Maximum PC

Hey, an old HP laptop finally decided to go out on me. I took it apart and I would really like to know if it's possible and how on to make the screen work for something else. I would like to have one of those picture switching deals with a screen that big, maybe do something like they have in potter's world, just throwing out some ideas.

You would need a way to interface the display inverter. The display inverter takes info from the graphics card and sends it to the screen in raw format. The circuit boards inside a normal screen include display inverters and decoders. You will need to figure out a way to decode the signals.

Close...

The inverter powers the backlight (on a flourescent-backlit LCD display.) It converts DC to AC, to power the lamp.

As for the display itself:
All LCD panels are driven by an LVDS (Low-Voltage Differential Signal) input.
Where a laptop display, and a 'normal' display (desktop monitor, TV) differs is this:
- Laptop: LVDS output is directly from the laptop's video chip
- 'normal': LVDS output is from a chip in the display cabinet (converts VGA, DVI, HDMI, etc. input to LVDS signalling for the display.)

So, not only do you need to power the inverter (that should be the simple part), but you also need to drive the display (not so simple.)

<edit>
now I notice how long it's been since that post.... Damn, this folder doesn't get much traffic!