Use old Laptop TFT with normal video card?

[MrGnome]

Dont know if this is the correct forum for this, but here goes my question nevertheless :wink:

I got an old smashed up laptop from a friend, and I think it ought to be possible to use the screen as a secondary screen on my PC.

The screen is a SHARP LQ13X02C, and has an inverter board on the back of it, which has 4 (now cut) wires going in to this. I suppose these are power cables. There is also a small connector, which i suppose is the video connector.

Do You think it would be possible to wake this screen up, and find out the pinouts for the video connector and what voltages ther should be going in to the inverter board?

 

[Exo]

In most laptops the TFT screen is driven digitally. Therefore the output from the video processer goes straight to the TFT while the output on a normal computer is converted to analog (for your crt monitor).
the chipset used in a laptop is, in most cases, specially desinged to drive a lcd

 

[MrGnome]

Ah, i see! Will the fact that i have Digital out on my graphics card help any at all?

EDIT: ok did some more research , and it seems it's not as simple as i thought. More info HERE: http://www.geocities.com/p9019/lcdpanel.html

 

[jem]

By the looks of it, you have an XGA 13.3" digital TFT LCD. It must have come from a fairly old (pre-2000) notebook. While not impossible, the cost/effort involved would negate any gain from using such a panel.

Older notebooks used digital panels (H, V syncs, plus 18 or 24 data bits). After that, there was a move towards LVDS (pushed by National), and eventually TMDS (formerly known as Panel Link, pushed by Silicon Image). DVI adopted TMDS as its transmission standard. LCD monitors have the TMDS receiver chips built in, but also have an additional communication link called DDR. So, in order to make it work you would have to build your own TMDS (to digital) receiver, and add a small microcontroller to take care of the DDR (I2C physical link) channel, which basically sends information known as EDID to identify the panel to the video card. If the EDID is correctly implemented, the video card will then drop its resolution and dot clock to match the panel in use.


Jem