1000 dollar Page

In this installment of the yet-to-be award-winning series “Get The Hang Of Your Display” (see Part 1 here) we continue to explore the outer limits and venture to where no one has gone before in the Area-51 of Advanced Display Attachment.

Have you ever wondered why All-in-One designs of a personal computer enjoyed such an unparalleled success? Look at the Sales Charts of Laptops, more appropriately called Notebooks, Tablet PCs, Portable Workstations or even Desktop Replacements! Those charts exhibit one uncompromising trend - Up and nowhere else! So, what if we are stuck with an Old World Desktop, do we plunk down cash for latest Apple creation or sleek Sony model? No, we do it the hard way, overcome hurdles, invent new and apply the old to obtain one-of-a-kind marvel of a machine that may yet have one or two tricks up its sleeve (of floppy bay) to one-up all those spiffy latest all-in-one-hang-me-on-the-wall models. And, yes, again, do we succeed …

We use a 15-inch LCD screen and a mini-tower for this exercise. When placed separately on the desk, they both occupy significant desk area - which is why most towers tend to be banished to underdesk space - out of sight, out of reach, into the dusty, cramped, kicked Inferno Of All Mini-Towers. On-the desk placement would offer advantages of being more accessible, sanitary and less of all the above. It may increase the noise level somewhat, since fans would be close to the user, which should be tested beforehand prior to starting this project.

Virtually all LCD screens have so-called VESA mount holes on them. That is, there are threaded holes on every LCD screen that have standard dimensions and spacing between them, positioned in such a way as to provide secure fastening of the LCD screen to a variety of supporting structures, be it a desk stand, a wall mount, a tree branch or, as we shall see, a side of a computer case.

First order of business would be to disconnect all the cables and carefully remove the screws holding the LCD screen to its desktop base. Any suitable screwdriver will fit the proverbial bill here. Hold tight the LCD screen, do not allow it to fall and shatter! We would rather allow its desktop base fall to the floor and break to pieces, since we soon will have no need for a desktop base anyway!

Then comes an exciting time of Placement and Positioning (or Placing and Positionment) of LCD screen on the desired side of the mini-tower case. For reasons of easy accessibility we chose right side of the case when viewed from the back. Mounting on the opposite side would require removal of the motherboard, a process we were rather indisposed to endure.

The Golden Rule Of All Rules here: measure and measure again before you drill. Measure up, measure down, measure left and measure right. Measure inside and measure outside, measure diameter and measure distance, measure corners and measure sides, measure open and measure closed. There can be no too much measuring here, only too little. Because once you drill - your LCD will be fixed into whatever crooked contorted skewed and screwed position on the side of your minitower that you chose with your wery own rule and set in stone with your own hand drill. Well, not exactly in stone - as can be seen on one of the pictures where one extra hole is visible - a result of a sad mistake in measurement. Also, important to note that VESA standard specifies distance between holes in millimeters (75 or 100) and screw size is metric as well. It helps to remove any drives - CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, EIDE, or Serial ATA that might stand in a way of a mighty drill bit piercing the side of the case. No need to scatter digital bits and bytes in addition to all the metal and plastic debris that will appear during the drilling step.

We de-burred the sharp edges of freshly made holes by hand, using a larger drill bit and then vacuumed off all the debris. This concluded preparatory work for actual attachment of the LCD.

Cables must be connected to LCD screen and secured beforehand, since after LCD is screwed to the flat surface access to cable connectors becomes nigh impossible for people with hands of customary size. Screws must have appropriate length to penetrate increased thickness of the material compared to original desktop stand attachment. We needed to replace all four screws with longer ones. 

All four screws secure, case closed, cables out of the way - what a fitting conclusion of our efforts! Time: 45 minutes. Leftovers: desktop stand. Unique new All-In-One sight of an old trusty computer - priceless!