Acquired (older) Gateway M-6866, cracked 1280x800 screen. Single-channel cable. 1440x900 possible?

Someone has given me their old Gateway M-6866 laptop, with a cracked screen. I took out the LCD panel, and it is a 1280x800 Chi-Mei N154I3-L03 Rev.C1 panel.

The cable has a 30-pin connector, but a number of the pins are absent, so it is not a full dual-channel cable and will not support higher resolutions. However, I am wondering if a 1440x900 LCD panel will be compatible with this laptop, and if it would be compatible with the single-channel cable. Is 1440x900 low enough of a resolution for a single-channel cable?

If so, do you have any recommendations for which model of 15.4" 1440x900 LCD to get? It must have a CCFL backlight, and it should preferably have an above-average contrast ratio.

If not, would you happen to know of a particular model of 15.4" 1280x800 LCD with good contrast? The contrast on this Chi-Mei panel is terrible.

Notes: I have tried a 14.1" 1024x768 LCD from an IBM Thinkpad T41, and a 15" 1600x1200 IPS LCD from an IBM Thinkpad T42p. The T41 panel worked, but the T42p panel did not due to the high resolution and single-channel cable. No image was displayed, but the backlight did turn on. Obviously none of these are suitable replacements due to the different aspect ratio.

EDIT: I found the AUO B154PW02 as a possible contender, but the datasheet states "Electrical Interface: 2 Channel LVDS"

I found the LG LP154WP1(TL)(A1) too, but the datasheet seems to mention it also requires dual-channel, just in a more vague way.

 

I'm not sure if this will help you. I had the ML3108 (14.1") before. It had a screen resolution of 1280x800. I was able to test with it a couple of 17.1" (1440x900) screens. The tests were done with the laptop's factory display cable and inverter.

 

Alright thanks. I have an old cracked 17" 1440x900 LCD I forgot I had. I'll try it out.

On a note, it also turns out that the cable associated with this 1440x900 LCD is dual-channel, and it seems to have the exact same connectors as the one in this Gateway. I'll test out the new cable with the higher res LCD again. The cable and screen are from an old HP zd8000 with a fried GPU.

 

are the gateway and the hp cables the same ????

 

I think the display connector is a standard laptop display LVDS connector. Backlight connections vary a bit more across manufacturers.

 

The inverter connector is the same, and the display connector is the same except without any missing pins.

I haven't checked the motherboard connector yet though, but I will when I get off work.

And if I get this dual-channel cable working, I'm probably going to go all out 1920x1200 on this laptop. Could anyone recommend a good place to buy a (genuine) glossy LG LP154WU1? I don't want a Samsung counterpart. I don't care too much about cost, as long as it's not over $150. And I'll be using this screen in other laptops if this laptop dies.

 

People on this forum have had success with screencountry.com. They have very reasonable prices. I went through eBay personally and it was alright.

 

People have also gotten badly scammed by screencountry.com

Now why would you say a thing like that when you know full well neither of them are manufacturers

I think this gateway was manufactured by Arima. Now they are owned by Acer which contracts Compal and inventec, just like HP.
But that still doesn't mean a thing if any of the said brands tell their manufacturers to revise their connectors or pinouts because people are starting to figure them out.

 

How could I forget such a fact... not good

This is aside, what are the manufacturers that make their own laptops: Acer, Toshiba, Asus, MSI. Who else?

By the way what is the difference between a single and a dual channel? I tried to looking up in google last night but didn't find anything instructive?

 

This one looks good, it's from a brand new laptop: LG Philips LP154WU1 (TL)(C2) 15.4in. WUXGA LCD Display | eBay

 

That one's matte though. I have the matte version of the LG LP154WU1 in my Dell Latitude D820, and the matte layer really takes away from the vibrancy.

 

You might be able to find a dual backlit model and replace the inverter. I have one but its hitachi and doesn't work on any of my laptops.

This is just because of the brand whitelisting or EDID however, which you could likely get past with and easy BIOS mod.
Its not a matter of it being compatible...
If you uninstall the original LCD and install a screen with unsupported EDID while the laptop is on standby it will work perfectly (unless the resolution is different)
I've definitely seen some LG and Samsung models however, I'll see if I can find some.

Hehe

Acer isn't a manufacturer, like I said... the 5720, 5320, 7320, 7520, 7720, 5520 are compal, the 6920, 5920 stuff like that are inventec.
The boards tend to be pretty obviously blue on compals and green on inventec. (wow I just got into looking at these mobos again, you can get an mxm 2.1 ii one now for like 40$)

Yea, MSI, Clevo, Asus, Toshiba, Lenovo for the most part are ODMs. Then Arima and all the weird ones of course.

Back on topic, the dual channel vs single channel is a pretty strange thing... Most cables are 30 pin, this means nothing. I used to think 40 pin was what made something dual channel.

Dual channel is just 2 lines of LVDS, all thats needed for pretty much all higher resolutions.
Here's were it gets weird, this one is 30 pin too. The actual number of pins for 1 LVDS line is 15. So this is just a cable that only has half of the pins filled.
Of course its pretty doubtful you'd see a 40 pin cable with only 15 wires, and 20 pin are all limited to single lvds.

 

Thanks for the clarifications