTST(the real problem). You had absolutely no luck on getting the screen to display anything, right? Because it seems that if the pinout is correct, the screen should work apart from the backlight. Does the sleep mode trick work? (Plugging a compatible monitor and swapping the cables in sleep mode) Maybe this could bypass the EDID issues. I will settle for LP154WU2-TLA2 for my friend, but soon as i get some money to burn i would gladly volunteer on getting the ultimate screen to work on the 5920g.
P.S. Any glossy compatible WUXGAs?
Edit: Could this reasonably priced component: http://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=item&id=7234 be of any help?

 

Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not that rich either. I only have the cable. I'm pretty certain that it will display properly everything, but you'll need a flashlight to view it I missed to mention the craziest part, but here it is now - I was planing to get a full blown M4400 for further testing, but then I quit job Anyway, there is not-that-bad probability to work with lack of back-light control or the back-light altogether, or something like that. I don't know, I don't have the money to take it further. Maybe it's your time to shine

I think that LP154WU2-TLB1 and LP154WU2-TLB2 are the same display, but glossy. Don't take it as granted though. As in my previous posts - contact the seller and make sure that he has the real deal, don't take compatible ones!

 

well a higher res screen might be nicer for web browsing and just go back to lower reses for newer games. how do like the your new 1400x900 for web browsing and productivity compared to stock?

also nice screen list!

has any body gone to a dual back light with appropriate inverter mods? did it boost the image quality or viewing angles?

EDIT: still reading through the threads but, HOLY HELL!! are we looking at upgrading to LEDs!?

 

Very nice bump, especially for VMs, hence I'm looking at WUXGA. I'll be pushing my eyes, but it'll bring A LOT of room

I've reached a few people that had gone single to dual lamp, and they said that there is notable, but not that big difference in brightness from running a 2CCFL in single and dual lamp mode. Image quality and viewing angles are for the display itself, if it's crappy they're going to be crappy too

Yes, but only if there is someone with the right knowledge. We need someone to make make the back-light running from the existing infrastructure. And LED is not always a good thing, in fact most LED displays tend to have "washed" colors, compared to CCFLs. The only LED I'm looking at, is the RGB LED

 

It is nice to see activity in this really useful and informative thread again after taking the plunge to inquire about your crazy rgbled endeavor . So you mentioned that the 5920g is 2 connection short of running the panel. What in your opinion, are those connections? I believe that the dell rgb led inverter part i posted ( Dell Latitude E6500 Precision M4400 Inverter H024P) is pretty much required and we need to find(or reverse) the pinout for it, as the m4400 can run both ccfl and rgb led screens from the same motherboard, the custom converting job is done from that part. We just need to connect the right signals to it(since the same signals can run a ccfl inverter,like the one in 5920g, they can drive this one too). Talk about getting fired up for a project
As for the dual ccfl mods, i suppose you just have to find another 5920g inverter and double up the connections(a 5 pin plug if i recall correctly), some patience and soldering skill required, but pretty easy if you got the lvds cable rewiring right. The 5920g screen bezel is pretty spacious and could fit 2 inverters with minimal trimming. It is up to the user to decide is a 30% increase in max brightness is worth it.

 

To be honest I don't know what's their exact usage in this particular application, since we have back-light control. Also do note that Pin7 in 5920G's connector is not connected, and I think that CONNTST is not of that importance, unless proven otherwise That's the inverter, it got REALLY cheap since the last time I've looked at it. What bugs me is, as I said, none of the guys seems to have used those in their conversions. Also, another point is that the panel gets all of the juice it needs - it has 3.3v line for the display, and 5v and 4x19v lines for what I think is the back-light. I think that it is the only RGB LED display that doesn't require extra hardware and cables in order to run. Hopefully I'll get a new job soon, and I can resume my experiments I forgot to add, there is NO inverter connector on the RGB LED cable - DC02000KHOL. I think it's the most obvious pointer that the cable and the display is all you need, along with the proper rearranging of course Another edit, I think it's the LED inverter, for the WXGA+ display, it is not related to the RGB LED

That was the first variant, but I thought that it would be cleaner if I get 2CCFL inverter to work. As it turned out, cleaner, doesn't mean easier. I probably got two faulty inverters, since I've asked a technician, and he said that it should work just fine with my laptop I have the parts, so when I have time, I'll probably get to the first variant and just cut and solder the extra wires. What bothers me is that, you probably forgot that there is a magnet on the bezel, which takes 1cm of precious space, so it's going to be a really tight fit with two inverters.

