CF-19 screen transplant mk5 to mk7

Tomorrow afternoon I'll have the critically damaged mk7 in my hands. If everything goes all right with the delivery. Then I can start to transplant my cf-19 mk5's screen onto the mk7, resulting in a nice Frankenstein cf-19.

I hope to make a lot of pictures and post them in this thread so I can show others what is what and what problems I ran into.

I have do a few questions:
1. Does anybody have a mk5 and/or mk7 service/repair manual? I found an old one for a mk1, but I assume lots of things have changed!?
2. people with experience, are there any tricky things I need to be aware of? Parts that are easily damaged, wires that can break that kind of things?
3. anything else I didn't think off?

I hope it will give a nice thread and I hope I'll have a like-new-up-to-date toughbook that will last me for several more years!!

 

PM sent.....

 

I've been reading, if I just need to replace the back of the lcd cabinet, digitizer and lcd, would I need to completely disassemble (main pcb etc), or can I disconnect the wires behind the lcd?

 

If I was doing this switch I would take the whole top off. Looking at these pictures it's the best way but does your 19 have the same wires / lines as the new one ?

 

A complete top switch out would be easiest perhaps, but I would loose the brightness adapter-sensor-thingy. I'm just going to have to take 2 days for it, if it goes any faster, its nice, but then I wouldn't have to hurry and mess things up.

 

I recently had a couple CF19s apart. They were earlier marks.
The wire routing around the pivot hinge looked very tricky to me. I avoided messing with it. Swapping the entire top half is a fairly easy job and you don't need to disturb the wires circling the hinge.

If your front bezel is in good condition, changing out just the LCD panel is not a bad job. Get some Kapton tape and some 2mm double sided tape...You'll need them.

I have some photos of my CF19 Mk1 and Mk2 LCD-LED swap. They should help to give you an idea of what you are getting into.

I used a lot of Kapton tape...Is yours Dual touch? I am guessing it is.

I use a sharp xacto knife to gently cut the existing tape.
The connectors I had to disconnect are as follows.
speaker
inverter/LCD driver
digitizer board
touchscreen board--I did not have touchscreens
main LCD board ----This one sticks and I had to fiddle with them gently to get them to release.

The digitizer is the red panel in the photos. It is not bad to remove. two screws, But it is double side taped to the LCD. If both units have the digitizer you won't need to remove it from the LCD.

Both my units are digitizer only, But I am sure the touchscreen is taped to the front bezel the same as a CF29/CF30.

A good xacto knife and some used dental tools work great for me.

 

This is such a great forum/community!!!

now I need to find kapton tape, which is seemingly non-existence over here :-D

the mk7 is touch only, the mk5 is dual.

I was thinking of lifting the whole digitizer, touch & LCD out of the mk5 and dropping it right into the mk7. No disassembling, avoid touching those fragile parts. This way I would need to disassemble both laptops almost completly, but I prefer that over cutting with an x-acto at the back of my screen

The back panel is destroyed, the touch is shattered as is the LCD. I don't know how the keyboard is, but I want to replace it anyway with an emissive one. Just 5 hours more to wait before my parcel is in and I can start to look how bad it is with this mk7.

 

It is also called Polymide film tape.

3M-5413-POLYIMIDE-FILM-TAPE

This guy ships international.
3M 5413 Polyimide Film Tape 3 4 x 36 yds Package of 2 Rolls Brand New | eBay

 

super, original.

I could find the Polymide tape, but I learned, the hard way, that it is best to buy the original tape. so not some dodgy tape that looks like it, just spend 1 or 2 dollars more and get the original. Tape contains glue and this glue might contain all kinds of solvents and chemicals that can age rather quickly but also damage a lot of things in a few weeks time.
So I'm going to buy the original 3M kapton that has a silicon based adhesive and not some chinese glue

I'm really excited about this project!!! WOOOHOOOOO.
hahaha

 

I love me some Kapton tape!

 

The touch panels are taped to the front bezel, NOT the LCD. You'll have to cut it from the bezel. This is where you need the 2mm double side tape to reinstall it....

