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xiphmont...I had promised a few days ago I would post the X61T disassembly and reassembly pics... :-)
I picked up a nice little X61T off eBay assuming ahead of time that I'd replace a number of unavoidably worn parts to make it effectively new. Thinkpad or no, some things in a modern notebook unavoidably wear out. The difference is that in most Thinkpads they're easily replaced. The backlight is an exception, though I have some experience replacing backlights...
Anyway, I bought a once top-of-the-line 1.8GHz model and a 1.6Ghz 'beater' that I planned to cannibalize for parts as necessary. The beater actually turned out also to be in good condition (it was broken, but only in trivial ways), so I'm rebuilding it now too. I'll sell it back off on eBay, there's no sense wasting a perfectly good Thinkpad.
Starting at the beginning... Open up the Bible to Genesis, remove the battery and hard drive, pop the stylus out (if you don't, you'll snap the pen holder off its mount when removing the palmrest... the hardware service manual neglects to mention this) and remove every screw from the bottom.
The hardware manual has you pop the hinge cover caps off next, but in retrospect it would have been much easier to do this step after unbolting the hinge after removing and opening the lid...
The hard part about getting the hinge cap off is the catches on both sides inside it... if you try it, you'll see what I mean... pop one side, flip the lid to get to the other side, the first side pops back in.
Pop off the smaller second piece of the hinge cover.
Keyboard slides forward, then hinges up from the bottom.
Don't forget to actually disconnect the keyboard cable.
Pop the palmrest off.
...and then the keyboard bezel...
Naked Thinkpad!
Remove bluetooth daughtercard/cable, disconnect WLAN cables and remove the daughtercard, and pull the LCD extender board.
Uncrew the remaining four screws holding on the hinge and behead the machine.
The nine bolts holding the lid together are covered by a small square cover, two rubber bumpers and six adhesive disks. An X-acto knife is perfect for prying them off. Keep a finger over 'em, they tend to pop free all of a sudden.
Remove the nine screws holding the lid together. The lid is also held closed by snaps along all four edges, as well as an adhesive strip along the bottom of the screen. It's easiest to begin popping the snaps along the bottom seam, then along the right side. Pry the bezel away and out from the lid and the snaps should pop easily. work up the right side, then about halfway along the top. Gently pry the adhesive strip away from the LCD panel along the bottom. At this point the remaining latches along the left and top left of the screen should release easily.
Lid open, hooray! Disconnect the fingerprint reader cable and set the bezel aside.
Slide the cables through the hinge. The thick cable should go first-- it's a tight fit but it slides through without difficulty.
Remove the two screws holding in the button/LED board, the one screw holding in the backlight inverter, the ground cable screw behind the LED board, and the four screws holding in the LCD panel. Flip the panel, cables and two small boards out onto something soft.
Untape the cables from the LCD and disconnect the two connectors. Set the cables and boards aside. We need to pull the LCD panel completely apart to get to the backlight.
A few notes about backlights...
A CCFL backlight has a relatively short/finite lifetime, usually about 5000-10000 on hours until it's down to 50% brightness. Before a CCFL fails completely, it's typical for it to start very pink or red when it first fires before becoming more white as it warms up.
A bad inverter looks different. Either the lamp stops firing at all, or is so dim the screen is barely visible in a dim room. The failure is usually sudden. Although some eBay sellers claim otherwise, in my experience a failed inverter isn't very common, whereas every old notebook has a worn CCFL.
Anyway, onto peeling the panel apart... Remove the adhesive plastic/metal shield over the LCD driver, unscrew the driver board, disconnect the resistive touchscreen cable from the digitizer board.
Cut the thin tape holding the metal frame along the bottom...
Pop apart the snap lugs holding the metal retaining frame onto the panel.
Flip the panel out of the metal frame.
The frame includes the resistive touch layer and glass protection plate. Cover the frame (to keep dust and fingerprints out) and set aside someplace safe.
The LCD panel is exposed now. It's not actually all that fragile, but it'll shatter if flexed too hard or dropped. Also, any fingerprints and dust you don't get on it now you won't have to remove later.
One thing about the LCD panel is very fragile; beware where the wide flex cables fasten to the glass along the top. If the cable pulls apart from the panel, game over, screen destroyed. Do not, under any circumstances handle the screen by the cable and by extension don't grab the controller board either.
Next, flip the LCD panel panel itself out of the frame onto something soft. cover and set aside somewhere safe.
The diffuser/polarizer is exposed now. It's the one annoyingly fragile part of the screen in the sense that if it gets dirty (eg, big fat fingerprint), any attempt to clean it will probably leave some slightly visible scratches. So, don't touch the diffuser for any reason. Also, don't try to blow dust off of it (spit will probably leave visible spots too), use canned air instead.
The layers of diffuser/polarizer plastic are held in place by two small clips. Remove the clips.
Flip the diffuser/polarizer layers all out together onto a soft, clean cloth. Cover and set aside.
The next layer is a clear waveguide with a microdot texture on the back. It's fairly tough and somewhat flexible. Alcohol and other solvents will cause it to craze or fracture though.. if for some reason you get a fingerprint on it, use windex. or just don't get fingerprints on it to start with.
Pop the top corners of the waveguide free of the flexible plastic frame by flexing the corners of the frame down. Cover with a soft cloth and set aside.
The lowest layer is a floppy white plastic backing. Leave it in place for now. Be aware that it will accidentally kink/crease more easily than it appears so don't be too rough with it. Under the plastic backing, behind the frame, is the Wacom digitizer.
Flip the frame over, free the flexible Wacom panel from the clips along the top of the frame. It's then held in place by adhesive tape along the sides and bottom. The Wacom is tough and not easily damaged. Free the left side first, then the bottom and finally the right side. Set it aside.
