Where is the part number on a laptop screen?

On a printed label on the back of the panel, near one edge. Reaching it means removing the display bezel and lifting the panel forward, usually a few clips and two hinge screws.

Will any 15.6-inch 1080p screen fit my 15.6-inch 1080p laptop?

No. Connector pin count, connector position and mounting brackets also have to match, and none of those appear on a laptop spec sheet. Two panels with identical size and resolution can be physically incompatible.

Can I fit a lower refresh rate panel than the original?

Usually yes, as long as size, resolution, connector and brackets match. It will simply run at the slower rate. Going the other way is the risky direction, because a faster panel needs link bandwidth the machine may not have.

What do the letters at the start of a laptop screen part number mean?

They identify the panel maker. B is AUO, LP is LG Display, N and NT are Innolux and BOE lines, NV is BOE, MN is CSOT. The digits that follow encode size and resolution, and the suffix at the end is the revision.

My laptop was sold with two screen options. How do I know which one I have?

Check what resolution the operating system reports, whether the screen responds to touch, and whether the finish is matte or glossy. Those three narrow it quickly. To confirm, read the part number off the back of the panel, or on a Dell machine give the Service Tag to the parts lookup, which resolves to your exact build.

Does laptop screen size include the bezel?

No. The stated size is the diagonal of the visible glass, not the lid. Measure corner to corner across the active area. A 15.6-inch panel will not fit a 16-inch lid even though the machines look similar.

What if the label on the back of my panel is damaged or unreadable?

Fall back to the specification route: size, resolution, touch status, panel technology, pin count from the ribbon connector, connector position and bracket pattern. Those seven together identify the equivalence set even without the printed string.

How to Find the Right Replacement Screen for Your Laptop

Q: Can I find my panel model without opening the laptop?

Partly. If the machine still displays an image, the panel reports its manufacturer ID and product code over EDID. Get-CimInstance -Namespace root\wmi -ClassName WmiMonitorID on Windows, or edid-decode on the EDID file under /sys/class/drm on Linux. That narrows it to a few candidates, not to one.

Q: Do different part numbers mean different screens?

Not necessarily. Several vendors build panels to the same size, resolution, panel type, connector and bracket pattern, and those parts interchange. 152 of the 159 panels in our catalogue belong to such a group.

The model name on your laptop identifies a chassis, not a panel. Here is the part number method that actually confirms fitment, and the four questions that narrow it when you cannot open the lid yet.

The model name on the bottom of your laptop tells you which chassis you have. It does not tell you which panel is inside it, and those are two different questions.

One Laptop Model, Several Different Panels

Manufacturers build the same chassis in several configurations across a production run. A 15.6-inch machine sold under one model name may have shipped with a 1366x768 TN panel in the base trim, a 1920x1080 IPS panel in the middle, and a touch version at the top. All three carry the same model name on the sticker. None of the three are interchangeable.

Dell's own parts flow makes the point better than any argument: for a screen it asks for the Service Tag, not the model name, because the tag resolves to one specific build and the model name does not.

The Part Number Is on the Back of the Panel

Every laptop panel carries a printed label on its rear housing with a part number on it. It looks like B156HAN02.1, LP156WFC-SPD1, N156HCA-EBA or NV156FHM-N48. The prefix identifies the maker: B for AUO, LP for LG Display, N and NT for Innolux and BOE lines, NV for BOE, MN for CSOT.

That string is the only input that answers the question outright. Everything else narrows.

Reading the Part Number Without Taking the Lid Apart

If the machine still puts an image on screen, the panel reports its own identity over EDID and the operating system will hand it to you.

On Windows, PowerShell:

Get-CimInstance -Namespace root\wmi -ClassName WmiMonitorID

On Linux, read the EDID blob directly:

sudo edid-decode /sys/class/drm/card0-eDP-1/edid

Neither returns the full panel part number on every machine, but both return the manufacturer ID and product code, which narrows the answer to a handful of candidates. Confirm against the physical label before you order.

If the screen is dead, there is no shortcut. The bezel comes off, the panel lifts forward, and the label is on the back near one edge. On most machines that is a handful of clips and two hinge screws.

What Has to Match, and What Does Not

Spec	Must match	Visible on a laptop spec sheet
Screen size	Yes, exactly. 15.6 is not 16	Yes
Resolution	Yes, exactly	Usually
Touch or non-touch	Yes. The digitizer is part of the panel	Yes
OLED or LCD	Yes. Not substitutable	Yes
Connector pin count	Yes	No
Connector position	Yes. The cable will not reach otherwise	No
Mounting brackets	Yes. Tabs and no-tabs are different parts	No
Refresh rate	No. A slower panel fits and runs slower	Yes
Brightness and gamut	No. Affects satisfaction, not fit	Sometimes

The three rows in the middle are why a laptop-only answer can never be more than a shortlist. Pin count, connector position and brackets are properties of the panel, and no laptop spec sheet lists them.

Different Part Numbers, Same Panel

Part numbers are not unique per design. Several vendors build to the same size, resolution, panel type, connector and bracket pattern, and those parts drop into the same machine. Grouping them is what makes the search practical.

Of the 159 laptop panels in our catalogue, 152 sit inside a named equivalence set. That is the practical benefit of the part number method: you are not hunting one specific part, you are finding the group it belongs to and buying whichever member is available.

If You Cannot Open It Yet

Four questions strip out most of the catalogue before you touch a screwdriver.

Does the screen respond to touch? On-cell touch is built into the panel. Only 5 of our 159 panels are touch, so a yes here is a very strong filter and a no removes all of them.
What resolution does the operating system report? Not what the marketing said, what the display settings say.
What is the diagonal of the glass? Measure the visible panel, corner to corner, not the lid.
Matte or glossy? 95 of our panels are matte, 16 glossy. It is a coarse filter but it costs nothing to apply.

Ordering

Order against the part number or the equivalence set, never against the laptop model. If a listing only names laptop models it thinks it fits, ask the seller which panel part number they actually ship. A seller who cannot answer that is guessing on your behalf.

Related on Consumercarts

Panels from the equivalence set used above: AUO B156XTN07.0, LG Display LP156WHB-TPC1, Innolux N156BGA-EA2, BOE NT156WHM-N44.