iMac screen quit, need 6 pin firewire monitor and actually can't find one.

[scrye]

Thanks in advance for your attention- Here's the info off the side of my computer box-

MA590LL/A
Model No. A1208
iMac 17/2.0/GB(2x512)/160GB/SD/BT/AP

It's pretty old (2006) and has a 6 pin firewire port. The screen quit, but it still makes the usual start-up sounds, so if I can set it up with another screen it should work. I took it in to the shop and they said my options were to either find a firewire monitor (which has proven amazingly difficult) or to extract the hard drive.

Can anyone recommend a 6 pin firewire monitor? I've actually done a lot of searching, and almost bought a monitor off ebay that the seller had mistakenly listed as a firewire monitor.

Can anyone recommend a monitor? And am I right about being able to hook them up?

Thank you for your time

 

[Intell]

FireWire monitors don't exist. The closest is a DisplayLink based USB one. They don't have hardware acceleration, but work well for most things.

 

[JoeG4]

You can try hooking up a dvi or vga monitor with a mini-DVI to vga (or mini dvi to dvi) adapter. It might work.

 

[FrancoisC]

If the shop told you to get a "firewire monitor" do yourself a favor and never go there again.

As previously mentionned, there is no such thing.

One thing you can do is to unplug the integrated LCD, this way any external display will be treated as the main/primary screen.

 

[Thermonuclear]

How about a USB 2.0 adapter which can output DVI, HDMI, or VGA?

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/VIDU2DVIA/

Or a USB 3.0 version (DVI or HDMI only):

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/VIDU3HDMIDV/

 

[Shrapnel]

Based on the model of iMac I believe you would have mini-DVI port on the back. It would be a simple adapter to either DVI or VGA for an external monitor. This is assuming of course that your iMac is functional outside of the built-in LCD.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TA23844?viewlocale=en_US

To reiterate a previous point, there is no FireWire video output that I am aware of. Either this shop is lacking in technical knowledge or is looking to take advantage of the situation potentially that is... either way I would look further other computer/Apple service options in the future.

Good luck!

-Shrapnel

 

[skinny*k]

Scrye, unless you misunderstood something, I have to agree with the others and recommend that you not use the shop that gave you the advice; it doesn’t seem that they know much of anything about computers, let alone Macintoshes.

Use an adapter on your video-out port, as mantioned above, and after you boot-up your external monitor will show the default desktop, empty and without a menu-bar. Click anywhere on the desktop—to make sure that you are in the Finder rather than some other Startup App—and enter Command-F1 to toggle “Mirror Displays” on. After that, you can proceed as you see fit.

Unplugging your internal monitor is not a bad idea, but I wouldn’t bother with it unless I had some other reason to open-up the computer.

 

[ReanimationLP]

You can use an adapter. Chances are, your screen is working, however the backlight has gone out. You can tell, by taking a flash light and holding it up aganist the screen. You'll see the picture.

You can always as well get the screen replaced. It's just a laptop LCD module thats 17". Look in the range of like HP dv8000 LCD modules, etc. Those are 1440x900, and should fit.

LCD panels are pretty universal. Best bet is to double-check the part number on the back then find the panel on eBay. You'd probably pay around 100 for the panel.