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You are here: MacNN Forums > Enthusiast Zone > Hardware Hacking > Clamshell iBook questions - LCD, CD, logic board

Clamshell iBook questions - LCD, CD, logic board (Page 7)
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Maxwell Smart
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Jun 1, 2007, 11:55 AM
 
I have a stock (other than upgraded RAM, combo drive, hard drive, and airport card ) clamshell 466Mhz with standard 800x600 panel, and I could run whatever commands you want me to on it, if it would help
Macbook (White): 2Ghz/2GB/160GB 5400/SD/AE/10.5
Powerbook (15"): 1.5Ghz/1.5GB/60GB 5400/SD/AE/10.5
iBook (Clam): 466Mhz/576MB/40GB 7200/CD/AP/10.4
     
OwossoBorn
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Jun 1, 2007, 01:45 PM
 
Shifuimam: That's great that you have brightness by default! What color profile file is your system using (via the instructions in the email) and what's the model # of your screen?

Maxwell Smart: What I'd love is an ioreg dump of a regular white 12.1" ibook @ 1024x768 that has my model screen in it, LTN121x1-L02.
( Last edited by OwossoBorn; Jun 1, 2007 at 02:00 PM. )
     
mattfaulds
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Jun 1, 2007, 04:39 PM
 
Wow! Well done guys!!!!!! Sorry I've been away so long... I had given up on this project because I just didn't have the time unfortunately.

I'm thrilled that this has basically got there. And after all our initial whittling about the LCD cable OwossoBorn just soldered some wires on and it worked!

What I can't believe is that I've gone and sold one of my 466 clams! Damn!

I have one of the LG cables so I'll have a go at hooking everything up over the weekend. I also have a few 12" LCDs knocking about so I'll have a look at different panel-family numbers.

For what it's worth I have two ioreg dumps to share:

12" G4 iBook with unknown screen - 0000000d
12" G4 iBook with replaced LTN121x1-L02 from a G3 iBook - 00000009

Is that of any help?
( Last edited by mattfaulds; Jun 3, 2007 at 08:18 AM. )
     
OwossoBorn
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Jun 1, 2007, 11:06 PM
 
Hey Mattfaulds returns!

Yes, please PM me the two reg files, assuming they are both max res of 1024x768. I'm trying to find out how to get DVD playback to work.
     
kiwikid
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Jun 4, 2007, 01:12 AM
 
Managed to get some work done this weekend: 512M ram, 80G HD and Combo Drive into a f/w366, which for other cosmetic reasons I eased into a Tangerine case. That's the easy part, I thought I'd bump the clock too on this one, but, where are R7-R14 on the f/w board? I did (or thought I did) the FSBus mod by moving R63 to R62. According to the literature that should up the bus from 66 to 82Mhz. How can I confirm this? All my tools tell me it's still 66.... Similar bus bump on the beige G3 desktop shows up in SystemProfiler (& gives subjectively more performance than simple cpu bump).

Next good news, and bad: the Tangerine 300Mhz had a LG LCD, so the cable went in straight swap for a 12" white iBook display. But it stays dark. The backlight is working, can turn the brightness up & down, but the panel is effectively black with no video signal. I'll go back check the comparative pinout table further up this thread. It's always possible I've got a dead panel (no loss since it was a good price for the ram, Combo Dr, and airport card)
...
     
OwossoBorn
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Jun 4, 2007, 02:08 AM
 
Kiwikid: Congrats on the updates! I know how that feels to move forward with a project like this. I haven't done any overclocking, so don't know what to tell you there.

Re: the screen - Just because the connector fits does not mean the pins are in the same order. Try to find the technical specification for the original LCD screen as well as the replacement. Verify that each pin is in the exact same place. Didn't someone in this thread connect the wires exactly backwards by mistake, because they put them in the same order as the original screen? If your new screen does indeed have a reversed order of the pins on it's connector, you can probably pop out the pins and rearrange them in reverse. Do not do this until you verify the pins in the spec chart. In fact, I suggest not reconnecting the new screen at all until you have a peek at a spec chart. I have the ones for my screens (LTN121x1-L02 and LT121SU-123) and they are about 23 pages long each. I printed them out and for some stupid reason didn't bookmark where I found them.

Hope you didn't fry your new display or the video chip on the motherboard.
( Last edited by OwossoBorn; Jun 4, 2007 at 02:18 AM. )
     
shifuimam  (op)
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Jun 4, 2007, 09:04 AM
 
The clamshell LG cable definitely works with 12" LCDs from iBooks (and possibly PowerBooks). I've confirmed this myself with a 12" LCD from a 500MHz iBook G3, and an LG cable for clamshell iBooks purchased new from a certified Apple reseller/repair outfit.

I'm going to guess that either the LCD is dead or the connection on the logic board is dead - try using the LG cable and the LG LCD that came with the tangerine iBook to confirm that the video connection on the board and the LCD cable are still good - then you know you just need to get a new display.

Good luck!!
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OwossoBorn
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Jun 4, 2007, 01:43 PM
 
Progress update: MattFaulds sent me the ioreg dumps of two 12" powerbooks running at 1024x768, one with the same screen I have. I've been comparing his dumps with my own clamshell in different modes. It would be nice to have a gander at an ioreg dump from an old untouched ibook (no hacks added) running at 1024x768.

