Using a 24" LED Cinema Display without a Mac
I've never owned a Mac, and don't really plan on ever doing so. However, I do like some of the hardware. The Apple Cinema Display series is an impressive line, and I love the way they look.
I decided to use one with my PC (Windows Vista), and it took a bit of tweaking. However, now that everything is working properly, it makes all of my other displays look severely outdated.
How did I get things working?
First of all, you'll need some sort of Mini Displayport to DVI converter. I happened to use one made by Atlona. It works like a charm.
Secondly, you will want a way to control the brightness. There are some 3rd party programs out there that will do this for older Cinema Displays, but not for the newer models such as the 24" LED ACD.
I happen to have found a workaround for controlling the LED backlighting directly. You need to install the Apple Boot Camp drivers found on a Jaguar version of the Mac OS (or a later version, I suspect).
Once you do that, you can use the Boot Camp Control Panel to control the monitor brightness.
However, you can't do this if you have admin rights (strange, I know). It will give you an error saying it can't find the startup disk (presumably some sort of partition that is created if you are actually running a Mac). To get around this, you need to run the apple control panel without admin privileges. So, create a non-admin account on your computer, and then use the 'runas.exe' file to run the Apple Boot Camp control panel executable.
Here is an example of the shortcut I created, using a non-admin account named 'Test' on the computer 'NOVASTAR':
C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe /user:NOVASTAR\Test "AppleControlPanel.exe"
When you can control the LED backlighting brighness directly, you will see what a difference it makes in the quality of the display. Video card controls alone do not do the LED 24" ACD justice.
I suspect the above will work with Windows XP as well. I don't know about Windows 7.
I decided to use one with my PC (Windows Vista), and it took a bit of tweaking. However, now that everything is working properly, it makes all of my other displays look severely outdated.
How did I get things working?
First of all, you'll need some sort of Mini Displayport to DVI converter. I happened to use one made by Atlona. It works like a charm.
Secondly, you will want a way to control the brightness. There are some 3rd party programs out there that will do this for older Cinema Displays, but not for the newer models such as the 24" LED ACD.
I happen to have found a workaround for controlling the LED backlighting directly. You need to install the Apple Boot Camp drivers found on a Jaguar version of the Mac OS (or a later version, I suspect).
Once you do that, you can use the Boot Camp Control Panel to control the monitor brightness.
However, you can't do this if you have admin rights (strange, I know). It will give you an error saying it can't find the startup disk (presumably some sort of partition that is created if you are actually running a Mac). To get around this, you need to run the apple control panel without admin privileges. So, create a non-admin account on your computer, and then use the 'runas.exe' file to run the Apple Boot Camp control panel executable.
Here is an example of the shortcut I created, using a non-admin account named 'Test' on the computer 'NOVASTAR':
C:\Windows\System32\runas.exe /user:NOVASTAR\Test "AppleControlPanel.exe"
When you can control the LED backlighting brighness directly, you will see what a difference it makes in the quality of the display. Video card controls alone do not do the LED 24" ACD justice.
I suspect the above will work with Windows XP as well. I don't know about Windows 7.
Self-built Vista Box, Windows Vista