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thorshammer88

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 19, 2005
95
0
Hello, I was wondering if it is at all possible to run a PC off of my imac. I currently have a PC and monitor and my imac on the same desk and would like to remove the PC monitor if I can. Does anybody know of a system that would allow me to do this? Thanks for any help
 

PlaceofDis

macrumors Core
Jan 6, 2004
19,241
6
no its not possible. there is no way to connect your pc tower to the montior of your iMac. there is no 'input' for the screen so you can't feed info from your pc to your imac for just the screen....

i hope that makes sense.
 

cr2sh

macrumors 68030
May 28, 2002
2,554
3
downtown
PlaceofDis speaks the truth. You will not be able to connect the iMac screen to the PC video source... there just isn't a place to plug it in!

(I'd probably just get rid of the pc all together.) :p
 

PlaceofDis

macrumors Core
Jan 6, 2004
19,241
6
just remembered though. depending on what you need to use your PC for. and if you have XP Pro you could use Microsoft's Remote Desktop client to use your PC through your iMac. not the best of solutions, but it does work.
 

nrd

macrumors member
Mar 8, 2005
83
0
New Jersey
I'm sure you could get a hardware device similar to the likes of EyeTV that accepts VGA d-sub as an input and connect your PC that way. Your PC video output would then play on a screen on your Mac.

You could even go the circuitous route and go from S-Video (a common video out on most PCs) to an Elgato TV (analog to really analog to digital)

Remote Desktop/VNC seems like your best option though. If you run X on the other machine, you could always tunnel into your machine from your Mac and run applications that way.
 

munkees

macrumors 65816
Sep 3, 2005
1,027
1
Pacific Northwest
sure you can run your PC of you iMac buy just switching the PC off, unpluging it and puting it in the cubboard. Now you iMac is your PC and the problem is solved. Sorry I had to, just hate windows, it has hurt me too much in my life.
 

Arnaud

macrumors 6502
May 24, 2005
430
0
The Moon
thorshammer88 said:
Hello, I was wondering if it is at all possible to run a PC off of my imac. I currently have a PC and monitor and my imac on the same desk and would like to remove the PC monitor if I can. Does anybody know of a system that would allow me to do this? Thanks for any help

No, no clue. I did think about that too, but I guess you'd have to dismount half of the iMac, barbarian-plug the PC on the screen of the iMac, fight on the PC for the correct drivers, then dismount it all to use the iMac as an iMac at all. I suppose the design of the iMac would be a little modified.

More seriously, I don't know if any available connection (USB-2 or Firewire) would be fast enough for the data to be processed, you might end up with a slow reaction.

Anyway, good question, I'm curious about the answer :)

A.
 
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