 

Sure going with 2 inverters isn't the cleanest way, but it induces the least amount of headaches in the long run. Can that magnet be removed and replaced with double faced tape? That my take on minimal trimming .

You are right about the cable, i accidentally looked at the wrong variant of the cable, i guess this one is the correct type: Dell Precision M4400 15.4" WUXGA LCD Ribbon Cable H161K . That small pcb hanging for the cable is bumming me out, so since you have the physical cable in your hands can inform me on(what you speculate to be) its usability. What struck me as odd was that it is advertised a WUXGA RGB LED converter board as well as an official dell part so i am curious about its use on actual M4400. Is it to reuse the old cable with the inverter connector to the rgb led screen? Still, my point(as well as yours) is correct. If the M4400 can drive both ccfl screens and the particular rgb led screen with the same motherboard/connector pinout then it is highly probable that the 5920g can do the same with the proper rewiring.

 

I'll see what I can do.

The PCB is for the light sensor, which controls the back-light. Most of the users claim it's useless. Also it doubles the HDD activity light and something else for when the notebook is closed. It could be easily cut-out in this case, and that's what I was planing to do as well.

I was surprised as well as it was referred on various places as RGB LED inverter.

Let's not forget that the M4400 was designed to be compatible with everything in mind - from 1 (not sure) /2CCFL through LED to RGB LED

I've checked the M4400s schematics again and it seems that LCD_SMBCLK and LCD_SMBDAT are inverter related. I'm not sure, but I thought that it could be.

 

After taking a peek in some led backlight testing threads, it seems that it is possible to jumpstart the backlight by soldering a 5v line to the led_ena/led_on/whatever on the lcd driver board. This is where the unconnected pin7 on the 5920g connector might fall in place. It may provide only 3,3 volts but that might still be enough to pull the led driver ic to HIGH and turn on the backlight. Of course the switch might be traceable back to the lvds connector to save us the need to solder to the very fragile lcd board. The same principle might be applicable to other led panels. This is all pretty much speculation and guesswork till one of us takes the risk and buys one of these lovely panels to reverse that obscure pinout
P.S. Thanks for the heads-up on the small PCB, i guess that you can remove it when splicing the cables to get them to the 5920g header

 

I was wondering why the 5v line is, so now we know And that's why the ENA line (pin7) is not used.

 

So though i was wrong ( once again ) i found some useful information.
If i get it right, what you mean is that the pin 35 on the lcd side is connected to the aforementioned switch that turns the backlight on, the the pin 1 on the 5920g side is supplying the 5v needed. So even by not knowing the exact purpose of each pin, you still somehow got the pinout right
So since the theoretical part seems complete, what's left now is getting the iron and heatshrink ready and soldering about 30 tiny wires to test one of the most crazy mods in the history of 5920g.
And of course, some $200 to potentially burn or shine

 

That's correct

 

what kind of resolution and image quality would aforementioned screen produce? i figured since it's LED all one would have needed to do is take the raw input to the inverter and step it down or up and possibly filter it. how very naive i am.

 

Stop by in the M4400 thread, they all rave about it, as for the resolution - WUXGA i.e. 1920x1200. When someone get all the hardware and start soldering, only then we'll know how "easy" it would be

 

is ti view able, perhaps it looks tiny like on cell phone screen?

 

There is no way how to tell you, you have to see it. The text would be almost 3 times smaller than what you currently have. That's just rough estimation, as I said, you have to see it for yourself.

 

Another take on some of the info in the topic:

I've reminded myself why 2 inverters are no-go - there is simply not enough room. I'll have to cut a handful of things in order to make some room, which would result in flimsy bezel, which is not something I would like. So for me it is - our inverter driving single lamp, or modified dual lamp inverter. So far no luck with the second.