I got it to boot up in the 'holy grail' mode last night and it seemed to not have so much to do with my settings being the way 1024x768 should be as it does with the computer not being able to detect my card/screen correctly because of my settings. ie.my settings seem more of a smoke screen, the end result of which may end up causing the "holy grail 1024x768." This time, I did an ioreg dump, dumped the state of all kext files in use (kextstat > NameYourFile.txt), took screen captures of display settings, ran DisplayConfigX only to view (not change) the current timings of the screen (active area, porches, refresh rates) and took screen captures of those as well, and checked out which color file was in use. Interestingly, even though it was using DisplayProductID-9c0a, which has ColorLCD as the name of the display, the color profile was set to Generic RGB Profile and ColorLCD was not in the list. This will hopefully give me more to study.

After rebooting, it went right back to 800x600 and was using the DisplayProductID-9c05 file. Setting the color profile manually to Generic RGB Profile and rebooting again did nothing. Copying the contents of the DisplayProductID-9c0a file into DisplayProductID-9c05 and rebooting did nothing. I did get it back to holy grail mode (reset all DisplayProductID files to default, zapped PRAM, re-entered nvramrc, screen hangs during apple logo and no gear, so force quit and reboot with CMD+V to see what's going on and it comes up holy grail) and left it running that way all night. It's still in that mode now. My current nvramrc code is:

dev /
" display-family" delete-property
0 encode-int " graphic-options" property
0 encode-int 2 encode-int encode+ " display-config-info" property

*btw this last line is how to enter more than one byte into a property at a time.

By "Holy Grail" mode, I mean: Booting & OF are 1024x768, OSX is 1024x768, brightness works, DVD video works. Using any other setting for me kills brightness and DVD playback. I can get brightness back with a DisplayProductID hack, but...
( Last edited by OwossoBorn; Jun 4, 2007 at 01:49 PM. )
     
shifuimam  (op)
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Jun 4, 2007, 01:58 PM
 
I can give you an iroeg dump from the 12" 500MHz iBook, if that's what you're wanting. I know it's been unhacked, since the person it belongs to isn't interested in such things. Give me the commands to run and I'll do it tonight.

So your nvramrc code is making the holy grail work, but when you reboot it reverts back to 800x600? Just want to make sure I'm clear on what's going on...
( Last edited by shifuimam; Jun 4, 2007 at 09:23 PM. )
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shifuimam  (op)
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Jun 4, 2007, 09:18 PM
 
Figured it was easier to post my ioreg dump this way:

http://shifuimam.googlepages.com/ioreg.txt

That's from a 500MHz 12" iBook G3. Let me know if you need anything else from that machine.
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OwossoBorn
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Jun 4, 2007, 09:47 PM
 
Nice signature update Shifuimam. To get an ioreg dump from your ibook, go into a terminal window and type the following:
ioreg -l -w0 > NameTheFileWithNoSpaces.txt (that's a lowercase L, not a pipe. Zero after the w)
This will put a text file in your home dir. Email that off to me. The IORegistry is a combination of the devices & properties OF decides upon when booting and other OSX related files/settings also assigned at boot time that make up the computer's physical environment. It'd be nice if we could also change those properties somehow via OSX!

The new nvramrc script seems to cause a smoke screen for the boot device detection routines. The machine itself is rock solid, like it should be. I'm talking about causing a slight hic-up in the boot routines. Sometimes, with this current script, the machine boots up in the holy grail (I can even hear angels singing in the background). I haven't turned it off since last night, so it's still that way. Two things will make it revert back to 800x600:

1) Clicking on Detect Displays link in the displays pref pane. Related: inserting anything into the AV jack also triggers the detect displays routine.
2) Rebooting.

So it would seem that when it can't make sense out of what is really connected, graphic card-wise and display-wise, it can sometimes boot up using certain plists, kexts, settings, OF devices etc. that give me the OSX I'm looking for. When it does that, it doesn't seem to be different than any other holy grail boot, so that's promising. It's just not permanent as of yet. This is why I'm trying to document all the settings I can think of before rebooting again and loose it for a while. All I know is that DisplayConfigX reports the correct timings that are printed in my screen's specification (not so with any other configuration), that the computer chooses the DisplayProductID-9c0a file and Generic RGB Profile in the ColorSync Utility, and that brightness and DVDs work.

Of course, at any time, I can zap the pram and set display-family to 3 and have 1024x768 with no brightness or DVD playback. At this point though, with the sometime-holy-grail-boot, It's taunting me to figure out the whole thing.
     
OwossoBorn
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Jun 4, 2007, 09:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by shifuimam View Post
Figured it was easier to post my ioreg dump this way:

http://shifuimam.googlepages.com/ioreg.txt

That's from a 500MHz 12" iBook G3. Let me know if you need anything else from that machine.

Cool, thanks. Here's my holy grail ioreg dump, in case anyone wants to snoop around and compare the two.
( Last edited by OwossoBorn; Jun 4, 2007 at 09:57 PM. )
     
shifuimam  (op)
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Jun 4, 2007, 10:25 PM
 
I just did "ioreg -l" (lowercase L) - is there additional information you need from "ioreg -l -w0"?

