Use a laptop LCD to extend your desktop display

posted Jun 27th 2007 3:26pm by Will O'Brien
filed under: laptops hacks

I get an email asking for this almost monthly, and [PUNiSH3R]’s take on this covers everything pretty well. He uses some interesting tricks with WINE to get enough performance to play a DVD on the remote display. Yes, the cheapest way is to turn it into a remote desktop display over a network. Personally, I use synergy2 to share my keyboard and mouse, run multiple OS’s and keep my sanity.

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Comments [13]

Reader Comments

Want to see a video of Synergy?
http://www.ultramobilegeek.com/2006/08/umpc-synergy.html

Posted at 4:12 pm on Jun 27th, 2007 by ThoughtFix

#1, that looks like a reproduction of an old DEC program called x2x from ages ago. Personally I’m not sure how I could have lived without it for the last, oh… decade.

I’m surprised that people would find something like that so unbelievable that they’d need a video…

Posted at 5:12 pm on Jun 27th, 2007 by ivan256

Dang, and here I was hoping for some way to use the working LCD of an otherwise broken laptop. Guess I’ll still have to purchase a monitor for my workshop.

Posted at 5:33 pm on Jun 27th, 2007 by WeblionX

anyone know if there is a way to do this with a palm?

Posted at 12:12 am on Jun 28th, 2007 by handl3r

I think the title is misleading and should instead simply read ‘extend your desktop display’… while it is a clever repackaging, this is nothing more than a networked display that could be accomplished with any type of pc.

Posted at 7:28 am on Jun 28th, 2007 by agent420

Or there’s Win2VNC/X2VNC…

http://fredrik.hubbe.net/win2vnc.html

Posted at 8:40 am on Jun 28th, 2007 by ed3

kewl mod of a cheap lcd screen

http://metku.net/index.html?path=mods/transtft/index_eng

Posted at 9:00 am on Jun 28th, 2007 by rockrapdude

Wow. There’s absolutely no way just to cheaply reuse the screen itself? That’s unfortunate, because using a 1.2GHz processor to power a 14.1 inch auxiliary display seems rather like overkill…

Posted at 12:15 am on Jun 29th, 2007 by Vladsinger

Of course you can reuse just the display; but the WiFi is a nice feature. You could use minimal circuitry to feed a second (third…) DMI or SVGA or HDMI cable off your PC in and thus get a second display, but cables require so much high-grade plastic it is a serious waste. Adding a CPU at least capable of full-resolution h.264 playback and otherwise managing a limited wireless data rate gets you some pretty nice independent functionality.
1.2GHz is not a lot of power in itself (not bad for 4 64bit cores, but 1.2GHz P-IIIs seem stingy), but if you can use a DSP or a video-specific chip of course you can save power and battery bulk.
Better yet, doll up the case nicely, add some touchscreen and 3-axis accelerometer (or gravity sensor chip) components plus compact mics and speakers, and claim to have the Ghetto iPhone with XBASS. “Dates to Steve Jobs’ Breakdancing Days,” you’ll say sagely….

Posted at 3:07 am on Jun 29th, 2007 by SteveN0xxxxist

its not that it’s unbelievable, its informative and cool as shit

Posted at 3:48 pm on Jun 29th, 2007 by biz

#7, Agreed. Why are all of the LCD driver boards so expensive?

Posted at 7:22 pm on Jun 29th, 2007 by Kabuki

The screen works great on xp.I installed vista then uninstalled it.Vista is such a dissapointment. MS should give a credit to everyone who still has a receipt of Vista from wherever they purchased it. I hope i get a refund.

Posted at 11:07 am on Sep 5th, 2008 by laptop repair

You can also use MaxiVista to extend your main PC’s desktop to a laptop.

Video: http://demo.maxivista.com

Michael

Posted at 8:17 am on Sep 15th, 2009 by Michael