the creaking sound was produced only after the sad mac. i don't know why.

currently the backlight is non connected, I haven't made the cable yet (a I guess I'll need you help for that)

right now I have no drives connected to it. after the screen clears, the current drops from 0.6A to 0.1A, which seems a bit low.

I left it there for a couple of minutes, nothing...

EDIT: after waiting, unplugging, rebooting... it finally decided to stay on the back screen after the chime. after a while the display started fading, so i hit the reset button and the display turned black again, current was hovering at about 0.8A.

at this point I heard a loud POP! coming from my instrument rack, maybe one of the capacitors inside my bench power supply decided to blow. I was recording a video when that happened. I may upload it later...

EDIT 2: whatever blew it was not involved in the portable setup, my power supply is fine (the filter cap is a bit dry, tho) and the portable seems to show the same problem, but now the black screen does not go away immeditely