Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
I recently broke the screen on my 900X3C and, when looking for a replacement screen, noticed that the lid assembly on the newer FHD models (900X3E, 900X3F, 900X3G) looked mechanically identical to the older versions of the 13" Series 9 (900X3B, 900X3C, 900X3D).
After having watched a discouraging screen replacement video on youtube (lot's of glue etc.), I decided to buy the whole lid assembly rather than just the panel.
I then managed to find an ebay listing that was selling the newer FHD assembly for what I'd normally pay for just the panel (AUD 250), so I took the risk and ordered the newer FHD part.
Apart from the nice resolution increase, the FHD Boe AFFS screen has 74% sRGB coverage compared to the older Samsung PLS panel's 63%, according to notebookcheck.
The screen arrived today, and although externally everything looks the same like the HD+ screen, it doesn't power up.
I have another 900X3C at home and verified that the port on my laptop's MB is ok, as the screen from the other laptop works great.
To me it looks like Samsung is probably whitelisting the screen type that can be used with the X3C in the firmware/BIOS.
I have never done any EDID updates before, but perhaps the panel can be programmed to identify itself as the old screen, while staying at the FHD resolution?
I'll see what I can do. If anyone has any pointers how to approach this challenge, they would be much appreciated.
If I fail, I have a brand new 13" FHD Series 9 top lid assembly for sale in Melbourne (and also an i7 3517U X3C with a screen where only the bottom half sort-of works)
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EDIT: IT WORKS!
I must have not seated the connector well initially. The screen now works beautifully at the native 1920x1080 resolution, out of the box.
I first tried getting the EDID value of the original screen in Linux using get-edid (it was outputting quite a lot of garbage, with only the Samsung and panel ID being legible). Then I connected the new screen to see what value it would read out (if any) and to my surprise it displayed a funny line pattern for the first 10 seconds and then it just sprung into action showing the Linux Mint desktop. Will try Windows now.
So for anyone who damage their 1600x900 screen, it looks like going straight for the FHD screen or lid assembly might now be the preferred option. Especially since it's often cheaper than the original one.
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EDIT2: Now I pulled away the plastic foil protector sheet and can notice slight vertical banding in Linux.
Unfortunately Windows doesn't play well yet and is displaying colourful garbage stripes similar to what my broken screen looks like. When I connect an external display and select the 'mirror' option, it doesn't advertise any resolutions over 1600x900. So maybe Windows is just expecting the old screen. I'll see if a fresh install would fix it.
Also, the BIOS screens are displaying garbage. Which could be a big issue (potentially inaccesible BIOS setup).
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Edit3: Banding in Linux (visible on dark gray background) was due to a temporary burn-in of the garbage colours from boot and Windows. After I left the laptop running Windows for 30 minutes with the internal screen disabled, and booted to Linux mint without spending too much time on the Grub boot screen, there's no banding and the screen looks beautiful again.
Interestingly the banding was only visible on a gray background, when I moved a white window over the area, there were no vertical lines at all (perhaps due to all pixels being transitioned to a fully "cranked up" rgb(255,255,255) state?).
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search keywords:
13" Series 9 screen replacement/upgrade from HD+ 1600x900 (900X3B, 900X3C, 900X3D) to FHD 1920x1080 (900X3E, 900X3F, 900X3G)
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The Windows (10) installer has the same scrambled screen issues as the BIOS/POST screen, Grub menu and Windows 8.1 that's already installed.
It looks like Linux (Linux Mint) is not relying on the screen/graphics data supplied by the BIOS and instead initialises its graphics stack more independently, and that's why the screen works there.
As it doesn't seem to be possible to force BIOS/POST output onto an external display on the Series 9 laptops neither by the Fn+F4 shortcut nor closing the lid immediately after start (at least not using the Mini HDMI port, maybe the Mini VGA would be different), making the BIOS settings effectively inaccessible, and as I also need Windows to work on the built-in screen, it is important to solve the scrambled screen issue. I believe there are two possible strategies:
1) Do a BIOS mod on the AAC bios to include settings for the FHD panel as used in the 900X3E (BIOS P**ABK) or 900X3F (BIOS P**ACX) models.
