Has anyone ever replaced their laptop monitor?

[TrantaLocked]

I almost went through with it with my previous cheap laptop but realized it wouldn't be worth it on an 11.6 inch screen.

 

But now I have another cheap laptop with a 15.6 inch screen, 1366x768 resolution with what appears to be no better than 60% sRGB gamut. I will probably need to buy a 2-lane eDP cable as I'm guessing HP's stock cable is only 1-lane, but the display output (Pentium N5000 with UHD 605) uses at least DP 1.2 which allows for the screen types I want to look into, possibly even 1080p 144hz.

 

The laptop model is an HP 15-bs234wm. I got it quite cheap used in great condition, did optimization in stripping down Windows to a minimum and put in my SSD from a long dead gaming laptop and now the thing zips as much as I need for web browsing. The screen is honestly pretty bad. I'd also like to light keyboard somehow. Do glow stickers make practical sense?

 

I'm looking for tips from anyone who's done this before. 

[Mnky313]

4 minutes ago, TrantaLocked said:

I almost went through with it with my previous cheap laptop but realized it wouldn't be worth it on an 11.6 inch screen.

 

But now I have another cheap laptop with a 15.6 inch screen, 1366x768 resolution with what appears to be no better than 60% sRGB gamut. I will probably need to buy a 2-lane eDP cable as I'm guessing HP's stock cable is only 1-lane, but the CPU/output (Pentium N5000) uses at least DP 1.2 which allows for the screen types I want to look into, possibly even 1080p 144hz.

 

The laptop model is an HP 15-bs234wm. I got it quite cheap used in great condition, did optimization in stripping down Windows to a minimum and put in my SSD from a long dead gaming laptop and now the thing zips as much as I need for web browsing. The screen is honestly pretty bad. I'd also like to light keyboard somehow. Do glow stickers make practical sense?

 

I'm looking for tips from anyone who's done this before. 

Keyboard is easy, just get a ~$25 replacement backlit keyboard (eBay Link)
Screen is tricky (or maybe not):
I believe the cable itself (a DC02002WZ00 rev 3.0) is used in 1080p laptops, so I assume the cable is capable of 2 lanes but i have no idea if the laptop can use both lanes.  The only thing you could do is try it.
(here is a 120hz screen with fast shipping and free returns that should be compatible)

[TrantaLocked]

2 minutes ago, Mnky313 said:

Keyboard is easy, just get a ~$25 replacement backlit keyboard (eBay Link)
Screen is tricky (or maybe not):
I believe the cable itself (a DC02002WZ00 rev 3.0) is used in 1080p laptops, so I assume the cable is capable of 2 lanes but i have no idea if the laptop can use both lanes.  The only thing you could do is try it.
(here is a 120hz screen with fast shipping and free returns that should be compatible)

Uhh...that's the most god level reply I've ever seen. I'm still confused with my luck in seeing this reply so quickly.

[Mnky313]

1 minute ago, TrantaLocked said:

Uhh...that's the most god level reply I've ever seen. I'm still confused with my luck in seeing this reply so quickly.

Thanks, You don't want to know how much stuff I had to look through to find the 120hz panel for my M6700 XD

[TrantaLocked]

23 minutes ago, Mnky313 said:

Thanks, You don't want to know how much stuff I had to look through to find the 120hz panel for my M6700 XD

I can't find a single 1080p laptop using that cable.

[Mnky313]

4 hours ago, TrantaLocked said:

I can't find a single 1080p laptop using that cable.

The HP 250 G6 can be upgraded to 1080p with that cable still in use (that's the original one I saw), I can't confirm if the laptop supports 2 lanes though, but afaik the cable should be made to be able to use 2 lanes.

 

[TrantaLocked]

Edit 4: The upgrade to the NV156FHM-N4B worked in my HP 15-bs234wm with stock eDP cable! Important info on compatibility issue with this display and laptop model: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/my-interesting-path-in-panel-upgrading-finding-the-the-boe-nv156fhm-n4b.827021/page-5#post-10988642

And it looks great, can't even tell the difference in response time (8ms vs 16ms). Contrast and colors are amazing. I just can't go too high of a brightness or I would get occasional black screen, probably because it pulls more wattage than the stock screen but it could be something like a voltage or timing issue. I expected this to be an issue though so I'm not disappointed. It will also occasionally give a black screen if too much of the screen has a saturated color as I described in my posts on notebookreview.com. You can fix the black screen issues by going to color management, and calibrating display and lower each color slider by about 25 notches, and use the ICC profile. It prevents the black screen issue when the screen is too populated by certain types of shades of color. It may be possible to fix the color bug black screen by using a different eDP cable or by modifying the stock cable so each power pin (26-29) gets its own individual wire I'm still not sure the root cause.