So close I can feel it. I'm going to work on mounting the thing this weekend. Perhaps I can come up with a (sort of) easy solution to that problem...
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OwossoBorn
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Jun 4, 2007, 10:56 PM
 
Nah, the "-w" command sets the width of columns to use. Setting it to 0 tells it to not set a column width at all. Easier to read full screen that way.

I was thinking, if larger displays work as well, it'd be sorta cool to have an extended cable that runs out the back of the clamshell and attaches to a 17" or 19" desktop display. In case someone wants the largest display and isn't concerned with being mobile. I saw a few instructables on how to bring certain dead Dell 17" LCD screens back to life with a few capacitors. One could remove the clamshell's lid all together and use an external display,
     
mattfaulds
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Jun 5, 2007, 06:18 PM
 
I've just been looking through the OF dumps. OwossoBorn - your primary screen is listed an being a 14" Samsung LCD. Could that be part of the problem? Have you hooked it up to a 14" screen?
     
OwossoBorn
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Jun 5, 2007, 07:09 PM
 
MattFaulds: No I don't. The point of my dump upload was to show what a proper set of devices and properties looks like to my clamshell when it boots up the way we want it to. For every property I change in the nvramrc file, I get a different ioreg dump. (the rabbit hole goes pretty deep) My screen is the Samsung 12.1" LTN121X1-L02 from a white ibook. I haven't had a chance to look through Shifuimam's dump yet to see if the two are similar or not. By having the holy grail or Shifuimam's dumps, I can then have a clue what to look for when the computer doesn't boot up the way we want and hopefully find a plist or kext file to tweak and force the graphic mode we want.

I've used the defaults command before in terminal for looking at/setting certain properties based on other people's postings, but I never really thought about what that command was. I found a page that explains it a bit. I've just done a defaults domains | defaults read > MyDefaults.txt dump to a text file on the 800Mhz powerbook to see what's revealed, and will do it on the clamshell when I get back home later. It shows the properties set in a bunch of plist files across the computer. Should be easier to search for possible properties that are hard coding OSX to 800x600 and try changing them.
     
taigen
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Jun 5, 2007, 07:58 PM
 
Hi folks,
I was posting about overclocking the 366 & 466 a few pages back. I can now conclude the following: Overclocking the 466 using the R62/63 mod resulted in a blank screen as I said before. I have since tried it with the 366. Result is that it will start up but the screen freezes during typing in the login password and I never get any further I have returned both machines to original performance with no problems. I am now happy with 466mhz, 576mb RAM, 40GB HD, Tiger, CDRW/DVD Combo all in an indigo firewire case. I have found that most downloadable video content can be played in reasonable quality by first converting using 'isquint'. Its a program designed to make web video playable on the new generation of ipods.
Congrats on everyones progress with the screen res! Looking forward to trying it when its been well and truly cracked by those more expert than myself!
Taigen
     
OwossoBorn
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Jun 5, 2007, 10:59 PM
 
Shifuimam: I just checked out your ioreg dump and it is indeed cut off at a column #80. I figured without the "-w0" command it would just word wrap, but I guess it cuts off. Could you possibly do the ioreg dump from the white ibook again adding in the -w0 switch? Sorry it took so long for me to get to it, I should have caught that the day you uploaded it.

Taigen: At least you didn't fry your logic board while experimenting. Good job! Go ahead and get the screen and do the 1024x768 dance. It works great with display-family set to 3. The only thing you don't get with that is DVD playback on the internal screen (still works on external), 800x600 boot screens and possibly no brightness control (may boot up at half brightness). The last of which can be easily hacked back in to be operational again. If it weren't for the "once in a while booting up perfectly normal at 1024x768," I'd be content with the results of display-family set to 3. I'm just pushing forward to see if I can go from 86% functionality to 100%.
     
shifuimam  (op)
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Jun 6, 2007, 09:36 PM
 
Sell or send me your vintage Mac things if you don't want them.
     
OwossoBorn
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Jun 9, 2007, 03:24 PM
 
Shifuimam: I just checked out the new ioreg dump you uploaded and it seems incomplete and different somehow. Your file has certain properties that have pages and pages (and pages) of values that mine dont' have. Also, the very last line of your file seems to just end mid-word with "T35Code"=<008a>,"BlackLi Strange thing is, it's a MUCH larger file size for having been cut off at the end. All of my ioreg dumps were around 360k and MattFaulds was 330k. Your's is 1.45MB and doesn't list all of the devices.

I can find your pci@f0000000 pci bus, the ATY,RageM3p29s@10 video card and the .Display_Rage128-0100806f properties, but it doesn't have an AppleBacklightDisplay section, that I can see.

Not saying you did anything to make it this way, just stating the differences I've noticed.
     
kiwikid
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Jun 9, 2007, 07:05 PM
 
OwossoBorn: I've been getting ioreg dumps 400 ~ 800K from G5s running 10.4.9. I haven't tried to prove it, but I think it will vary with: OF version (bootrom version & OS version. Yes, I agree with you, over 1M from a ist gen iBook looks odd.

http://www.datasheet4u.com/search.php is an interesting link, they seem to keep only the first revision in each component, but there's still enough to identify, pinouts, etc.