Not sure how to do this yet, as I've never done BIOS mods before, but I already have the 3 different ROM packages if anyone is willing to help.
2) Try to flash the ABK BIOS directly on the X3C, hoping that it will not brick the laptop. The background thinking is that since Samsung did a Win7->Win8 transition on the 900X4C, changing the BIOS platform from AAC to ABK while having kept the hardware revision the same, it is possible that the ABK BIOS might be compatible with the 900X3C devices and the only reason that Samsung is not offering it is because, for example, the ABK might contain SLIC tables with the OEM Win8 preinstall license activation keys. And if they offered this BIOS to the Win7 crowd, it would effectively mean giving them an option for a free Win8 upgrade?
It seems that the bios platforms/familes are AA* for Win7, AB* for Win8 and AC* for Win8.1. Flashing the AB would be the safest bet as the AC family (used for the X3F) may no longer have have support for the older X3C hardware (soldered Atheros WLAN chip instead of Intel 6235 card etc.).
If anyone knows more about BIOS than I do (basically nothing), I'd appreciate your comments about the viability of strategy 1 vs strategy 2.
BIOS POST screen:
Grub menu:
Windows 8.1 loading screen:
Linux Mint with temporary banding:
Linux Mint no banding:
X3G Boe AFFS panel assembly slightly (~1mm) thicker than X3C Samsung PLS lid assy:
duttyend likes this. -
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Yes, good read as member oled said. Thank you for sharing.
I like your logic regarding option (2) of trying to jump from AAC to ABK family BIOS, though it contains a lot more changes than just the SLIC: It's an entirely different UEFI implementation (including SecureBoot) for one. I think samsung could have released an ABK update without the Win8 certificates if they wanted, but since those early Win8-compliant BIOS versions were far more complex and buggy (many bricks and warranty repairs and returns) they had little incentive to push them to stable AAC computers.
I am afraid I cannot provide any detailed input to this project
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The AAC->ABK interchangeability hypothesis would be best tested on an X4C by either downgrading from ABK to AAC if it's a later-release laptop, or upgrading from AAC->ABK if it came out with Win7.
Trying this on the 'borderline' X4C should theoretically be less risky than X3E->X3C (or X3D). I wonder if John R. would be willing to experiment with his device? My hunch is that the hardware was exactly the same all along. (But still trying other options, and trying to learn more about the BIOSes before I'm willing to risk the flash on my device...)
I also read that it's possible to flash the ROM using an EEPROM programming device if the laptop is 'bricked'. Maybe someone with access to that could try the cross-generation bios upgrade/downgrade experiment, as they'd have means to recover from potential issues.duttyend likes this. -
Just for the record: I would NOT recommend neither AAC->ABK upgrade nor ABK-AAC downgrade for ANY users with a working laptop which they value. And I would be MORE skeptical about the downgrade, since it would most likely bork the existing UEFI/GPT Win8.x installation due to the completely different UEFI implementation.
This is an experiment for someone with access to an EPROM writer (as you say) and/or someone with a broken laptop and little or nothing to lose (which I though was you )
We only had a single case here (that I remember) of someone re-writing his BIOS using an external EPROM writer, which was an AB8. Samsung routinely replace motherboards with corrupted BIOS's, instead of re-flashing, which I would think must be cheaper whenever it's feasible. -
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SUCCESS!
BIOS and Windows are now also running fine using the 1920x1080 BOE AFFS panel, on NP900X3C Linux was fine all along. Brightness shortcuts work fine etc.
This was achieved by replacing the 5 occurrences of the original panel's DTD sequence (part of EDID) in the AAC BIOS with the DTD sequence of the BOE panel.
How to:
1) Downgrade your BIOS to something older, following the guide in http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/696197-samsung-laptops-roll-back-bios-updates.html . I used P04AAC (ITEM_20120825_636_WIN_P04AAC.exe).
2) Download the P07AAC BIOS update .EXE file (ITEM_20131127_21276_WIN_P07AAC.exe).
3) Run the 07 exe (as Admin IIRC), but DON'T click OK or Cancel, but rather ALT-TAB to a different application.
