swapping screens on a G4 titanium powerbook?

I'm not sure about yours, but most video cards allow for the whole screen to be moved up down etc.. I would go into your Video settings and see if it has a screen adjustment, if not contact the Video card makers website, and see if they have a handy dandy utility such as this...

Good Luck, Jay.

The "older" (400Mhz -> first rev 667Mhz) Titaniums used a lower resolution screen then the later ones. (1152x768 vs 1280x864) It sounds like from the symptoms you've swapped a high res model for an older one, but the system isn't detecting the fact.

Another person on this forum apparently has a lot of experience playing musical chairs with Titanium screens. According to their experience the newer systems *should* properly read the type code on the older screens and adjust accordingly. I don't know what to suggest if your machine is not, other then perhaps ensure that the display connector wiring is all good.

--Peace

Your screen is acting properly, it is (as Eudi mentions) a 1280x screen on your 1152x MLB and it's doing exactly what it should be doing. That is, it's displaying the only rez about which it knows onto a larger LCD than it expects. No, there is no way (AFAIK) to inform the System to pump up GPU's output to the higher rez.

The only cure is to find a proper 1152x rez LCD from a 400-500-550-667(non-DVI) 'Book. Otherwise simply adjust your expectations and live with the not-so-cool looking thing you've currently got.

for more infos, see my TiBook display page.

PURE SPECULATION
Maybe, just maybe it's possible to get the higher, rez . . . is there an OS X util like the old SwitchRes that can force the display to an officially-unsupported rez? I've not currently got on hand this particular combo of early 'Book and late LCD, else I'd try it myself . . . Brad, care to look into it?

Edit: yep, it's here, Brad, give it a try!

hth,

dan k

The way I read the original post is that he actually has the opposite configuration, and that the system is behaving as if it still has the higher res screen attached.

(In other words, I interpret "Changing the resolution lower has no effect, display is still bigger than the screen." as: "I've tried lowering the resolution, but I'm still losing the bottom and right edges off the sides because the system thinks the physical screen is bigger then it is.")

--Peace

Eudi, I bet yer right, I didn't read the OP closely enough before firing off my reply. Damn, now why the heck did you 'Reply' instead of 'Add new comment'? Now I can't go back and cover up . . . errr, edit! my misread of the OP.

K', so let's assume it's the case that Brad has a DVI TiBook and now has a pre-DVI LCD installed. I've seen two behaviors in this circumstance . . .

1) System sees an 1152x768 LCD and displays that rez properly
or
B) System imagines a 1280x854 LCD, which doesn't all fit on the real 1152x768 LCD and thus the extra pixels are 'offscreen' and not visible.

Awhile back, I did some testing, and the difference seemed to be in the cable, some cables able to communicate the correct rez and others not:

LVDS cables on a DVI 667, with pre-DVI LCDs
-LG/Phillips LP152W1
-Samsung LTN152W1 and LTN152W2
cable PN#.............LCD............output
--------------------------------------------
590-5081 rev A.......LP152W1.........1280x
590-5081 rev A.......LTN152W2........1280x

590-5156 rev A.......LTN152W1........1280x
-Foxxconn - blue and gold wires, w/green tape

590-5156.rev.B.......LP152W2.........1152x
590-5156 rev B.......LTN152W1........1152x
-blue wires

590-5156-01..........LTN152W1........1152x
-green wires

Sadly, I didn't keep track from which TiBook each of the cables was sourced, as that would have been rather useful to know.

Disclaimer: Please note I won't guarantee the above data to be valid on any machine other than the one on which I did my testing.

Soooo, one fix may be to use a different LVDS cable. However, the SwitchRes solution may be easier, as the DVI 'Books know about the 1152x rez.

I was just playing with SwitchRes X, I'm not quite sure how to use it though. I tried to add a custom resolution (1152x768) to my DVI 667 but it wasn't letting me actually make it switch to that rez. Hmmmm . . . mebbee not workee? Humph!

dan k

Can you go into the monitor control panel and adjust the geometry. Once there adjust the height and width?

If I am an idiot to this subject, most humble apologies.

thanks so much for your help everybody... will try to digest the posts and then see if i can make a plan ;-)

Next time I will check the powerbook's monitor control panel before posting. There isn't a geomtry in the panel for 'books. Duh! Sorry. Boy I wish the site author would put the delete post back.

It's amazing the things you can learn when you're paying attention!! (this is in regard to my post, not yours..)

I've got a Tibook with a broken LVDS cable. Does anyone know where to buy a new cable without spending a fortune (like $80 on powerbookmedic.com) ?

The macsupportstore.com have for sale different lvds cables for other Powerbooks and iBooks but I can´t find that any of the cables will fit in a Powerbook DVI... Does anyone know?

I appreciate any help!

i didn't want to start a new forum topic as I've seen there has been similar previous posts... and this is along the same lines:

i posted on mac observer, but seems like you lads might know bettah

i have a Powerbook Onyx [667 gigabit titanium] (which is 1152x768 ) and was wondering if it would be possible to replace my existing display with the awesome new 46% brighter & 26% more pixels display... would there be some compatibility issues? with hardware? or would the computer in the display settings not be able to read that i have 1440 x 960??

hackamac

i prolly have to use SwitchRes but will my video card not be able to handle that? and is there no easy way to change the video card? and logic board has to understand the new video card too right?

seems quite complex....

Fanks!

This is a quote from Dan K's rather enlightening page (mentioned above) covering LCD bezel removal & screen replacement: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/macdan/tibook_display.html

"The earlier LCDs work fine on the DVI models, but at the lower rez of course. Interestingly, a DVI LCD worked on my 400mhz test unit, but it displayed only the lower rez output to the upper left of the screen. It had 128 pixels of odd static-like artifacts at the right edge and repeated pixels from the top at the bottom edge."

(This page also has some good advice on how to avoid bending up the fragile metal bezel,
and there's some other fascinating research on the glues used to hold the screen assembly together- apparently Apple used a special acrylic adhesive called "Lord's glue"!)

Thanks Dan!