My own project? Again mixed news: the panel I tried last week is from a G3 12" white iBk, IDTech IAXG01A, it used the same Hirose connector, but the pinouts are an almost but not quite mirror image for the LG panels. Vdd, Gnd, and the center pair of video land in the right place by simply filing off the two locator nipples on the connector, twisting it over & plugging in. But the other 2 pairs of video wires must be swapped in the connector. Then it goes (for small values of go).

Alternatively, from the roadkill collection I have a G4 12" iBk with a LG-Philips LP1212X04(C2). For this one, just plug it straight in and bingo, again for the same small value of go: ie. 800x600 anchored at top-left with a small repeat below.

I have seen (so far) 3 different version of OF editing:

nvedit<rtn>
value1 " property1" property<rtn>
value2 " property2" property<rtn>
Ctrl-C
nvstore<rtn>

nvedit<rtn>
value1 " property1" property value2 " property2" property
Ctrl-C
nvstore<rtn>

nvedit<rtn>
value1 " property1" get-my-property 2drop !<rtn>
value2 " property2" get-my-property 2drop !<rtn>
Ctrl-C
nvstore<rtn>

None of the supporters of each method say, but I suspect that the different syntax applies to different versions of OF, and I haven't yet found which is which. I bring this up because I cannot get it to work for me: I get broken pieces of those command lines written to nvramrc, instead of the property-value pair. BTW I'm using 10.4.9, and the Clamshell also boots 9.2.2, and I have X-PostFacto 4. The board is a 366Mhz f/w, SystemProfiler reports ATI RageM3p1, device ID 0x4c46, Revision ID 0x0002, ROM Revision 113-XXXXX-112;
And OF reports much the same and more under dev screen .properties, including display type 4c434400, backlight_control 61746900, ATY,Fcode 312e3734 00, and an entry called reg whose value is a 5 col x 4 row array of 4 byte values.

http://aitendo.sakura.ne.jp/lcduser/ looks like it could be a very interesting link for those fluent in Japanese (I'm not )

kk
     
OwossoBorn
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Jun 14, 2007, 05:35 AM
 
Kiwikid: It's not just the size that I was referring to, it was also the content of the ioreg dump and the fact that it stops dead in the middle of a word..

re:OF methods: Those are all (almost) methods of adding/changing properties in OF. Your first and second versions are missing the encode-int switch. I've used all of those methods in older clamshell OpenFirmware versions and newer powerbook versions, so it's not an OF version thing at all. Mostly, I've tried to use the commands with the least amount of text involved.

If there is a one byte value for a property, then:
value1 encode-int " property1name" property<rtn>

if two or more bytes are used for the property value, they must be sort of collected first, then a final encode+ before naming the property as in:
value1 encode-int value2 encode-int encode+ " property1name" property<rtn>

I have never seen your second version. It would seem to not work without some sort of delimiter, I'm not sure. If no delimiter is needed between commands, then all that is missing is the encoding switch.

The last version you posted seems to be an option when there is already a property stored in OF. I believe it retrieves the property, then replaces it with your value, dropping the last two commands entered onto the stack by the line itself. FORTH deals with putting things onto and taking things off of the 'stack.'

As for why your commands aren't working, post everything you type in after booting into OF exactly so I can take a look. One space out of place and the whole thing could not work. You might want to startup with Cmd+Opt+p+r to totally clear out your existing NVRAM script. If you try to go back in with nvedit on a reboot, it will sometimes start you at the end of the existing script. Always use the up/down arrows to go to the beginning and end of the script to make sure no extra lines are still hiding. Some useful nvedit commands to use:
Ctrl+k = kill (erase) from where you are to the end of the line
Ctrl+e = jump to end of line
Ctrl+a = jump to beginning of line
UpArrow = previous line
DownArrow = next line
Ctrl+l = (lowercase L) List out all nvedit lines. (great for seeing every line you've entered so far. Only works from within nvedit itself.)

I've had instances where after CTRL+c and NVSTORE, I'll go back in using nvedit and the last line had been truncated for some reason?!? Check and double check before actually rebooting. In the nvedit script, you must also make sure to add in the command to change to whatever device you wish to add/change the property for. ie.if you want to change display-family, then you must include the " /" select-dev prior to entering the display-family value in the script. If you don't change the device from within the script, then your property additions/changes are all happening outside of the device tree. Lastly, booting into OSX and doing an ioreg dump, you can see clearly the contents of the NVRAM script by searching for it in the text output. Also, before rebooting, make sure to type setenv use-nvram? true<rtn> or your NVRAM script won't be run.

If you read back a few posts, you can grab both my basic 1024x768 nvedit process line for line character for character or later on, the holy grail nvedit and play around with that one. I STILL haven't rebooted my clamshell since lastly entering the holy grail mode. Holy grail mode has only happened when I remove display-family all together and add in graphic-options and the two-byte display-config-info properties, but even then it's seemingly a crap shoot for the hardware to bootup into holy grail.

I haven't had nearly as much time to devote to the project, but plan on returning to it soon.
     
