I just posted this in a separate thread on using an external monitor with an external keyboard. Not sure if this is what you want, as in this work-around you also need an external keyboard mouse for this (but you can still use the laptop keyboard and mouse after the laptop LCD has been disabled).
- Put the monitor is in extended display mode (or mirror it does not seem to really matters once the laptop LCD is disabled).
- Plug in USB Key board (doesn’t matter if it is done before or after closing laptop).
- Close Laptop.
- Wait for a seemingly long time (50-55 seconds) until the LCD lid light starts to pulsate between brightnesses back and forth – removing the power cable does not speed things up – but if it is removed – you need to plug it back in order to wake it up again).
- Wake up laptop by hitting keys on keyboard of moving mouse.
How do I turn the LCD laptop display on again? In display system preferences hit the ‘Detect Displays’ button.
I later found a work around the 55 second delay.
I learned how to more quickly remove the waiting time to disable the laptop LCD - and that is to turn off "safe sleep". Safe sleep saves an image of main memory onto disk if you loose all power (e.g., ., you are not plugged in and have no battery power left). This is partly from
http://www.macworld.com/article/53471/2006/10/sleepmode.html and works nicely.
1. Check your current mode:
{thyme:627} pmset -g | grep hibernatemode
hibernatemode 3
For MacPro books after 2005 the default should return a 3, Mode 3 keeps your RAM powered during sleep to allow super fast wake-up, but also writes an image file of all memory onto disk in case power is lost. The writing slows the wait for it to disable the screen.
2. If the above is 3, change it so it doesn't create an image file, but switching the mode to "0" (zero). In a Terminal window:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
Enter your password when asked to do so. This prevents Safe Sleep from saving your memory contents to disk, in large part the cause of not being able to wake MacBook’s from sleep.
That is it! Now you can also open the laptop while the display is turned off and use that keyboard as well.
A weird caveat to this, after I changed it back to mode '3' I could close the laptop without a wait...
