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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors System
For those that haven't seen the Apple Cinema Display LCD monitors, the bezel around the screen has two "soft touch" electronic buttons, one for brightness, and one that looks like a power switch. If you're trying to clean the bezel of the monitor, these buttons can cause problems -- especially as the Power button actually puts your Mac to sleep, as opposed to powering off the monitor!

In Macintouch's April 25th update to their special report on Cinema Displays, two readers sent in a couple of methods of disabling the touch-sensitive switches on Apple's LCD displays.
  1. Hold down Shift and Command and then click on the Displays preference panel.

  2. Quit System Preferences, then hold down Shift and Command and touch the Brightness switch on the front of the monitor.
Either of these methods should result in a new third tab ("Options") on the Displays panel (once it's enabled, you'll see it every time you load Displays, even if you're not holding the special keys down). The only thing in the Options tab is an "Enable touch switch" checkbox which is enabled by default. Uncheck the box, and the touch sensitive buttons will no longer react to touch.

When I was testing this with my display, I was unable to make the first method work, but the second worked like a charm on the first try. No longer will I put my machine to sleep just because I decided to dust the bezel on the display!
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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors | 17 comments | Create New Account
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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors
Authored by: callefjant on Apr 26, '03 10:14:48AM
Anyone else who can't get the tab to appear? Is it supposed to work with all of Apples flat screen displays? I'm having a 15" studio display (y 2000), running OSX 10.2.5, and nothing happens which ever keys I hold down.

Would one be able to finally turn off the power button light, or will the buttons just stop react on touches?

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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors
Authored by: Chris Haynes on Apr 26, '03 11:13:50AM

It just disables the touch-sensitive buttons. The power light remains on, but pressing it does nothing.

I held down Shift & Command and clicked the Displays preference pane, and it worked. This is with a 17" LCD Apple Studio Display.

I'll try on my 15" LCD ASD later.

---
darkpaw



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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors
Authored by: woody97470 on Apr 26, '03 12:27:28PM

Wont work 0n my 2001 15" flat panel either.(10.2.5) I had seen this hint
originally and tried then, no luck(10.2.4).



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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors
Authored by: spiff on Apr 26, '03 02:29:05PM

This does work at least on the Apple Cinema Displays LCD that I've tried. I haven't tried it with the 15" tho.

The key is to have the 'System Preferences' application NOT running before holding down command-shift-brightness.

I've just done it now to confirm that it is possible to use either method to get to the same result.

Launch System Preferences.
Hold down Command-Shift
Click on 'Displays'
new tab appears.

Likewise for the touch switch. Quit System Preferences, hold down command-shift and touch the brightness button.



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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors
Authored by: guruward on Jun 24, '03 08:50:25PM

did anyone ever get a solution (besides buying a new monitor) for disabling the touch switches on a 15" studio display.
My monitor spends half its time putting itself to sleep, the other half waking up. arggg



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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors
Authored by: Rod76 on Apr 26, '03 03:22:40PM

I also have an older 15 inch that won't let me do this... I"m wondering if this is a firmware thing...



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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors
Authored by: callefjant on Apr 26, '03 08:14:29PM

Ok then, apparently this can't be done with the older models.

Is it in any other way possible just to turn off the light of the power button? It's really annoying in a dark room when the Mac is asleep..



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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors
Authored by: ths on Apr 27, '03 09:35:19AM

I looked high and low for an easy solution to turn off the light but
no such luck. I even asked a guy who repairs Macs but he couldn't
help me either :-(

So, I took the not so elegant way of taking the display apart and
slipping a bit of not too thick cartonage over the LED. It works
nicely and the button can still be used. Plus, I can get some sleep
at night :-)

But I must warn everybody who wants to do this because you can
easily break stuff, so if you destroy your display don't blame me.



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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors
Authored by: Isbiten on Apr 27, '03 02:38:01PM

Why don't you put some ducttape over it?

---
If you can read this you are definitly to close.



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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors
Authored by: ths on Apr 27, '03 02:43:15PM

Two reasons:

1) it looks crappy :-)

2) it doesn't help with the bright shining light in the night because
it shines over the edges, no matter how much duct tape you
apply. I've tried :-)



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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors
Authored by: snpollack on Apr 27, '03 01:30:13PM

This doesn't work on my 22" Cinema Display (either method).



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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors
Authored by: bhines on Apr 27, '03 09:34:00PM

You need to quite system preferences first, it will not work if the
displays panel has already been opened.



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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors
Authored by: dave@mmu on Apr 28, '03 07:09:00AM

Solution 2 works fine on my 17" studio display LCD... Nice!

---
Dave L



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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors
Authored by: Han Solo on Apr 28, '03 04:56:32PM
Initially, only the brightness button version of this hint worked for my 17" Apple LCD. However, once I toggled the button off and back on with that method, both versions of the hint now work OK.

Given that my MDD PowerMac still kernel panics more often than not when waking from sleep, and it seemed inevitable that someone (usually yours truly) would manage to bump the power button at least every other week, this hint is truly the most useful one to come along in quite awhile. Thanks!

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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors
Authored by: Han Solo on Apr 28, '03 04:59:21PM

Whoops -- mis-typed slightly: obviously, once the button is
disabled, one cannot toggle it back on with the front button trick.
However, I just confirmed that opening the Display pane with shift-
command held down does bring up the Options tab for me.



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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors
Authored by: johram on Jan 22, '04 02:19:09PM

This hint does work in panther

---
-
iBook 500mhz, 15gig, cdrom, 128baseRam, jaguar
...yes I need more ram...
buy me some? :)



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Disable the touch switches on Apple LCD monitors
Authored by: AppleMacFreak on Jan 25, '04 01:06:25PM

I have 2 17" Studio displays on a G5 running 10.3.2 (with the BootCacheControl copied to enable the faster booting) and both options works fine for me.

What I'd like to know is when I'm playing EverQuest online - EQ blanks off my 2nd display although the second display is still backlit. I would like to be able to switch the 2nd dispaly off without suspending the machine using the power touch button and not effecting the primary - is it too much to ask for an on/off switch on a monitor?

Better yet, a hack to allow the second screen to be visible during the game - I can then keep an eye on my email!!??



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