Laptop monitor on a desktop

[John Gutmann]

I have an old insprion 1150 laying around wiht burnt up power transistors on the motherboard. So being the geek/nerd I am I took off the LCD. I was wondering if anybody could help me interface this to work on a normal VGA or DVI signal. I don't have too much information on it right now, and will be uploading a picture of it later tonight. I was wondering if anybody has ever done this or has expirience with this kind of thing that they could help me with

[JBotAlan]

As far as I know, the connectors on a laptop screen are proprietary and I don't know of anyone who has cracked this.

A quick Google showed that if you are nuts and ready to find some sort of analog-to-digital converter, you just might get it to work. Here's one page I found of particular interest:
http://360.yahoo.com/profile-1MjY.As...Fzkb0HaN3v2LIR

It doesn't look too helpful because I don't see much info on that page, but it does look like he got it working.

I don't know, see what you get when you google it.

JBot

[chris31]

It doesnt look easy. Here is some info.

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?...node_id=925893
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/2/98801
and several threads on the arstechnica forums. http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve

[MrForbes]

sell it on ebay, look at item 190063128535 it recently sold for $200 not working, then buy an lcd monitor with the proceeds

[John Gutmann]

Originally Posted by squirrel

sell it on ebay, look at item 190063128535 it recently sold for $200 not working, then buy an lcd monitor with the proceeds

I have tried selling it before but i always got scammers buying it. Ehh, I guess another try wouldn't hurt. i mean 8 people got out bid....

Oh BTW I already have a pretty nice westinghouse 19" widescreen. I guess it is time to get the second one i have wanted

[Billfred]

Well, if you're willing to put up with alpha software and some frustrations in networking...

http://www.screenrecycler.com/home.html

[JBotAlan]

You say there's burned-up power transistors; how old is this machine? You might have a better shot at replacing said burned transistors.

Just a thought.

JBot

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by sparksandtabs

I have an old insprion 1150 laying around wiht burnt up power transistors on the motherboard. So being the geek/nerd I am I took off the LCD. I was wondering if anybody could help me interface this to work on a normal VGA or DVI signal. I don't have too much information on it right now, and will be uploading a picture of it later tonight. I was wondering if anybody has ever done this or has expirience with this kind of thing that they could help me with

There is always a possibility that when the power transistors went they took a lot of other stuff with them like the LCD. It is also possible the transistors were the power supply for the backlight. Have you tried powering the beast with a VGA monitor attached to the external monitor port?

[John Gutmann]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

There is always a possibility that when the power transistors went they took a lot of other stuff with them like the LCD. It is also possible the transistors were the power supply for the backlight. Have you tried powering the beast with a VGA monitor attached to the external monitor port?

I can't power it up with an external monitor on the VGA port because the power transistors don't work.

Now if you have some fancy magical way to do this please tell me, I need some information off the hdd and don't have a 2.5" case.

[JBotAlan]

How'd this thing get fried in the first place? How do you know it's the transistors? You any good at soldering?

JBot

[Tristan Lall]

Originally Posted by sparksandtabs

Now if you have some fancy magical way to do this please tell me, I need some information off the hdd and don't have a 2.5" case.

If it's data you need, you should be able to find an adapter (e.g. this) for very little money. If it uses a standard 44-pin laptop ATA interface, all you need is the adapter and a 40-pin ATA cable from your computer, and a computer-style Molex connector to make the drive work.

It's a similar procedure for SATA laptop drives (though I suspect that your laptop is too old for one of those).

[MattK]

LCDs are so cheap today that you might be better of just buying a display. The 19inch display I use is a Westinghouse (prob the same as yours) and I get it for $165 at BB. Put those two suckers together and that would be one nice rig ;-)

[John Gutmann]

Originally Posted by MattK

LCDs are so cheap today that you might be better of just buying a display. The 19inch display I use is a Westinghouse (prob the same as yours) and I get it for $165 at BB. Put those two suckers together and that would be one nice rig ;-)

what is BB?

and, the LCD has 21 wires i counted. It looked like 4 for power and 17 for signal. The signal ones split into 2 strands but i forgot to count when it was apart.

[MattK]

Sorry BB= Best Buy

[Noah Kleinberg]

Originally Posted by sparksandtabs

what is BB?

Probably he means Best Buy, although I can't find a 19" westinghouse monitor on there for $165...