Parasite
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Jun 14, 2007, 05:48 AM
 
Hi there,

I have been lurking this thread for long time now, feeling so excited with what you are accomplishing. I own a graphite clamshel iBook at 466 MHz and FireWire. I'm planning to upgrade it as much as I can, but since I basically use it as a complementary computer at university, the display swap would be my first choice.

I managed to gather a Samsung 12.1" LTN121X1-L02 from a 500 MHz 12" iBook that broke down and was taken apart. Also, I ordered the LG cable you have been suggesting to use with the Samsung display. I received it yesterday.

So, hopefully, I will try to disassemble the clamshell and plug the new display this weekend (I'm in my exams period...). Any advice I should keep in mind during the process?

Also, you can count on me if you need any feedback. I will be pleased by collaborating in this beautiful project.

Greetings from Spain!
     
shifuimam  (op)
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Jun 14, 2007, 07:02 AM
 
Just be really careful. It's too easy to break a cable or strip a tiny screw while you're taking apart the iBook and working with the innards.

Use the iFixIt guide that has been linked here before. Get the rights tools - two small sizes of phillips-head screwdrivers (the ones in a jeweler's or electronics repair kit will work fine), and a T8 torx screwdriver. I ended up having to go to AutoZone to find mine.

Be patient and take your time. I print out the screw guides on the iFixIt site, put double-sided tape on each area on the guide, and stick my screws to it.

Taking apart the display assembly is a bitch. Once you take out the four screws that hold it together, you'll need to use a very blunt knife or spudger (you don't want to mar the plastic) and pry it apart - don't worry, it'll sound like it's about to break in two. The clamshells are made of surprisingly strong plastic, and it will take a lot to crack it in half. Just be patient and work at it, and you'll eventually get it all apart.

Good luck!
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Parasite
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Jun 14, 2007, 11:36 AM
 
OK, I confess it: I could not wait until the weekend ¡and I didi it this morning! (It is incredible the things we can do just not to study).

So, since I did not tocuh any OpenFirmaware settings I'm getting the top-left aligned output with the black vertical bar on the right and the replicated desktop below :-)

No problems arised during the displays exchange. Also I was able to assemble the iBook back without any special fastening (¿?) of the new display. In fact, I'm writting from the iBook right now.

I promise picks when I reach the 'holy grail' config :-)

Thanks for being so brave to show us the path, guys!
     
shifuimam  (op)
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Jun 14, 2007, 01:18 PM
 
I'd like to see pics of how you mounted the new LCD in the iBook. I can't figure out how to mount it without it being offset to the left by a few millimeters.

Also, how did you wrangle the cable?
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Parasite
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Jun 14, 2007, 03:12 PM
 
You are right, it is offset to the left I realized when I first get a 1024x768 bootscreen... I've been playing around with the scripts OwossoBorn posted, but no luck so far: whenever Mac OS X iniatiates, I get 800x600 back

Is there any definite script that will work for sure with the Samsung display and the LG cable? Any suggestions?

About the cable, I did nothing special, just try it to keep the route the original followed.
     
shifuimam  (op)
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Jun 14, 2007, 04:39 PM
 
Originally Posted by Parasite View Post
You are right, it is offset to the left I realized when I first get a 1024x768 bootscreen... I've been playing around with the scripts OwossoBorn posted, but no luck so far: whenever Mac OS X iniatiates, I get 800x600 back

Is there any definite script that will work for sure with the Samsung display and the LG cable? Any suggestions?

About the cable, I did nothing special, just try it to keep the route the original followed.
I have the LG cable and a Samusng LCD pulled from a 500Mhz 12" iBook G3.

My OF commands:

[codex]nvedit
" /" select-dev
3 encode-int " display-family" property
CTRL+C
nvstore
setenv use-nvramrc? true
reset-all[/codex]

I believe I had to set the use-nvramrc value to true inside OS X to make it work on my machine. Don't remember off the top of my head how I did it...I'll see if I can find it later.
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Parasite
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Jun 14, 2007, 06:30 PM
 
It didn't work for me, shifuimam :-(

(Thanks for replying that fast.)

EDIT: since family 3 is not working for me (don't ask me why) I played with OF's settings and gave family 2 a chance. As said by OwossoBorn, the resolution changed to 1152x768, which is the resolution I'll stick to. Here are some tips to avoid the problem with the hidden extra pixels at the rightmost part of the screen:

1. I created six empty text files and place them in a column (the number of files you should create may vary depending on your grid size). Then, I renamed them using just blank spaces (one for the first file, two for the second, and so on). Afterwards, I created a transparent 128x128 PNG with Photoshop an converted it to an icon with Pixadex. Finally, I changed the default text icon with this new transparent icon via Finder's inspector.

2. I placed extra items in the menu bar so that they pad the right side and let me see the ones of my interest. Also, I moved one of this extra icons I don't use and modded it to look like Spotlight (I'm a big fan of Quicksilver, so I deactivated Spotlight long time ago).

This is what it looks like. (If you select the first 1024 pixel from the left you'll what I see in my iBook. Also, any ideas on centering the Dock?)

