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What to do w/ a screenless iBook 500?

Submitted by Barjack on February 10, 2005 - 9:55pm. Hardware Hacks

I am at a loss. I have a white iBook 500 mhz with a *VERY* broken screen, so bad that the screen bezel is warped. I removed the screen assembly to make somewhat of a cute little desktop, which works well but is very bland. Has anyone performed any sort of serious modification to any form of iBook similar to this? I am specifically wondering about heat dissipation if I were to take the upper or lower case plastics off and/or the lower heatshield. Ideas that pop into mind are: mount mobo into 1U rack, mount mobo into Quadra 900 case, mount mobo into Mac Classic along with 10" LCD. Thoughts? Suggestions? I have no problem with a soldering iron or case modding. Heck, if I had a good screen for this guy I'd just replace it, but screens with bezel seem to run over 200 bucks on eBay, not worth the investment.

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I have been wanting to make a

Submitted by Stuka on February 11, 2005 - 1:01am.

I have been wanting to make an ultra slim desktop out of an iBook/Powerbook for some time now. One of these days I will. You could make it rack mount, but would be a lot of wasted space. Although if you got another one, and mounted two in a case, that would be cool. I was thinking of making a thin aluminum case for it, and have the power supply inside the case as well.

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Look for somewhat defective s

Submitted by coius on February 11, 2005 - 1:03am.

Look for somewhat defective screens that do not hinder it very much. Things like, 1-2 dead/stuck pixels on the screen, or Keyboard marks that are only visible only when the screen is off. (I picked up a Pismo screen off of Ebay that was sold from PBfixit.com, and the only thing wrong with it is that there are keyboard marks only visible when the screen is off.) Otherwise, it is perfectly functioning

BTW: I picked up the 14.1" screen for only $50+ S/H

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Would help

Submitted by ravuya on February 13, 2005 - 11:40pm.

Tearing apart the board and putting it in a larger, fan-heavy case such as the Quadra or a 1U rackmount would actually help heat dissipation: the 12" iBook in particular is very cramped inside.

I have been meaning to build an ultra-slim desktop for quite some time, but eBay just never seems to be able to dump the "right" laptop board into my lap. Converting an ATX power supply over to it is fairly simple.

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Tip

Submitted by ravuya on February 14, 2005 - 12:21am.

Thanks for the tip, their motherboards still seem fairly expensive but perhaps they will drop in price enough to make a nice slim media server later on in life.

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My thoughts....

Submitted by TheUltimateMacUser on February 14, 2005 - 3:22pm.

My thoughts: screenless 'book + internet (wired or wireless) + wireless keyboard with built in pointing device + TV = web TV kinda thing for parents (or grandparents, or whatever).

You could also just rakmount it and use it as a desktop, i guess.

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