4) Go to c:\Users\[yourname]\AppData\Local\Temp\__Samsung_Update
5) Copy out P07AAC.rom to a directory of your choice (e.g. c:\_biosupdate), once that's done, go back to the BIOS updater window and click Cancel (this deletes the files in __Samsung_Update with the exception of a log file)
6) Download PhoenixTool Tool to Insert/Replace SLIC in Phoenix / Insyde / Dell / EFI BIOSes
7) Download a Hex editor e.g. XVI32 Freeware Hex Editor XVI32
8) Unpack and start PhoenixTool and at the top of the window, click the ... on the right of the Original BIOS field and load the P07AAC.rom file from the location where you saved it (this creates a DUMP directory under e.g. c:\_biosupdate, and pops up a dialog about SLIC files, which you dismiss by OKing it)
9) Select Manufacturer: Other
10) At the bottom click the now clickable Advanced button, click "Yes I'm SURE" and on the right in Control Options tick everything up to No SLIC,(i.e. "Ask prior..", "Allow user mod..", "Always allow...", "Allow user..", "Extract modules..." and "No SLIC"), then click the Done button.
11) Click the Go button at bottom left, wait a little
12) A dialog pops up "You can now make manual alterations to any module in the DUMP directory". DON'T CLICK OK JUST YET!, but ALT-TAB away.
13) Go to the DUMP directory, and e.g. using Total Commander's search function (ALT+F7), search for files that contain the DTD of the original screen by using the first ~8 characters of the DTD: 40 C0 60 84 20 (don't forget to check HEX in the search options), this should come up with a list of 5 files - 2 .ROM files and 3 .BIOS files.
14) Open them one by one in a Hex editor like XVI32 and replace the occurrences of
38 27 40 C0 60 84 20 30 30 20 25 00 25 A5 10 00 00 19 (note the 19 at the end, which is different from the 18 from the monitor EDID... unless I originally mistyped it) and
38 27 40 C0 60 84 20 30 30 20 25 00 4C BB 10 00 00 19
by the BOE panel DTD:
36 36 80 A0 70 38 20 40 30 20 35 00 26 A5 10 00 00 1A
and save those changes.
15) When you're done, perform the search in the directory again. It's possible that the BIOS6.BIOS file reverted to its original value. If that's the case, reapply the replacement and save. It seems that BIOS6.BIOS must be the last file that's being changed.
16) ALT-TAB back to PhoenixTool, now click OK (and OK any dialogs that come up), this will generate a P07AAC_SLIC.rom file with your changes (or no changes if you clicked OK too soon...)
17) Close PhoenixTool, copy the new custom .ROM file somewhere else, open it with PhoenixTool, and verify in the DUMP directory that there's no occurrence of the old DTD string(s), and that the new DTD string is correct in the 5 files.
18) If all is OK, go to wherever you downloaded the original ITEM_20131127_21276_WIN_P07AAC.exe and start it (might need Run as Administrator), but DON'T click OK or Cancel!
19) Go to c:\Users\[uname]\AppData\Local\Temp\__Samsung_Update and replace the P07AAC.rom file there with your version (you need to rename it so that it doesn't have the _SLIC suffix).
20) ALT-TAB back to the updater application and click OK
21) For me the update was quite quick: ~1 minute in a command prompt window that showed a progress bar of blocks being updated. When this finished I got a popup that the computer needs to Shutdown and start again. I clicked OK and the computer was stuck on the "Shutting down" screen for about 7 minutes, but eventually restarted. The Windows logo on start was then stuck for ages, too, so I just killed that by holding the power button. The next start was fast.
This hack was obviously only possible thanks to the great community and the wealth of knowledge of the notebookreview forums. Without that I'd never have taken the few risks that have eventually proven fruitful, and would have just sold the laptop or got the original 900p screen. Thanks guys! :thumbsup:BigNerd042, zam0, apa64 and 3 others like this. -
I am impressed.
And thank you for posting the detailed instructions in case anyone else wants to travel down the same path.
John -
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Thanks for your kind words guys. I feel like those Thinkpad guys with their "Frankenpads", but with a much better screen
Manxman likes this. -
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Goal: upgrade older 13" Series 9 screen from HD+ 1600x900 to FHD 1920x1080
Discussion in 'Samsung' started by obiuquido144, Oct 6, 2014.
