[NitzJaaron]

I've got a 12" ibook G3 900, with the VGA adapter, external apple mouse, and external apple keyboard.

My question is: Is it possible for me to plug in the Keyboard, Mouse, and an external monitor, and work with the iBook's lid closed? I've tried it, and the computer just goes into standby.

Thanks in advance.

[jon l. dawson]

I don't know if I would recommend it even if you could. If you keep the lid closed it's going to trap all the heat inside and possibly damage the lcd. I don't know that for a fact but I would be concerned if it was my laptop.

[discotronic]

As far as I know there is no way to use it with the lid closed. I agree with jon l. dawson. You risk doing damage to your iBook because of the heat.

[NitzJaaron]

Hmm. Good point. I didn't give any thought to the heat aspect.

Oh well, thanks for the opinions.

[d4nth3m4n]

it should work with the lid closed and all that jazz attached. the only thing- it has to be plugged in to the wall. dunno if you tried that.

does a temp gauge work on a 900? dont work on my 700 i know that.

well, try and plug it in. there was a program called NoSleep a while back that let you work with it closed and nothing attached.

thats all i got.
Dan.

[sniffer]

Theoretically it should be relative safe putting the lid down I guess. If the heat raise it SHOULD turn the fan on. If the fan goes on more freqent than usual, I would assume that means the heat is higher with the lid closed. But what do I know? Haven't tried this my self, so I am just guessing.

[hcorf]

this is a cool idea, often i am using bittorrent or something and want to leave it for hours while it downloads a movie or something.

I always like to shut the lid cos i dont want dust on the keyboard.

Plus when imovie is rendering i could carry it around with the lid closed and let it keep on going.

[jon l. dawson]

I'd be afraid that the heat in the bottom left corner of the iBook (is this where the hard drive is located?) would then be transferring directly to the lcd above it. I sometimes like to let mine cool down before I close the lid. Like I said I don't know if this will really cause serious damage. I once had a Clamshell iBook that didn't properly go to sleep, it ended up maxing out the cpu, and I unknowingly left it like that the entire day. I swear the display didn't seem the same after that, but it could have also been my imagination.

Dust is a factor, though. I had a Sony Vaio laptop that I was using kind of as a file server for a while (with an external drive). I left it open and it did collect a lot of dust on the keyboard and screen.

[andretan]

The heat from the logic board also dissipates from the keyboard area in case anyone's wondering.

[amazing]

Apple says it just isn't done:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58614

quote: 2. iBook (FireWire) and iBook Special Edition (FireWire) computers cannot use an external monitor when the computer is closed.

Has anyone applied the extended desktop hack to their iBook? Does that give you the option of putting the iBook display to sleep while you're working on the external monitor? Basically, I hate to see the LCD aging while you're working on an external monitor....

LCDs will age and dim over time, and if you've got a larger external monitor that you prefer to use, surely sleeping the built-in monitor makes sense?

[Morpheus X]

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/20087 this prog should work but i was told its not recommended, since the heat will be captured between keyboard and screen and might damage the screen. Never wanted to find out if thats true or not ;-)

Morpheus

[Dimitri]

Funny they don't have a toggle for external display only, lcd only or both in the software. I guess they really didn't design the ibook for long term external monitor usage. And the main heat issue would be the hard drive which is what the vent is for. Oh well.