I have my old laptop that I’m planning to sell to get some money back since my Framework upgrade and I wanted to see if that display would work. Unfortunately, that one is 30-pin eDP. I have some other spare panels at home (salvaged from monitors) maybe one of them will work.
For science!
I don’t think you will have luck doing it.
Framework’s connector does support touch signals.
github.com/FrameworkComputer/Mainboard/blob/main/Electrical/Pinouts.md
Display Interface
IPEX 20879-040E connector used to interface to an eDP display. Note that there are signals defined for both USB 2.0 and I2C touchscreens.
That’s great new if for sure it’s in there. The eDP 40 pin cables which support touch likely do not support high resolutions. Those screens use a separate usb cable for touch, or a 50 pin cable. The biggest problem is that nobody has tried and reported on this entire forum. I recall the manufacturer saying the touch would be a separate cable. It would be nice for Framework to plug one in and report what works. I would love someone here to try and report back. I just bought the matte version of our screen and will swap it out next month.
i found a great panel: ATNA33TP01. its a 4k oled 13.3 (16:9) inch panel with touch & stylus support. but it have 2 port (i guess it’s edp) and a socket (only few pin connected, i guess it’s for i2c touch/stylus). currently i didn’t find any datasheet about it. (this panel even not available on panelook.com). is it possible to use it on framework mainboard? (ignore the chassis)
Is anyone still looking into connecting a different screen to the eDP connector? I am looking into it too. I am not sure I can pull it out with my knowledge but i want to give it a try and I’m willing to buy a panel to test if I’m confident it is viable.
This is the summary I got from reading all the posts here and some around the web:
The eDP connection Framework uses is 40pins. There seems to be two pinout configurations for displays using eDP 40 pins connections (posted by @Arya above), one for panels with touch and 2 eDP lines (low resolution, usually 1080p or less) and another one for no touch and 4 eDP lines (higher resolutions).
The FW 13.5" display follows exactly the second pinout configuration (no touch and 4 eDP lines) of the link above, as seen in the FW display docs pinout.
The problem seems to be that the FW motherboard 40 pin connector does not follow any of the 2 connections and (maybe?) is custom. As seen in the FW motherboard docs display pinout, it has 4 eDP lines and also touch (seems both usb and i2c, as seen in page 3 of the 11gen intel motherboard pdf).
This seems to be the reason as to why FW uses a custom cable to connect the 40 pin FW motherboard custom(?) pinout to the 40 pin no touch 4 eDP lines “standard” pinout of the FW 13.5" display. The cable must reroute the pins as necessary and must leave other pins (touch ones) unconnected.
Also, the display pinouts (both types) have 4 lcd power lines and 4 backlight power lines, but the FW motherboard has only 3 of each. The good news is that the FW motherboard provides 3.3V in the lcd power line, which seems to be the common voltage used in modern laptop displays. Some older displays use 5V so always check. The backlight voltage (usually a big range so easier to match) and both available currents need to be adequate too.
If all the above is correct, it seems that if we want to use a 40 pin no touch 4 eDP line display, it should work by connecting it to the FW 40 pin cable as it should have the same pinout as the FW 13.5" display. The voltage and available current of the lcd and backlight lines should be checked for compatibility too. Evidence of this is what @Paul_Combe says:
The internal display worked with the external off the shell DP to eDP adaptor because the pinout and the signals must be standard.
But, if we want to connect a display with different characteristics we need a custom cable that reroutes pins differently. In my case, I want to use a touchscreen 4 eDP line (high resolution) display. I have seen a display with this characteristics that uses 51 pin, but the most interesting ones seem to use 40 pin connector plus a different connector for touch. It seems that to connect to a display with this configuration we would need a custom cable that goes from the 40 pin in the FW motherboard and splits into 2 connectors for the display, a 40 pin no touch 4 eDP lines “standard” connector and another connector for the touchscreen pins (that could be usb or i2c, although the panels that I find interesting are always usb). All of this should be confirmed with the pinout schematics of each display from the maker, obviously.
There is some discussion on whether some displays use a third 40 pin pinout type, that includes 4 eDP lines and touch together, or even use custom pinouts, but, from looking around the web, I do not think that is the case for modern displays in general. In any case a custom cable seems to be needed, so one way or the other does not change much. It will always come down to confirming the pinout of a particular display.
There is also the issue of how to go from 3 power lines in the FW motherboard to 4 power lines in the display. The FW 40 pin cable already does this, but I have not found the schematics for the cable. My guess is that one of the power lines from the motherboard doubles or one of the power lines in the display is unconnected. Hopefully someone from Framework can clarify on this, or even better publish the schematics of the cable. It would make things easier.
Also, there is the possibility that the custom pinout of the 40pin FW motherboard connector is not so custom and it is used in other laptop motherboards, so MAYBE a cable that splits for a touchscreen display already exists. In general the displays we can get belong to an existing laptop or tablet, so MAYBE it uses the same 40 pin pinout as the FW motherboard and the cable can be procured and used too. This would be the ideal scenario, but not sure how probable.
This got longer than expected so to finish:
There are big ifs and assumptions in all of this and please anyone correct me if I got something wrong. It would go a long way also if Framework could confirm or correct our assumptions. With that said, buying or creating a cable that will allow the FW motherboard to connect to a different display seems doable.
I have messaged the vendor of this 40 pin 4 eDP lines usb touchscreen display from aliexpress (by the pictures seems to have a small second connector that I guess is the usb touch pins) and asked him if he can provide the pinout of the connectors.
I still do not have a framework computer as I want an AMD chipset. Once they are out, I plan on getting it, and hopefully by that time most of the information here is confirmed or corrected, and I have confirmed the pinout of an interesting display as well. Then I will get the display and a custom cable to test all of this.
Any suggestions and/or corrections welcomed.
If you ever find a good source for custom made cables let me know, I have some ideas myself.
I really hope Framework uses a more compatible pinout on the Framework-16
The pinout of the FW 13 display is standard, so I guess you are referring to the pinout of the FW 13 motherboard.
@Arya mentioned there is no standard pinout for motherboards:
But yes, given FrameWork ethos of reusability, they could have set up a standard 40 pin 4 eDP lines no touch connector with the usb/i2c connector for touchscreen on the side. It would have made it much easier to source cables and reuse them, which in theory FrameWork is all about. Needing custom cables seems very anti-FrameWork. The only downside is it would have taken more motherboard “realstate”, but not sure how critical that was so it is hard to say which is the best solution.
Maybe they can improve that in future versions?
This together with exposing unused pcie lines from the chipset in the motherboard would be great improvements to the FW motherboards.
Yes, I was thinking of perhaps a separate motherboard connector for the touchscreen signals. They could keep the signals also in the 40 pin motherboard connector. I imagine that might be easier if they sell a touchscreen in the future, having it on one connector motherboard-side and just using their custom cable to take care of breaking it out on the other side.