Cutting with the knife is not a big deal.....You must do it to cut the tape that secures the connectors together....The wire that come from the base are taped down and taped to the connectors....

 

A Vulcan girl with some Kapton tape......Tape me up baby..........

 

hahaha.

Well, mail was early, that is the good new.s
Bad news is that I bought a damaged screen, damaged keyboard, damaged keyboard-flat-wire-cover and the main chassis is cracked a little bit as well

really bad news is that it seem to have a mk6 mainboard. It's printed on the pcb, mk6 underneath the wwan card and CF-19mk6 underneath the memory...
DARN )*&^%$#@!@#$%^&*()

I'm thinking about a try to change just the MOBO from the mk7 into my mk5...

 

First picture shows the damage to the main chassis, you can't see it well, but it continues into the black. I'm not comfortable using that with some water?!!



Second picture shows CF-19mk6, so that is not a mk7?!!? mk6 is written all over the PCB's. Each and every one of them and this one is from the main pcb/mobo. Or am I missing something? Model number is cf-195hyaalm



So could I transfer the mk6 mobo to my mk5??

I'm gonna look this evening/night anyways, but if anybody has experience with this specific swap I would be happy to know how it went!

 

It has to be MK7 with this code.
I think there is only difference in CPU/chipset between MK6 and MK7, so PCB can be the same. Turn it on with external monitor and check code in BIOS

Still 8GB RAM max. Why??

I can bet you will not see any difference between your MK5 and this MK7
I would prefer dual-touch.

 

Teo (Ohlip) would know the differences between the cases and motherboards. PM him?
At this point I would just swap the motherboards..It's not too bad to do.

 

well, had contact with the seller, his answers where good and made logic. So I looked into the bios and what do you think? mk7, with mk7 chipset. I'll be *&^%$. Panny did cheap out hahaha.

So I still have a mk7. But what to do with the crack in the caschis? Exchange mobo's? Or just change monitors? With a magnifier I can see it is up until the edge that needs to waterproof the keyboard wires. Darn this isn't easy.
But I still do like it.

 

Because panny is just like Rolls Royce: it will have enough horsepower...

To be honest, I think you could adjust drivers/settings and get it to run 16Gb. But I don't know how. yet.

 

So what you need now is to find out if Panny changed the cases over the CF-19MK's (1 to 7). If they didn't just pickup another case.

 

MK1-2 cases are not equal to MK3-4 for sure. I don't have MK5-7

I think MK5-7 have to work with 2x8GB modules. It's strange Panasonic shows 8GB limit. Settings/BIOS will not help

 

It WILL run 16gb, but you need to buy semi specific ram modules.

 

Don't use the cracked case....It already bothers you.......It will continue to concern you until you change it anyway.....
Swap motherboards.

 

I just transplanted the screen into the mk7 chassis. It's not really hard, but you do need to take your time, use a manual and keep calm. Oh and don't mix with alcohol

So I pulled an allnighter and it's up and running, every bit of software is installed, well vital software, things like VLC and so are not yet installed, but not needed for work.
Just one thing is not working the way I want it, that's the Sierra 7305 WWAN card, but that needs tinkering anyway, also in the mk5 it took serious time before it worked in LTE/4G. It now thinks I'm on Verizon (which I'm not, I'm on KPN, a local provider). Does anybody have any experience with that particular oddity?

Things I noticed:
mk7 uses PCB's from the mk6. So you have to look into the bios to look at the model number and/or processor that is installed. Really confusing, but I do have a mk7, it seems!

To my surprise the mk7 is really faster when compared to the mk5. Installing 180 updates, MS office, Acrobat en lots of other stuff, I was amazed at the speed. It was not what I was looking for, nor expecting, upgrading from an i5 to an i5 isn't that big of a deal, but I did notice the difference. (or had kind of a placebo effect )

One other thing is the battery life which looks better, but needs long/durability testing before I can say anything definitive about it.