After some digging it seems that they are indeed back-light related. The good news is that most of the LCD back-light control chips have both inputs, so it could be overridden if needed. Hopefully

 

:thumbsup:

 

Any news from the dual lamp inverter for the 5920G?
Got a Samsung LTN154XB-L01 plus it's original inverter and would be great if I could make it work with my 5920G

 

Nothing new from me. I guess this is Sony inverter, if so it should be 6 pin. You could try to put your connector to the left, leaving pin 6 unoccupied. But just to be sure that we wont fry anything, better post the P/N of this inverter.

 

Thanks for the prompt reply,
Yes it is a SONY inverter and yes it is a 6 pin while the 5920G I think it has 5. Do you have a pinout of both headers?
I am not sure I would risk to fry the 5920G unless I know what I am doing, maybe I will settle with 1 CCFL driven by the 5920G inverter.

 

Yes, I was comparing both inverters, but I can't remember the exact pin-out. I'm pretty certain that if you plug it this way it's OK. Maybe I had bad luck and got two faulty inverters, but neither of them did the trick for me. So you are more or less safe to try, there is always some risk though, so it's up to you.

 

I did the panel swap, original panel was the B154EW08 V1 and the one I used was the LTN154XB-L01.
New panel looks great, no more washed out colors. Regarding the inverter, I took my chances and tried using the dual CCFL inverter of the LTN154XB-L01, original cable with male 5 pin header was placed at the extreme left side of the inverter's 6 pin header. I noticed a very dim "ACER" logo left it for some seconds and then switched it off. I didn't dare to go further at this point. Then I used the inverter that was installed in the 5920G and drove the pink wired CCFL and got a nice picture, more or less as bright as the original panel. Then tried the blue wired CCFL which might gave a bit more brightness so I left that one.
New panel is fantastic, I believe if there would have been a way to have both CCFL tubes working it would have been even better but in any case it was worth the effort. It also required a bit of grinding at the bottom side of the hinge as the 2 CCFL panel is around 3mm taller but at the end I got it in. Also I did not place on the panel the top tab with 2 screws as I didn't want to risk damaging it.
For your info the dual CCFL that didn't work had markings TW934V-0 and MPVK003 chip was the BD9828.

 

If it was going to burn something it would have did it straight away, so no worries to leave it longer It's pointless though, the dim logo means that either you have faulty inverter, or more likely that 5920 can't supply enough power, which is sad. It also means that even if you split the cable and connect two inverters it wont work as well.
That's exactly the inverter I got as well.
Well, be happy with the panel even with single lamp, it's a nice one

 

I believe the inverter is good but there might have been an issue with type and/or correct connection. I made some measurements on the new inverter and it seems that pins 1 and 2 are connected together and also pins 5 and 6. That leaves 4 signals to be needed, probably the: +, -, enable, adjust. Not sure if both inverters are using the same method of adjusting, e.g PWM.
If I had the pinout of both headers and maybe some info about the inverters I would be willing to give it one more try as i would like to have the full potential of the panel. Any help is appreciated.

 

That's why I said that our connector to the left is what we need. Pin 1 and 2 are 19v on both inverters. Also pin 5 and pin 5 and 6 are GND. I'll try to find the exact pin-out with the required voltage as well, but for me 5920 can't supply enough power. It's a bit strange though since it's directly connected to the power source.

 

If it is directly connected to 19V power cannot be an issue. I guess it must be pinout then or different brightness adjustment method. Waiting for your pinout info.

 

Here they are: 5920's and Sony's pin-out.

 

Thanks,
I hope I will run some tests tomorrow and I will report back.

 

I was wondering if any of you all ever got the pin out schematics for the LTN154CT04-D01 or the M4400. I am trying to put the LTN154CT04 on a Dell Vostro 1520 as the final upgrade and cannot find the pin outs for either the lcd screen or the M4400 connector.

 

There is a reverse engineered pin-out link on page 2 of this topic. I can't guarantee that it's 100% correct, but that's the best we have about this display. Good luck and share the results!