Peel off the remaining thin tape along the bottom of the to expose the backlight bracket and free the white plastic backing.
Remove the screws and clips holding in the backlight.
Flip the frame over and free the backlight wire that runs along the face.
Peel the backlight out. There's one more piece of adhesive tape that is holding the backlight in, so work it free slowly from one side to allow the tape to slowly release.
Pull the CCFL tube out of its bracket. It's held in place by three small silicone O-rings along its length that are squeezed into place in the bracket.
Pull down the silicone boot that covers the solder joint at each end of the CCFL tube. Don't damage or tear the boot, it's preventing a kilovolt from arcing to ground.
Desolder the tube and remove/save the three O-rings. Dispose of the old tube properly (it contains mercury, dispose like any other fluorescent lamp).
Put the silicone O-rings onto the new tube and solder it to the wires. Note that the pink and red leads are set 90 degrees to each other.
Trim the lead tails, reseat the boots and set the tube back into the bracket.
There's a trick here; the bracket springs closed enough once the tube is first removed that getting the tube back in is difficult. The metal edges are sharp and tend to slice the O rings. The shaft of a name-brand Q-tip(TM) cotton swab is a nice diameter for running through the bracket a few times to spread the edges open just enough to allow getting the tube back in but not so much that the bracket no longer seats snugly against the waveguide.
If you end up spreading the bracket open too far and it does not lightly grip the waveguide evenly with no gaps, you'll end up with uneven very noticable bright spots along the bottom of the screen. If that happens, it's easy enough to gently pinch it more closed.
Reassembly is the inverse of disassembly with the caveat that we leave reattaching the Wacom until the panel is reassembled.
Put the backlight, backing plastic, and waveguide back into the frame. Use some thin stiff plastic (a strip of polyester overhead projector transparency sheet is perfect) as a 'shoehorn' to guide the clear waveguide back into the backlight reflector bracket. The shoehorn makes reinserting the waveguide much easier and eliminates any possibility of damaging or peeling away the thin reflective film laminated to the inside of the bracket.
A few pieces of dust trapped between the backing and waveguide will be invisible. If there's a lot, blow it out with canned air. Protip: a humidifier not only lessens chances of a static spark damaging a circuit, it will also prevent static buildup on the backing/waveguide from proactively sucking dust out of the air.
Drop the diffuser lateys back into the frame. The black keys along one side fit under the black strip in the white frame. Replace the metal clips that hold the diffuser in place.
Place the panel back into the frame. Any dust between the diffuser layers and panel will be visible. Inspect for and flush any dust with canned air. Replace the metal frame by gently inserting the side of the white frame with the flat LCD flex cables, then dropping the metal frame down over the panel and snapping the lugs back together. When properly aligned, the snap-together process will go easily. If it seems like the metal frame just won't lower all the way into its lugs, don't force it! The LCD itself might not be seated properly and forcing will shatter it.
Flip the panel and replace the tape we removed from along the bottom with some fresh polyester tape. Trim to fit, of course.
Reattach the Wacom digitizer. Align it along the top of the white frame by fitting the top edge under the small white clips, then align the sides and press into place.
Bolt the LCD controller board back into place, replace the adhesive plastic shield, reinsert the touchscreen flex cable into the digitizer board, and reattach the LCD cable assembly and boards.
Bolt everything back into the lid.
Attach a new hinge (the old one was still solid, but had picked up some play), reattach the fingerprint reader cable, snap the bezel back into place, replace the nine screws and return the cover discs, bumpers and square to their rightful places. The lid is done!
To replace the fan, we need to remove the motherboard. To free the motherboard, remove the modem card and detach its cable, remove the video shield, pop the disk drive card subcard off the mobo, remove the lid switch and speaker and remove the two screws on either side of the card cage. The IBM manual also leaves up till now one screw to remove from the bottom.
And the motherboard hinges right out.
Disconnect the fan cable, loosen the three spring-loaded CPU heatsink screws and detach the remaining screw on the GPU heatsink. The fan will pop right off.
Reassembly is the reverse of assembly...
Am I this vain? Yes, I am this vain.
Hooray! All done!
...but does it blend? Yes! It blends!
How much difference does that new backlight make?
And now, for the final absolutely necessary step...
As I mentioned, I have a second machine that I was going to use for parts then didn't. Mechanically and electrically, it's in just as good shape as the one in these pics, but it's considerably more scuffed up. No dents, no cracks, but all the edges are worn through the paint down to metal and the top and bottom honestly look like they suffered alot of sliding on something gravel-like. It's not pretty.
I'm currently seriously considering stripping the paint and polishing the bare magnesium up to shiny...
X61T
Date: 2011-01-04 09:45 am (UTC)Ewen
no subject
Date: 2011-01-07 03:27 pm (UTC)it in pieces. I replaced the CPU fan in my T60 last week, and I was surprised
what a difference it made in my perceptions of the machine (it no longer
seems to be wheezing when I start a web browser...).
no subject
Date: 2011-01-07 05:33 pm (UTC)What about Tarkin?
Date: 2011-01-21 07:24 pm (UTC)Now that VP8 is free and Theora is in a pretty good shape, is there any chance of resurrecting the Tarkin codec? Wavelet compression in three dimensions seems really innovative. Is there any hope for Tarkin?
Re: What about Tarkin?
Date: 2011-02-15 07:42 am (UTC)Tarkin will not be resurrected because the approach was fundamentally flawed. But now that Theora is in good shape and VP8 opened up, Tim has already begun work on a new video codec named Daala.
SSD
Date: 2011-01-17 09:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-15 09:25 pm (UTC)