Last thing, major for me, was the USB3. That didn't disappoint either. Sustained speeds with a huge amount of small files of over 120Mb/sec and when you copy large files and get 170MB/sec+ speeds is really good in my book. (I used to get well below 7Mb/sec for the small files collection and around 10-12 for the big files).


one last thing I really need to do is a big THANK YOU to so many people here on the forums that helped, make jokes and shared valuable information!!

 

Well done.

What parts of the screen did you swap? Touchscreen? digitizer? entire lid? just the LCD panel?

Photos?

 

I did an entire screen swap including hinge & (antennae) wires. So it went from touch to dual touch. (but not the 5 finger touch the mk7 has).

there is not much to see, it's just like a mk7 but without the screen brightness sensor. So well, it's just a mk5... hahaha

 

Good job, I new you could do it :thumbsup:

 

hahaha, thanks.

I'm left with on persistent problem:
When I connect WWAN from windows, it nicely connects to whatever I say. It just doesnt want to go any faster then 3G.
When I use Air Card watcher it tells me I'm connected to Verizon (which I'm not).
When I let Air Card Watcher connect, it will try to connect to Verizon (which isn't possible and therefore not working).

So in short, how in earth can I get Air Card Watcher to connect to my provder (advanced settings anywhere?)
Or how can I access advanced settings in Windows? (which I prefer, not having a need for Air Card).

Is this perhaps something that is set in the bios? Of is there a localisation setting that places this laptop in the USA? I configured windows to be in the Netherlands.

 

I think you want start a new thread with the WWAN problem.

5 finger touch ..........To me that sounds like 5 fingers clenched together in a fist. Touching means forward motion with force.

"He needs a 5 finger touch to the nose..."

 

One more update, the battery life seems to be better:
8h33min with 84% battery left on a battery that has already 180 cycles on it (so it's not almost brand new).


That is just one moment, but real life use has given me 8,5 hours careful use and 5-6 hours regular use. Not bad, nothing shocking better, but certainly better.

 

Good job, Alex ! glad the frankenstein (mk5+mk7)/2 is alive :thumbsup:

Keep Shawn's advice in mind, regarding the case. You have a valuable mk6.5 motherboard in there , so at least think of sealing that crack with something.

 

Hmm, that is true, does anybody have an idea what to seal magnesium with?
Just to be on the safe side indeed.

 

2 part epoxy....... JB Weld...scuff up the area with sandpaper first....

 

Arctic silver 2 component epoxy adhesive would work?

 

Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive is a two part permanent adhesive for thermal joints in minimum bond line applications. It is NOT intended to be used between a CPU and the CPU heatsink. On a CPU please use a thermal compound such as Arctic Silver 5, Céramique 2, Arctic Alumina or Matrix.
Precaution:
Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive is a permanent adhesive. Components you attach with Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive will
stay attached forever.


Yes it looks like that will work nicely.

 

Thanks, then I'm going to find a needle to apply a really thin line of it and make sure it's good waterproof.

 

Sticky stuff applied and dried overnight, so now it should be good to go!

One more thing, I have to say a big, big thank you to Almstprfct1 (on this forum) who got me this deal on a mk7. He's the guy from Maggie Valley Computer Repair and even in my confusion about the mk6/mk7 thing he stayed calm and friendly giving good advice!! I got in touch with him via ebay only to find out he's on this forum as well!!

Another thing is that I've been disassembling the cf-19 screen and I might have a working LED backlight system with the wiring. I just need to get the automatic display backlight dimmer wire out of the cable. When I tested it on the mk7 the LED backlight was bright as hell.

And I've got 4 USA antennae. (it says its for the USA on the antenna's). If you've got a good project for them, let me know and we'll work something out.

If you have the double sided tape that goes between the touch-screen and the front of the cabinet that would be great! Or a nice roll of 1"wide original kapton tape.

 

I would see Teo on this, he told me once what he uses but can't remember at the moment.

 

Good, the tape I had was well over 2mm thick and not made from closed cell foam, so potentially the cause of leaking into the cabinet!

 

I can help you with the tape.....

PM sent