Don't Make My Mistake! iMac Display Conversion Failure

My Problem

I had an extra 2009 24" iMac lying around with a beautiful 1920x1200 panel that I wanted to use for my home setup primary monitor. I figured it would be relatively simple, so I bought the kit off eBay and began.

My Fix

I'm a cheapskate currently with $75 sunk into this build and another free iMac, so I opted to use the original iMac PSU to power the backlight. I spliced together the PSU cable delivering power with the power inverter cable from the display conversion kit (two yellow wires into the power cable) to get the backlight working when you turn on the kit.

Then I drilled through the back of the iMac, stuck the cables through, and reattached them.

By attaching the Display LVDS cable the wrong way on, I fried the entire monitor and now I have to source another. This has now happened twice to me, and I just now learned my mistake.

My Advice

Please, please, check to make sure your LVDS cable is seated properly on the board before providing power to the display! If you do it wrong, you will end up with a screen of grey bars like in my photo.