I wanted to upgrade the resolution of my laptop screen recently but couldn’t find any resources in the ASUS forums or elsewhere online of anyone who had done it previously. The other requirement I had was that I wanted to not only go for a piecemeal ‘next resolution up’, I wanted to go all the way WUXGA (1920×1200) if possible.
The tech specs on the ASUS website for the M51SN only stated they supported screens up to WSXGA (1600×1050) but I did come across a laptop reseller p4laptops that was offering the model with an aftermarket WUXGA upgrade. This got my hopes up that I could support the change.
Unfortunately the laptop LCD reseller websites I listed, only provided panels for the M51SN up to WSXGA if you were lucky. Some were really bad only offering WXGA panels for this model – I certainly didn’t want that given I had a WXGA+ already.
I ended up contacting a panel vendor, Screen Country based in Canada who after explaining the situation of what I found were quite helpful in finding what they thought would be a compatible WUXGA panel. It did come with some heavy disclaimers though – you do have to pay for the postage back if it doesn’t work and it has to be in new condition to return. After telling them my existing panel number, which for my M51SN-AS037G, was an AUO2277 (B154PW02 V2), they advised me of a Toshiba panel (LTD154EZ0L), I soon put the order in and it took about a week to arive.
The first thing you should do before installing is unplug the power from the laptop and remove the battery.
As for pulling apart the laptop, I found the M50 disassembly guide. The laptops are pretty close, the only difference is that they have 8 screws surrounding the screen. The 4 pictures they had regarding LCD disassembly let me know what to expect. The bits to know here was that I didn’t need to pull off one of the plastic hinges at the bottom of the screen. It wont matter too much if they stay on during the LCD replacement.
Once the plastic surrounding the screen was unscrewed and snapped off, the existing LCD needed to be removed. The other useful resource was the Screen Country support docs which explained how to disconnect the existing panel. They do the disassembly on 2 laptops. For this, the 2nd diagram more closely fit the Asus’ layout. The key bit here is not to remove the immediate 4 screws that are on the edges connecting the LCD bracket to the laptop casing. All you need to worry about are the smaller screws on the left and right side of the monitor connecting the casing to the monitor.
When pulling off the main video cable that runs along the back of the monitory, just take the tape off and use your fingernails and slowly edge out the video connector. To remove the inverter cable at the bottom (white and pink coloured wires), its probably best to approach it from the right side and pull out the connector. The inverter connector only snaps in one way too if u forget which way it is.
What tripped me up was putting the new panel in and plugging the video connector back into the laptop. Its a very small bit of connectivity, and I didn’t push it in enough. Its a bit counter intuitive but you have to apply a bit of force here. Its probably best that once you line up the connector, you use the sticky tape thats goes over the connection to help push the connector in. You’ll know the difference between partly in, and fully in when the connector slides in that couple of mm more.
Once that was sorted out though, I powered on the laptop and could see my windows boot up in new resolution glory. A nice moment indeed. Facebook, web browsing and IDE use are the apps that benefit the most from this change.
So, how’s the laptop screen looking? Your post caught my attention when I was searching to replace my current screen. I’ve developed a few lines down the middle of it and thought I should look into upgrading while I’m replacing it.
I see that the screen should still be available and I’m definitely going to go with it, but I’m a bit concerned that I currently only have a 1280×800 display. Did you need to swap any cables or the inverter out? If you didn’t need anything special, this will be an amazing upgrade for me!
Thanks,
Myles
Hi Myles,
The screen is still going strong and I’m typing to you using it now. Didn’t have to swap out any inverter or anything else. Its one of the best upgrades I’ve done.
My original panel was the slightly larger resolution than yours. Best to contact Screen Country with your panel model and tell them you are looking at the WUXGA panel to replace it. They’ll likely do the same thing that they did with me and recommend the correct one to replace. From my point of view, if your laptop can support an upgrade to WXGA+ or WSXGA though, then their should be an equivalent WUXGA should be open to you too.
On a slightly different topic, the only thing that happened to my panel, was that it did develop a dead pixel in the top left of my screen, that shows up as a red dot instead of black. Because the resolution is so big and the pixels are so small, I’m not sure if it was like that when I bought it & I just didnt notice it until a few weeks after I got it. (you could call it ‘retina display’, lol). The only time I notice it is on the black ASUS bootup screen and knowing where it is, to look for it, then I see it. I think Screen Country has a dead pixel policy but I couldn’t be bothered using it since I cant notice it in day to day use.
Good luck
Kon