Turn a dead iBook into a cool gadget!

March 1, 2006 12:25 PM

How can I convert a dead iBook into a portable monitor? Any other parts I should salvage?

At work we lost an iBook due to a dead logic board caused by water damage. We got comped by insurance and the boss says I can do what I want with it.

The memory immediately was put into another iBook. I pulled the hard drive and placed it into a USB powered enclosure. I do not know what else to salvage.

What I would like to do is somehow gut the bottom half of the enclosure, yet keep the power supply intact to power the monitor. I would then like some way of installing inputs into it so that I end up with a clamshell portable monitor I could connect to other devices (PC's, MacMini, PS2, etc.).

Is this doable? Any online how-to's for this?

Thanks!

posted by sourwookie to computers & internet (8 comments total)

Oh, I also own my own iBook. Both models are current generation G4's.
posted by sourwookie at 12:28 PM on March 1, 2006

The screens in all laptops generally have specialty, proprietary interfaces. You may be able to find a compatible LCD controller for it but it'd probably be more expensive than just buying a normal monitor.
posted by zsazsa at 12:31 PM on March 1, 2006

More information on the subject.
posted by zsazsa at 12:33 PM on March 1, 2006

This LCD controller is surprisingly affordable. Who knows if it has the right physical interface, but someone on AppleFritter seems to think it'd work.
posted by zsazsa at 12:37 PM on March 1, 2006

It can't be done. Put the carcass on eBay, maybe in bits.

The smarter thing to have done would have been buying a replacement motherboard.
posted by cillit bang at 3:03 PM on March 1, 2006

Sell the Airport card on ebay. They still go for decent prices.
posted by cellphone at 7:02 PM on March 1, 2006

Er, nevermind. Any G4 ibook's going to have AE so eh.
posted by cellphone at 7:02 PM on March 1, 2006

My iBook motherboard died 6 months ago. I sold the keyboard, case/trackpad, monitor, hard drive, and optical drive separately on eBay and made about $600 CAD.

That said, the controller zsazsa links looks really cool. I might start a project with one...
posted by Popular Ethics at 7:21 PM on March 1, 2006