ImageShack - Hosting :: imagen1xq2.png

As you can see, it seems there are no icons at the rightmost part of my desktop, but the truth is there are six of them. They're mission is to fill that area, so that I don't miss any new file created onto my desktop :-)

What do you guys think?
( Last edited by Parasite; Jun 16, 2007 at 03:47 PM. )
     
kiwikid
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Jun 17, 2007, 03:14 AM
 
Yes, thank you, thank you, shifuimam, display-family=3 is the magic number.
And the wuxga guys trick gets the brightness back for me too.

Parasite: you must be very careful in entering stuff to OF. These elderly 'Books may have keyboard faults that don't affect normal apps, things like bounce, dirty contacts, check carefully every line entered before hitting Return. I suspect that when you get into the inner workings, like nvedit, maybe it also interprets your using the [Delete] key as another keystroke added to the command. I've found sometimes it goes first time, sometimes it takes 3 or 4 attempts when changing stuff with nvedit...

Anyhow I now have a LP1212X04 running 1024x768 with brightness control, booting both 9.2.2 and 10.4.9. Slight cosmetic issue is it starts booting in the 800x600 top left corner mode, then as soon as window manager starts it goes full screen. I can live with this after seeing many beige G3s boot 640x480- before flicking to chosen resolution.

Seeing other ppl's problems above, I ran thru the gamut of <display-family="n"> and ran ioreg -l -w0 > iroeg_n, and I'll post those files somewhere visible shortly. Whilst doing this I found some unexpected things happening.

First up: confession time. It's been a while since I had to upgrade firmware on a Mac, so I ran iBook Firmware updater on this, it took it and BootROM bumped from 3.3f1 to 4.1.7f1. At the same time the video changed from ATI,RageM3p ROM 113-XXXXX-112 to ATI,RageM3p1 rom 113-xxxxx-119. Uhuh? If Apple can write to ATI's ROM, so can we. Well, so to speak. There are hundreds of pages on the web on flashing video ROM, 99.9% of them for WinPC. The odd ones for Mac video cards usually require you to pull the card and flash it in a PC. Not very practical for an iBook http://forums.macnn.com/images/smili...school/mad.gif

Next thing I noticed after changing display-family=3 was the video was reporting itself as ATY,RageM3p29s. Now there may be strange interactions here between OF, nvram, software drivers, etc, etc, and I'll get those ioreg listings out for the experts to comb thru. If you use a text editor to look at those files in
/System/Library/Displays/Overrides/DisplayVendorID-nnn/DisplayProductID-mmm
you will see a ProductID and VendorID which bear no relation to what is visible from the outside http://forums.macnn.com/images/smili...l/confused.gif

Summary: ioreg, and/or AppleSystemProfiler + SystemPrefs/Displays told me:

DisplayFamily 1 (Original iBook): ATY,RageM3p1, Display: iBook, Vendor: 610, Product: 9c08, 800x600 fullscreen

DisplayFamily 2: RageM3p12, Color LCD, 756c6b6e, 20000, 1152x768 + 8 other lower res, all anchored ~60px to right of physical screen, no brightness control.

DisplayFamily 3: RageM3p29s, Color LCD, 756e6b6e, 20000, 1024x768 ->640x480, brightness control on OS9 but not OS-X.
DisplayFamily 3(after copying Override/610/9c08 and renaming it 756e6b6e/20000): RageM3p29s, iBook, 610, 9c08, 1024x768 -> 640x480, brightness works, http://forums.macnn.com/images/smilies/up.gif

DisplayFamily 4: RageM3p29a, Display, 756e6b6e, 717, 800x600 only, wedged in top left corner, no brightness control.

DisplayFamily 5,6, 7, 0 (identical?): RageM3p, iBook, 610, 9c08, 800x600 (booted fullscreen, then reverted to top left corner), brightness control works.

DisplayFamily 8 = DisplayFamily1.

Now for the overclocking.... http://forums.macnn.com/images/smili...chool/wink.gif
     
kiwikid
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Jun 17, 2007, 04:29 AM
 
ooooops, I'd better give up on the smileys, sorry...

there are some ioreg dumps at
http://130.216.231.2/t/ior/
     
Parasite
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Jun 17, 2007, 07:28 AM
 
you must be very careful in entering stuff to OF. These elderly 'Books may have keyboard faults that don't affect normal apps, things like bounce, dirty contacts, check carefully every line entered before hitting Return. I suspect that when you get into the inner workings, like nvedit, maybe it also interprets your using the [Delete] key as another keystroke added to the command. I've found sometimes it goes first time, sometimes it takes 3 or 4 attempts when changing stuff with nvedit...
Good point. Although, some things to highlight:

1. I'm using a spanish keyboard, which gets remapped when I start in OF mode, forcing me to use [Shift] to type certain characters in. Might this be the problem?

2. If I set display-family to 3 I get the right bootscreen (what makes me think the OF command was correctly introduced), but when Mac OS X loads I get back to 800x600.

