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Electronics Laptop LCD hack translation available!

Discussion in 'Modding' started by smoguzbenjamin, 8 Aug 2006.

  1. smoguzbenjamin

    smoguzbenjamin "That guy"

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    I just finished translating the document found at http://gathering.tweakers.net/forum/list_messages/799377/, the problem was, it's Dutch. Our community is mostly english. Well, with an English dad and a Dutch mum I speak both languages fluently so I've translated to give something back to the community. Sorry if it's allready been translated, but here it comes: :D




    How-to

    I assume you know how to solder and can find stuff like PSU’s etc. I claim no responsibility for any damages either to your stuff or yourself (or your girlfriend), perform this hack at your own risk.

    Here’s the plan:

    Step 1: Select an LCD.

    Laptop LCD’s are preferable. The LCD must be colour, if you hack one out of the late 486 – early P2 era you have most chance at getting a working LCD. Don’t destroy the device the LCD is in yet, but take care to note down any numbers that you come across. You might need them further down the road.

    Step 2: Find the LCD’s pinout


    There’s a really good chance that you simply can’t find it. Sorry, sh*t happens. You can try e-mailing het manufacturer but as far as I know they’re not exactly good at responding. If you can’t find the datasheet, you can try deriving the pinout from anouter document. It’s what I had to do with my LCD

    You know you have a good LCD if you can find seperate digital inputs for Red, Green, and Blue. In my case this was 3 lines for each colour, these numbers may vary on your LCD though. If you see 4, 8, or 16 datalines labelled things like ‘ud’ or ‘data’ or other things that don’t looke like they’re referring to colours you might as well forget it. Also, you need to check what voltage the PSU needs and what the IO lines can take. They have tob e able to handle 5V, otherwise you need to muck around with level converters. If you’re not sure you can go on if you realy want to, but you stand a chance of blowing everything (IE the LCD, videocard and maybe more) up.

    Next to the LCD you usually have the inverter for the backlight, usually a small PCB with 2 or 4 wires running to 1 or 2 CCFLs in the LCD. Usually you can figure these out with a bit or logical deduction and/or measuring. It’s a good idea to get these going at one point as otherwise you’re not going to be able to see much!

    Step 3: Find an old VGA-card.

    Obviously you don’t want to blow up your expensive GPU (original author wrote ‘3dfx VooDoo GeForce Radeon 6-3000 Ultra Pro, lol) Apart from that I’m not sure if the VESA Feature Connector will work on those cards. So buy an old PCI VGA card. It does, however need a VESA Feature Connector, you can recognize these easily, look for a 26-pin 2-row connector on the card.

    Step 4: Mix & match and more than anything: solder.

    Ok, now we’re going to match the LCD’s pins to the VESA connector. Most of the pinouts of this little port on the web are downright wrong. The topmost table at http://sprite.student.utwente.nl/~jeroen/projects/lcd-vfc/vfc.txt does work however.

    Ok, so what connects to what?
    Code:
    (display) 			                  (vesa feature connector) 
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    R0 (or the most important red wire)		  	Pixel Data 0 
    G0 (or the most important green wire) 		        Pixel data 1
    B0 (or the most important blue wire) 			Pixel data 2
    R1,G1 en B1 (secondmost important colour wires)  	Pixel data 3
    HSync (or LP or row strobe) 				HSync 
    VSync (or YD FLM or screen strobe/refresh) 		VSync 
    CLK (or something with ‘clock’ or ‘CLK’ in it) 		Dot Clock (DCLK) 
    ENAB (or 'display enable' or 'disp' or similar) 	+5v or hsync or gnd 
    Of course you’ll need to supply power to the display and inverter, how is entirely up to you.

    Step 5: Connect and be amazed.

    If you connect it all up and turn on your computer you should get a picture. If not, check the ‘enable’ line, maybe it’s not connected properly. If the image isn’t stable and flickers you have to turn the Hsync or Vsync polarity upside-down, either through software or by putting a logical inverter on none of the lines. If the image isn’t centered, you can usually solve this with software. The alternative is creating some sort of delay line in the Hsync and/or Vsync lines.

    One last thing: this hack only Works in 16-colour mode. Not 16-bit, no, 16-colour. 4-bits. If you’re wondering if that’s what’s wrong with your output, check the BIOS setup menu. It’s usually 16-colours and should be legible.



    So that's the translation! Enjoy.
    PS: All the text is the author's original work, I simply translated it. I don't make any claims towards it's accuracy, nor do I have any experience with this hack so please don't email me asking questions.
     
  2. coorz

    coorz Miffed

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  3. smoguzbenjamin

    smoguzbenjamin "That guy"

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    Damn, didn't know you'd allready translated it coorz, sorry. And besides, if you're translating the same document, I'm not surprised that the outcome is similar ;) Any case, the translation's there so people can read it. That's what it's about.
     
  4. Cosmot

    Cosmot What's a Dremel?

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    I'm just having the worst luck with Laptops. The one I have been using is having a display problem. So I whipped about my old ECS Desknote that has been out of comission for a few years. Just for kicks I reseated everything and replaced the old hard drive. I also turned down the cpu clock because I suspected overheating was leading to problems. I was shocked when I got it to work! I was so excited I had a new laptop to use and to replace the one with the display problem. About 5 minutes ago the knocked it off my desk....took a nice 3 foot fall onto some tile. I feel like such a nub...:(
     

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