Re: Possible to disable screen on iMac?

In article <gm51bc$gv$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, andy <nospamatall@xxxxxx>
wrote:

Jolly Roger wrote:
In article <gluuic$dqd$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
nospamatall <nospamatall@xxxxxx> wrote:

I have a 20" iMac 2.16 Intel Core 2 Duo. The video card is on the way
out and seeing as it's 'integrated' with the main board they say it will
be 600 euros at least to replace.

Does anyone know if it's possible to disable it or at least minimize its
use, so I can use the machine as a server? Trouble is that it causes
periodic total freezes, otherwise I could just set it to minimum in the
system prefs.

How are you determining that the cause of these freezes is related to
video?

Thanks JR, Got some strange geometric glitches, gradually getting worse
over the last few months. Sometimes just a black line across a window
which moves with it but doesn't come back when closed and re-opened.
Also weird triangular distortions of objects on screen. Occasional
freezes, those usually take about an hour or so to happen. All happens
more when doing anything graphic-intensive, such as scooting around in
google earth, running full-screen video, photos moving in cover flow, or
just using Firefox normally (hehe). Switchng between windows or
sometimes just clicking an element or getting a contextual menu will do it.

I was, after other troubleshooting failed, going to do an erase and
install from the original disc, but when I booted from it, the problem
was still evident, so that kind of eliminated any software on my
installation.

It looks to me like the vidoe card, or something related to it on the
board, but I'd be happy to hear if there is something else it could be.
Aple said this was likely the case, but only based on my description.

Sounds right to me. That's a shame!

I'm not too unhappy about it, it's 2 1/2 years old and had a lot of use,
and I could still put it behind the desk to use as a server. Just
wondering how to minimize the use of graphics processors etc. So far
it's been on in the background here, screen sleeping, for two days and
no problem. Shame though, as the MBP screen is not good after me being
used to 20" Shoulda got the extended warranty!

Well, here's what I would try:

1. Install 10.5 on it if it doesn't already have 10.5.
2. Make sure you can connect to it via Screen Sharing from another Mac.
3. Remove the appropriate video drivers from the
/System/Library/Extensions folder to disable drawing to the screen.

Now, I'm not sure the system will boot all the way up if certain
graphics drivers are missing. And if you make it so the system won't
start up all the way, you may be in for a re-install. You're in murky
water here, I'm afraid. I suggest disabling one thing at a time and
rebooting after each removal to test the startup process. You should be
able to connect with SSH and examine the system log after each boot to
see if the system is refusing to continue after a certain point due to a
missing driver.

If this is your model, it would seem the ATI drivers are the appropriate
ones: <http://support.apple.com/kb/SP28>. Though it seems there are
other extensions that may come into play, like:

AppleGraphicsPowerManagement.kext
AppleOnboardDisplay.kext
IOGraphicsFamily.kext
IOVideoFamily.kext

Anyway, I was thinking if you can disable the driver while allowing the
OS to come all the way up, you can avoid the system freezes and access
the display remotely through VMC / Screen Sharing.

If you can't get that working, then you may consider installing Darwin
on the thing and using it that way, I suppose.

--
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JR
.

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