Weird, isn't it?
( Last edited by Parasite; Jun 17, 2007 at 01:38 PM. )
     
midiman32
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Jun 18, 2007, 04:42 PM
 
Hello everyone,

I am also a loyal clam fanatic and have been following this thread for some time in hopes of finding a definite answer to an lcd upgrade question. Right now I have a graphite ibook that was originally a 366mhz non-firewire but now its a 466 mhz (also graphite) with the display from the original 366 (the display is a samsung if that helps). My question has to do with the 2nd gen ibook g3 displays (12.1"), and if one would be compatible with my ibook (as in the connectors to the logic board and screen itself). I think i read about a couple people doing so for their clams in this thread but I was still unsure exactly if adapters are needed (and which ones), as well as if anyone got the 1024x768 res to work on OS X (although I would run ubuntu if I needed ). Thanks for any help.
     
shifuimam  (op)
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Jun 18, 2007, 08:07 PM
 
This has been asked multiple times, so I'm adding it to the top of the first post of this thread. Go there.
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shifuimam  (op)
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Jun 23, 2007, 02:56 PM
 
Just a quick update - I finally reassembled my iBook. I ended up just sandwiching the display between the bezel and the back plastics. The pieces are so tight that it holds it together perfectly. I also used needle-nosed pliers to bend down the two tabs on the right part of the back bracket (that are used for the two right screws on the original stock LCD), and that gave *just* enough extra room to fix the offset of the display. I'll try to post pics later if I can.

The LCD is very slightly tilted in the case because there's nothing securing it in there. For now, it works - it's not going to move inside the plastics, so until we find a way to actually secure it in, I'm just going to leave it the way it is. My next goal is to find DVD playback software that will fix the overlay problem. If we can get VLC Media Player to work, that allows you to set your overlay settings to fix squirrely video cards and displays.

I, for one, am thrilled. When I started this idea last year, I never thought that I could actually do it. Not really, you know? But we did! Yay!

I'm off to find software that will let me play DVDs...
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Parasite
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Jun 24, 2007, 04:25 AM
 
I also used needle-nosed pliers to bend down the two tabs on the right part of the back bracket (that are used for the two right screws on the original stock LCD), and that gave *just* enough extra room to fix the offset of the display.
I was thinking in doing so when I have enough time. Congrats!

BTW, display-family=3 still doesn't work for me... I'm considering upgrading the firmware to the latest version just to see what happens, because I don't know what else to do...
     
shifuimam  (op)
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Jun 24, 2007, 10:15 AM
 
That may be necessary - if the firmware you're running is before the 500Mhz iBooks existed, "display-family=3" won't mean anything to the iBook. At least, that's my theory.

Playing DVDs is a dead end for me. VLC media player crashes whenever I try to play DVDs with the video plugin set to default, Quartz, or something that I can't remember right now. Apple's DVD Player still doesn't work.

Another thing that I have noticed, and it may be because my battery is now about a year and a half old. Battery life is considerably less than with the original screen, if I have the brightness turned all the way up. I'm guessing that this is because this screen is brighter than the original. On a fully charged battery, it showed 5:43 remaining at first, but that quickly dropped to around 3:25 or so. I've turned my brightness down to one above completely off, and the time remaining is still dropping. It could be that the laptop isn't correctly calculating time remaining since it's a foreign display, so to speak, but I doubt it. In the last few minutes I've been writing this, it seems to be hovering around five hours with the brightness turned down as low as possible without turning off the backlight. So, we'll see what happens long-term with this.

Oh, and since I'm not running Tiger, I unfortunately cannot run Coconut Battery to see the estimated battery life left on this thing.
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gooser
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Jun 24, 2007, 11:43 AM
 
now c****e, we all knew you could do it. tried to cheer you up right before christmas, but my plan backfired. anyway, congratulations! keep pluggin'
imac g3 600
imac g4 800 superdrive
ibook 466
     
shifuimam  (op)
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Jun 24, 2007, 01:39 PM
 
Wow. You're irritating. The only "encouragement" you gave was posting inane comments that contributed nothing to this project.

And I don't recall ever giving my real name once in this forum except in PMs about marketplace transactions, so I'm really curious as to where you got it.

I said it last year, but I'll reiterate here - if you have nothing of value to contribute to this, please thread crap elsewhere.
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shifuimam  (op)
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Jun 24, 2007, 01:46 PM
 
I tried using Trans Lucy to see if that worked, but that app apparently uses the same decoding whatever (algorithm, mechanism, hardware, etc.) as Apple's DVD Player.

OwossoBorn, do you also have OS 9 installed on your iBook? If so, did the DVD Player app in that OS work?

I'm wondering if we might be able to circumvent the overlay issue by using another version of Apple's own DVD player - like the one from Jaguar, 10.1, or even Tiger.

This is one annoying thing, I have to admit. At least with Windows Media Player, you can set your overlay settings if you have problems with particular graphics cards. I just wish that Apple's DVD Player software was a little more configurable.
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gooser
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Jun 24, 2007, 01:48 PM
 
a while back you responded to a thread in the ibook forum where you showed a screenshot of your finder. your home folder was named "claire's computer". thanks for calling me "irritating", you're not the only one with feelings.
imac g3 600
imac g4 800 superdrive
ibook 466
     
Derek_Lancaster
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Jun 25, 2007, 10:18 AM
 
So I've read this entire thread, and it's been very interesting.

