R51e and T400- one has no top??!!! ***LARGE PICTURES***

[emeraldgirl08]

I just had to take a picture of this. I'm somewhat amused that this even works

I managed to get it working with the correct resolution and figured ... I don't even take the R51e out so....




That desk is my school/work desk. It had some kind of clear top but I don't know what someone put it to use for. Those speakers are IBM speakers that I found at the Goodwill for $5.99. They are loud and have great range. As many of you know I've tried to put that R51e up for sale. It's a little stubborn sometimes and I may send it in for a reflow, get me a motherboard, or I'll get simply get a tower and IBM USB keyboard. I've put the R51e lid w/LCD away in a box for safekeeping. I may sell the LCD.

Just decided to put my T400 in b/c I love it

In the meantime this works fine and dandy

[Sindbad]

did you amputate the screen? boy, make sure you're not going to do the same thing with T400 =))

[GIFF]

I've been thinking of doing to same thing. Does the display switch to the second output automatically?

[A31]

One day, emeraldgirl08, I bet all PCs will be sold like that - to save space!! Great pics by the way, very clear! Are you going to put the T400 back together though?

[emeraldgirl08]

Ha ha ha you guys are funny! There's no way that my T400 is going out like that! I love it too much!

*hugs T400 tighter*

@GIFF- to tell you the truth I'm not sure exactly how I did it I basically tested out the connection first by hooking up my R51e (when top was still on) VGA to the monitors VGA port. The monitor then pretty much mimicked whatever was on my laptop. I had to go into properties and mess with the display settings. It was displaying things at 1024X768 which is not the native resolution of this monitor. I fiddled with the settings in ATI Catalyst Control and the Windows display properties. At this point I found that extending the desktop was pretty neat. Whenever I moved my cursor off the R51e screen it would come into view on the Acer monitor

Neat!

At that point I decided I would try this without the lid and could make the necessary screen/resolution adjustments solely with the Acer monitor. I also went into BIOS and set the display to boot with the external monitor before I removed it. After that I went ahead with the removal of the R51e top and hooked the VGA cable back up.

It worked.

What you will need to do is make sure your graphics adapter is recognizing the monitor that is being used. My monitor is an Acer so naturally I went to Acers website and found my driver and updated the driver for monitor.

Right click on desktop>> click on properties>> Settings>> Advanced >> Monitor (if yours says Plug and Play you should get the driver from you LCD Monitors website)>> Properties>> Driver>> from driver choose Update Driver and you want to install the driver from where the zip file is at.

I then found out through Monitor properties that Monitor properties now said "Acer on ATI Radeon Express 200M Series"

I rebooted and the monitor turned on with the R51e.

That's pretty much how it went. I think mostly everybody here on the forum is somewhat savvy with their machines however some of us bumble through with good ol' trial and error My advice is to try it first with the lid on and then if you wish to proceed. Make sure you are adept at disassembling your laptop and are not going to violate your warranty.

PS make sure you do not forget to remove one of the Wifi antennae. I had to take the lid apart and remove one of the antennae wire. One is working out fine and I have that running out the absent LCD hinge area and perched on the back of the monitor.

[mklym]

Nice setup, but it looks like you need a bigger desk. It looks like you would have a hard time using both the R and the T at the same time on the desk.

I think it does look good. A cheap upgrade that should help with productivity, nice for videos as well.

[virge]

I'm jealous of your clutterfree desk! Very clean lines on your setup too.

The only thing I can't stand is the non-symetrical bezel on the T400. That annoys me to no end.