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Hello! After five years of use and abuse, my old PowerBook is showing its age. The DVD drive, main battery, and the PRAM battery are dead; and the LCD backlight, latch, and hinge are failing. Because I can’t justify the cost of the replacement battery and such, and due to the damaged LCD panel and hinge, I plan to use it as a small desktop Mac, with an external display, keyboard/mouse, and DVD drive attached. To prevent overheating, I would like to remove the LCD panel entirely. This way, I can simply place the “headless PowerBook” upright in a stand, behind an external 17" LCD monitor I have - a sort of “DIY iMac”. However, once I pull the LCD panel assembly out (Via this tutorial) is there anything I need to do to operate it safely without the panel? For example, do I need to make a cover for the back of the computer? What do I do with the monitor data and grounding cable? Thanks for any tips!
It should work fine, I attempted somthing similar with an iMac G4 17", and it worked out pretty neat. The computer operated normally, and still thought it was an iMac though. Note: the graphics will not be as powerful, as if they were through the computer’s screen, since it is Mirroring video out of the DVI Port(Not a major decrease, but somthing to keep in mind, DVD viewing should be fine) , since it will still think it has the screen installed, and it may or may not show up as a white screen, instead of the Apple with the spinning wheel upon boot, but it will show up after Mac OS X Loads. This only happened the first time i booted the iMac though, after it realized there was no display connected, and changed the preferences. Other than that, it worked fine, and seemed safe. Laptops like this will require a 65W Power Supply to run solely on AC Power.
Absolutely! I had a similar machine, one with a failed display. I chose to remove the display + lid completely - hinges, cables, and all. It worked just fine: If you choose JUST to remove the LCD panel, and leave the frame and cables in place, for better cooling I’d leave off the “lid” and remove the magnet that’s associated with the “lid closed” switch. Hope this helps!