But I don't understand the venom towards "gooser". I think what set you off was his comment about coming back from vacation with new ideas. Being a software developer that hits roadblocks often, I totally understand that sort of thinking. Sometimes taking a short break (or a long break) gives you new perspective when you are knee-deep in a problem.

You shouldn't jump down people's throats so quickly. For the first few pages I thought "this person is pretty smart", then I hit that first venom-post and thought "...and sort of a jerk."






Originally Posted by shifuimam View Post
Wow. You're irritating. The only "encouragement" you gave was posting inane comments that contributed nothing to this project.

And I don't recall ever giving my real name once in this forum except in PMs about marketplace transactions, so I'm really curious as to where you got it.

I said it last year, but I'll reiterate here - if you have nothing of value to contribute to this, please thread crap elsewhere.
     
shifuimam  (op)
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Jun 25, 2007, 11:41 AM
 
How hard is it to not thread crap?

I asked gooser last year to just quit trolling this thread. Why he came back is beyond me.

This is an active project. If someone wants to thread crap and troll, do it in the Lounge or the Policital/War subforum of the Lounge.

<edit>
I should add that I am not going to respond to anything else about this. I don't want this thread to get derailed. This project isn't over, so please do not post anything that does not directly pertain to this project. Thank you.
</edit>
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shifuimam  (op)
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Jun 25, 2007, 11:51 AM
 
Here's a thought about the DVD overlay - is there an NVRAM config difference between iBooks that came with DVD-ROMs and those that didn't?

If it works connected to a TV, and it works if we set display-family to 2 (which makes it think it's a first-revision TiBook), maybe there's a hidden thing in there we need to configure to make it play DVDs.
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Maxwell Smart
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Jun 25, 2007, 01:59 PM
 
Hey guys, no new updates on my end, just wanted to post here that as I was browsing one of my favorite online tech sites (Engadget) I happened to come across an article that seemed vaugely familiar ;-). I think we should all enjoy our 5 seconds of fame

How to uprez your iBook, if that's your thing - Engadget
Macbook (White): 2Ghz/2GB/160GB 5400/SD/AE/10.5
Powerbook (15"): 1.5Ghz/1.5GB/60GB 5400/SD/AE/10.5
iBook (Clam): 466Mhz/576MB/40GB 7200/CD/AP/10.4
     
shifuimam  (op)
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Jun 25, 2007, 02:41 PM
 
OMG I submitted that to Engadget!!! i didn't think they'd post it!

That's awesome. We're internet-famous until that article gets pushed off the front page.
( Last edited by shifuimam; Jun 25, 2007 at 02:57 PM. )
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Parasite
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Jun 27, 2007, 05:29 AM
 
A tiny update here. It worked for me to update the OF version to the latest available, so I'm now at 1024x768 with no brightness control, but I'm doing the tweak later.

Thank you again, guys.
     
shifuimam  (op)
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Jun 27, 2007, 09:02 AM
 
Good to know - I'll add that to the "what you need" list on the OP.

I can't imagine why brightness works for me but not any of you guys. Are you all running 10.3.9 or some other version of OS X?

I've still had no luck with DVD playback. I downloaded DVD Player 3.1 and it wouldn't even run in Panther. I tried MPlayer, which let me open the VIDEO_TS folder on a DVD, but it sat there for like five full minutes "loading" it.

I'm tapped out on alternative DVD playback software for OS X - AFAIK, XinePlayer, VLC Media Player, and MPlayer are the only options.
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kiwikid
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Jun 30, 2007, 11:17 PM
 
Shifuimam: The ATI chip is different on the DVD player models, it at least has mp2 hardware decoding, so may also have other tricks. I have the earlier model, with no DVD but I dropped in a combo drive, and

The Good: MacOS 10.4.9, with 576M ram, and XPostFacto (altho its not strictly needed for firewire models) I've gotten into the habit of using it on dual-boot Macs because it allows easy setting of some nvram parameters. VLC 0.8.6 works for me, and I installed iMovieHD;

The Bad: it's still only a G3, no matter how you overclock, it has no Altivec. Also for the models with smaller vram the AGP calls to main ram go thru the cpu;

The Ugly: DVD play performance is at the mercy of the compression ratio and codec used on the disc: a few discs just play OK, many discs need to be reduced to halfsize player to be useful, some discs stutter at 2 frames/sec, and a few discs just plain don't work...
     
kiwikid
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Jul 3, 2007, 08:47 PM
 
An unexpected error (error #-69) occurred.
Your firmware will not be updated.
[ OK ]

I got another Key Lime 366 Firewire clamshell here, very clean and tidy, but of course it needs a makeover. Reports BootROM 3.3.3f3, so I tried to apply the firmware update 4.1.7 and got the above error. My oracle says:

-69 badCksmErr addr mark checksum didn't check

Yes, I'm running 9.1 on the internal 10G HD. I've replaced the DIMM to give 192MB total, and replaced the battery with a known good, and the charger is on. Downloaded a fresh copy of both the US-English and the Z-1 version of the updater, zapped PRAM, reset-all OF, still no go. This 'book will boot OS9.1 from external firewire, but not OS-X, so I'm suspecting a possible glitch with the HD firmware. I was hoping to leave the drive update till later, & do the display first, but looks like it wants to go the other way...
     
 
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