A user at my office dropped a MBP and killed the display. Rather than pay Apple $1,200 to replace it, I took it out of service and bought it as surplus for personal use. I've been running it on a secondary Apple Cinema Display and everything seems great (except for the LCD, of course).

Now, I'd like to re-purpose this machine and use it with my 47" LCD TV in the living room for iPhoto slideshows, watching Netflix streaming, YouTube, etc., etc. I have it hooked up now and I have to say, seeing all the OS X bells and baubles on a screen that big is nothing short of fantastic.

Ideally, I'd like to just remove the display altogether, pop the top case back on and give the MBP a permanent home in my entertainment center. Not having to deal with popping the clamshell up and down would be perfect. My questions: 1. Will the thing even run once it senses there's no LCD attached to the logic board? 2. If it can't find the LCD, but finds the DVI running to the TV, will it just default to the DVI from now on?

Anybody have a clue? I guess I could just try and see, but if somebody already knows it's not gonna work, I'd just as soon spare myself the trouble.

It should work without the display attached. Be aware though that the wireless antenna goes up there, so wifi signal may be hurt unless you rig up something.

You may have to use the keyboard shortcut Command-1 to get it to switch to the DVI.

Ooh, right. I forgot about the wi-fi -- that's pretty important in this configuration. I guess I'll leave well enough alone and hope the thing doesn't completely overheat with the clamshell down.

Thanks for the feedback!