My laptop has been having problems not charging and the top row of the keyboard stopped working. In my pursuit of a replacement I realized how ridiculously cheap Intel iMacs have become.

And then I realized that you can gut them and convert them into an insanely good computer monitor after the internals die.

I was looking for a dead one but somehow managed to get my hands on a working 5k 2017 iMac for $150. God the display is glorious.

For the time being Im just going to use the existing internals since they’re still functioning.

I installed Fedora on an external drive and everything seems to be functional. I managed to get fractional scaling functioning. However the output only goes up to 4k. And while thats still really nice, the extra resolution does make an obvious difference when sitting ~1 foot away.

Has anyone been able to get 5k working?

  • the_wise_wolf@feddit.org
    3·
    3 months ago

    Not sure what these internal connections are, but Displayport is both a plug and a protocol. You can use the protocol over thunderbolt and maybe other connections as well.

    • helenslunch@feddit.nlOP
      2·
      3 months ago

      Not sure what these internal connections are

      Literally every connection is internal, outside of the power cable.

      • Markaos@lemmy.one
        3·
        3 months ago

        Yes, but these internal connections can be done in a variety of ways - for example the most common way to connect laptop displays (which I would definitely classify as internal) is using embedded DisplayPort.