 

After a couple weeks using the new display I'm fine with the occasional black screen bug. It only happens with the rare website that has a lot of solid red/blue/ etc or an occasional YouTube video with some frames with a high amount of saturated colors. I can go hours without it happening once so it's a pretty rare bug, but when it does happen be prepared to alt-tab to another window to see what you're doing. My adblocker allows me to block parts of websites permantently even after I reloaded them, so I can block the solid color banners on the problem websites. I would say about 1% of websites will have trouble so again it's extremely rare and can be fixed with the ICC profile if desired despite the luminance range being decreased.

 

------------------------------------------------------

 

Edit 3: I've examined the wiring in the stock cable thoroughly and can confirm it is wired for 2-lanes and should support a good amount of 1080p screens. The backlit keyboard and 8GB RAM upgrades worked. The NV156FHM-N4B display is coming soon and I'll update later. 

 

 

On 10/25/2019 at 9:43 AM, Mnky313 said:

The HP 250 G6 can be upgraded to 1080p with that cable still in use (that's the original one I saw), I can't confirm if the laptop supports 2 lanes though, but afaik the cable should be made to be able to use 2 lanes.

 

It's possible HP swaps the cable for assembly when upgrading. When I looked at models with that cable, they were all 1366x768. I looked at like 20 HP models. If I get a screen I will want to buy a cable with it that also has the antenna. Also I can't find a way to upgrade that model to a 1080p screen on HPs website. How do you know it uses that cable and how do you know it has been used with a 1080p screen?

 

Edit:

 

I'm in the process of buying parts for a full upgrade to this laptop. The attempted upgrades will be one stick of 8GB RAM, a backlit keyboard from ebay, and a 1080p 120Hz panel from AUO. I additionally needed to order a proper 2-lane EDP cable that was 30-pin to 30-pin, so before I get the screen in the mail I will test the new cable (6017B0975601) with my current screen. 

 

I expect the RAM upgrade to go smoothly. The keyboard upgrade should also work, but the replacement is difficult because it requires the breaking of about 20 plastic rivets that hold the keyboard shield in place. There's also a chance I'm firmware locked out of using the backlight functionality even though the motherboard does have the 4-pin port for the backlight cable. The screen has the most chance of going wrong: either the exact pinout HP used for signal output is unique and may not translate correctly to some screens, or I'm firmware locked out of either using a different screen or using a higher resolution screen. UHD Graphics 605 supports up to 4K 60Hz so it's up to HP to block compatibility. The screen will be the AUO B156HAN04.5, quite a good 120Hz 1080p panel that can be found for $70-$100 ignoring the fake "compatible" listings that go cheaper.

 

Edit2: Image below of the stock cable, DC02002WZ00 rev 3.0. These are the pins that appear be connected to the terminal connector that goes into the motherboard eDP slot. Pinout for normal eDP connector is on page 9 of this document. Pins 3, 4, 6 and 7 are usually used for the data lanes in a 2-lane configuration for 1080p. The thing is that while the numbering 1-30 should be correct, I don't know if some of those wires are just there but not actually soldered to the connector, mainly because It's hard for me to believe it will be as easy as just using the stock cable XD! I guess this could happen if HP wanted to order the same cable but only solder some of the wires to prevent upgrades, doesn't seem very practical though. 

 

What could also be happening is maybe if HP did a custom pinout they are using those second lane data pins (pin 3 and 4) for the webcam (which needs the 6-pin cable) and not for the 2-pin pair for the second data lane to a monitor. I don't really know exactly which pins on the cable are allowed to be used as data to the webcam, but I assume an HP engineer would decide to use other pins for the webcam and not the ones usually used for the second monitor data lane. I'm not sure though, I really just have to try the cable and find out. But to be clear, if the pinout on the motherboard is "standard," and if those wires are indeed properly connected as expected, then it should mean this cable is 1080p capable as pins 3, 4, 6 and 7 are all connected. Any pin not connected with a black line is unused.