ThinkPad T430s WQHD Upgrade – Part 2.5

It feels like it’s been a while since my last post here.  A recap from the previous WQHD T430s post, the AUO screen that I received had a light bleed defect in it. It wasn’t a huge problem but for the cost of a new screen, I wanted a display with no defects. I returned the screen and decided to test my luck with the LG LP140QH1SPB1 display.

I was really excited that this time around everything would be smooth like butter.  I was wrong.

Let’s start off with the fitment of the LG LP140QH1 SPB1 compared to the AUO B140QAN01.5 panel.

The top mounting points on both panels fit perfectly. Both panels can utilize the factory top screw mounting points without issues.

The bottom two panel mount points on both displays don’t fit but the AUO display is much closer to fitting then the LG panel.  Unfortuinately I didn’t take pictures of the AUO display but take my word. With some precision and a dremel, you could slighly widen the AUO bottom mount holes and they should work fine.

The LG display required me to shave off some extra plastic that prevent the panel from sitting flush in the housing.

Let’s look at a few images I took while installing the LG panel.

The first image shows two things. All four mounting points on the bezel housing have two ways of securing the panel in place(see red arrow). The first method is the screw. The second method is a plastic nipple that is right beside the screw point. This nipple helps allign and seat the panel into it’s spot, allowing the screw to be threaded in properly.  The AUO panel, each mounting tab has two wholes.  The LG panel only has one hole per mount point.

The second issue shown in the first image is marked in the yellow arrow.  There was a tiny plastic piece that was used in securing the front display bezel. With that plastic clip, I was unable to lay the display down as it was pushing up against the panel circuit board. I had to remove it and with that out of the way, the circuit board didn’t have pressure on it.

The second image, with the yellow box shows the plastic clip that I had to break off.

The third image shows the usual mounting points (2 securing methods per mount).

The fourth image shows a better angle of the left mount point that was discussed in the first image.

 

The two images above are of the right side. The right side also presented almost the same problems with seating the panel into the display housing.

The image on the left shows outlined in a red box the plastic nipple that is used for the secondary securing method. This had to be removed also for the panel to sit as flush as possible.

The right image shows the panel sitting much closer to the mount point, with that plastic nipple removed.  Sorry about the low quality photos and angles. I do what I can with what I have.

Now that we have the panel sitting properly, I decided to turn on the T430s and see how the panel works.   Before we get further into this, I want to make a note that I did turn on the display initially before doing any modifications. The display looked fine but I didn’t test it with anything white open on the screen, which tends to show imperfections I find.

With that laptop loaded into Windows 10, I opened up This PC and was disappointed with my finding.

Looking at the panel with a white background, you can see white marks on the panel in multiple spots. This sucked bad.  I went over all the connections and made sure nothing was causing this. I even removed the front display bezel but it didn’t help.  This wasn’t an issue of the panel being sandwiched too tight in the housing. It was just another screen defect.

I use the factory Windows 10 dark blue/black background and upon loading up, you wouldn’t notice this instantly. Eventually it would become visible through regular operation.

Well that’s it for now. I shipped the panel back yet again to this other ebay seller. I had a complete refund of the screen (including return shipping fee) and now I’m back to where I started.

I’m concerned about buying the AUO B140QAN01.5 screen and I won’t buy the LG one anymore.  I’ve contacted the seller of the AUO screen that I purchased before, asking if they got a new shipment of panels. The response I received:

Hi,
We’re sorry to tell you that this model screen is new,all have a little light leakage on the middle of the left and right side.
We asked many of our suplier,they all said this screen have this problem.
Thanks for your time and patience.
Have a good day!
Tina

Bummer 🙁

Looking at this post here, I may just purchase the AUO B140QAN01.1 and give that a whirl.

Back to the drawing board.