ACD / iBook compatibility?

Welcome back. It's possible with the Screen Spanning Doctor, but performance won't necessarily be all that great. What size are you after? It won't work with the 30" display.

medievalsteve said:

I have an iBook G4, and have been desiring a Cinema Display for a good while (I've been waiting for the long rumored display update; but that's another story). Does anyone know if an ACD can be made to run off an iBook? I think it can be done, but would love to know if it is actually possible, and what kind of connectors are necessary to do so. Thanks!

b.t.w. -- this is my first macrumors post, after 2 years of lurking!

Click to expand...

Possible but very expensive. You'd need a VGA -> DVI converter (they run around US$300, don't make the mistake of thinking a DVI -> VGA adapter is the same thing) that will convert the analogue signal back to digital. It takes a fair bit of power to do so which is why the converter is so expensive.

Then, you run into the problem that 32MB isn't much of a video buffer for running such a large screen. Everything gets pretty choppy as the iBook will allocate 16MB of it's 32MB to the secondary display - not much breathing room for an ACD's resolution.

Finally, the iBook was designed to only allow secondary monitors in mirrored mode so that no matter what display you plugged in you would only see a mirror of your iBook's display in 1024x768. You would need screen-spanning doctor to allow extended display mode to be activated.

As a caveat, make sure you don't enable "clamshell mode" which would allow you to run an iBook closed with all 32MB VRAM allocated to the external display - the iBook is designed to radiate heat from the keyboard and trackpad area unlike the PB/MB/MBP and keeping the lid closed will bugger up your iBook.