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Might3Mouse · Jun 23, 2013, 11:26 AM

Hey y'all, I got a question I have been searching for atleast a yes or no on.

If I have a macbook from mid 2007 which has a bum screen. Could I take a working screen from a not important pc and merge the two into a monster? Like could I patch together these two and have a functioning macbook that would display on the pc screen? Im curious as hell to know if anyone has dared to try this?

Spheric Harlot · Jun 23, 2013, 01:57 PM

You could just attach any old external monitor (using a mini-DVI to DVI or VGA adapter) and run the Macbook with the lid closed — so-called "clamshell mode".

If you have an external mouse and keyboard attached, put the Macbook to sleep by closing the lid after it's booted up, then wake it up with a keypress, and it will recognize the external screen as the only screen.

shifuimam · Jun 23, 2013, 03:12 PM

Theoretically, you could install a different LCD in the MacBook. LCDs are pretty much standardized across the board - the difference these days is between LED and traditional CCFL backlighting, the latter of which requires an inverter to power the lamp.

It's really just a matter of finding a replacement LCD that fits the mounting brackets and has the right LVDS connection on the display end. I think - but don't quote me on this - that by now, laptop LCDs all use the same LVDS pinout and connection, for the sake of simplicity. I've disassembled a hell of a lot of laptops in the past 5 years, and anything made after about 2005 has the same kind of 30-pin or 20-pin connector on the LCD side (I think some smaller 10-11" netbook screens use a 20-pin connector).

If you have a laptop you don't care much about, go ahead and yank the LCD, plug it into the MacBook's LVDS and inverter power cables, and see what happens. Absolute worst case scenario is that something in the LVDS cable is incompatible with the LCD, and you end up blowing something in the LCD's circuitry. What's more likely is that (a) the LCD won't display any image at all, (b) the displayed image will be distorted (this happened to me when I tried to use an LCD from an HP laptop in my clamshell iBook), or (c) it'll work just fine and everything will be super peachy.

You won't know until you try. It's very unlikely that you will break anything beyond repair, and it's more or less impossible for you to kill your laptop - the LCD doesn't have anything in it that can fry the machine, as long as the backlight is compatible. A 2007 MacBook has a CCFL backlight. As long as your replacement LCD is the same, you'll be fine hooking it up and testing.

Spheric Harlot · Jun 23, 2013, 03:31 PM

Most common defect is the cable, though. And that's a bitch to replace.

shifuimam · Jun 23, 2013, 05:04 PM

Hah. Not nearly as bad as in an alumnium iMac. A pre-unibody MacBook LVDS cable replacement isn't difficult, just a little time-consuming because of the number of screws that have to be removed.

P · Jun 24, 2013, 06:43 AM

I thought that OEMs planned to move to eDP for internal display connections. Obviously not relevant for a 2007 Mac, but that was always the stated reason for much of the support for DP over HDMI. Did that not happen?

shifuimam · 01:36 PM

Correction:

I so hate being wrong, but wanted to post for science - I had to replace my E6410's LCD myself today, and it is indeed an eDP cable.

Learned something new today!