What to do with an old or broken laptop?

What can be made from an old laptop: 13 unexpected but useful devices

Computer equipment tends to become outdated, and after a long time it partially ceases to function. In this case, many simply get rid of the old device and buy a new one. The same thing happens with outdated laptops. But outdated technology can be found in many interesting and useful applications. Let's figure out exactly how you can use an old laptop.

Using an outdated laptop in an unusual way

This article provides only general information about the manufacture of a particular device. Some of these will require specific instructions, videos, and advanced technical skills to make. You disassemble your device solely at your own risk. If you are not confident in your skills, then you should seek help from specialists.

TV from an old laptop

You can turn an outdated laptop into a TV. The mold for the device can be made from anything: foam, wood, plastic. The general manufacturing process of the device will look like this:

Mark the shape on the chosen material using a regular pencil, and then cut it out. Don't forget to leave holes for ventilation of the laptop, as well as for mounting the laptop inside.
Partially disassemble the laptop itself: disconnect the screen and place it on the other side of the keyboard and the inside of the device. This must be done carefully so as not to damage the wires. In some cases, it may not be possible to simply turn them off. Then it’s worth having a soldering iron on hand to restore functionality.
Secure the laptop inside the mold you have assembled.
Provide a connection to the broadcast network via the Internet or a regular TV tuner.
Decorate the outside of the box after assembly, for example, by covering it with a plain film or other material.

Video: making a TV from an old laptop

Video: using a laptop as a second monitor

Video: making a slot machine from an outdated laptop

If you decide to display a looping animation, then it is quite possible to make an electronic fireplace using the same principle. Of course, it will be quite small, but it will still create some feeling of comfort. If your device has speakers, then you can add the sound of crackling firewood.

Powerbank from a non-working laptop

If your laptop refuses to work at all, you can use its spare parts. For example, make a Powerbank from its battery. But remember that disassembling lithium batteries is life-threatening.

To make the device you will need:

control board;
resistor;
switch;
USB and micro-USB connector;
wires and soldering iron;
multimeter to test your build.

The process itself looks like this:

Carefully disassemble the plastic casing of the battery. At this stage you should be extremely careful: even a strong blow with a screwdriver can damage the battery, which will lead to a chemical reaction.
Now find out the battery number and find possible connection options on the official website. Collect them into a more compact and convenient form for you by following these options.
Connect the batteries to each other, as well as to the control module, switch, resistor and micro-USB.
The assembled device should be placed in a case to which a USB connector will already be attached.

This way you will get a cumbersome, but functioning Powerbank. Of course, the assembly process itself is quite complex and can only be described in full within a separate article.

Video: making a Powerbank from a non-working laptop

Video: creating a media center from a laptop

Video: making a personal PC from a laptop

Video: installing Chrome OS on an old laptop

Using cloud technology can really save you from buying a more powerful device prematurely. I used services that offer access to games using similar technology. This solution has obvious disadvantages, such as image quality and latency. But playing leisurely games (strategies, role-playing games, quests) is quite possible. But this is still an expensive and suboptimal solution.

Is it worth doing this?

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A tablet is a fairly easy-to-use device that doesn’t need to be complicated. It is much more convenient to watch a TV series on a computer. Although on the small screen of a tablet you can also enjoy watching a video, and even a movie.
At first glance, it may seem that tablets are replacing personal computers. However, today this is not the case. Tablets, which have been around for several years, are not yet ready to replace PCs in this way.
It’s not entirely convenient to manage photo albums and video collections on a tablet, much less update anything. It is much easier to process photos on a desktop computer.
Applications developed for tablets are similar to toy products and are used for publication on social networks. These mobile applications for tablets are not recommended even for home photo and video processing.
The capabilities of office applications (for example, typing) are also small.

What can you do with an old laptop? 10 practical ideas

Is your outdated and under-performing laptop sitting idle? This will not work! Find out what you can do with your old laptop and how to get the most out of it!

Old, but remote: giving the laptop a second life

Let's start with the most obvious: before you make something out of your laptop, you need to try to turn it on. And not all old laptops will pass this test. Even if a year ago, when you plunged the laptop into the depths of the mezzanine, the machine was working properly, this does not mean that it will work now. Failure to start the laptop will result in repair or replacement of individual parts. However, you don’t have to bother with this and do things differently. How exactly - read on.

If you do manage to start the laptop, then the first thing it will need with a 99% probability is cleaning the internal hardware from dust and replacing thermal paste. Depending on what kind of performance you want to achieve from your laptop, you will need to install an operating system that economically uses the computing power of the machine. For example, Lubuntu or Chromium OS. As a last resort, Windows XP will do.

Well, now you have a working laptop that can be used for its intended purpose or converted into something less functional.

Using an old laptop: TV, kitchen computer, arcade machine

If a laptop is so old that it can't handle games and other modern tasks, then it can be turned into a highly specialized device aimed at tasks that do not require high performance. For example, an outdated laptop will make a good alternative to a small wall-mounted TV, and you can do it yourself:

If you or your loved one loves to cook, then make her a kitchen computer in which recipes will be stored. It’s good if the device still has Internet access. Also, do not forget about the program in which timers are set. Here is an example of such a homemade machine:

If you are an avid old-school gamer who remembers the era of 8-bit games , then why not build your own arcade machine?

Or simply use an old laptop as a digital photo frame hung on the wall:

Making an emergency hotspot out of an ancient laptop

Even if you bought a router and set up Wi-Fi, this does not mean that wireless Internet is available in every corner of your home. Sometimes thick walls and concrete floors, as well as the distance to the Wi-Fi distribution point, interfere with the signal. So why not turn an old laptop into an Internet distribution point instead of spending money on a signal booster?

Here's how it's done:

We turn a weak laptop into a media center

Do you like watching movies? Then, with an old laptop, a couple of free hours and a little patience, you can turn an outdated machine into a completely modern media center that can be connected to any TV. This training video will help you with this:

Short throw projector from an old laptop

If you don’t have a TV at hand, you can do without it by watching movies right on the wall! Making a projector from a laptop is very easy. To do this you will need a plastic lens, some tools and straight arms. All this will cost you just $5! Detailed instructions for turning a laptop into a projector are here:

How to make a tablet with your own hands

The test subject will be this burnt Acer 5100:

We will use such a touch panel (from China).

Upon receipt, an extremely unpleasant surprise awaited me. Due to the way the panel was fastened in the packaging, the cable almost came off during transportation. But still, I was lucky that the cable did not come off completely at the root, and I managed to solder it.

The next step is to find the hardware to which you can connect the display and sensor. The difficulty in connecting a laptop display is that it uses an LVDS interface, which means you will need either an active adapter with VGA/DVI/HDMI (actually a controller from the monitor, firmware for the required resolution), or a board with native support. I didn’t particularly like the option with an adapter, and I decided to look for a board with LVDS on board. A long search led to a device called Intel D945GSEJT.

This device is actually a netbook in mini-ITX format: Atom n270 1.6 GHz, up to two gigs of RAM, weak graphics, simple sound, mini-PCIe for Wi-Fi, several USB, SATA and many other interfaces. But the main thing is that it had the much-needed LVDS, the power came from a single 12 volt source (and not five different ones: 3.3, 5, 5 standby, 12, -12), and the price was several times lower than that of other single-board PCs with similar characteristics. Plus, I could install Windows on such a machine and work with all the usual software, and also avoid problems with drivers for the sensor. However, even here a surprise awaited me - its LVDS output did not work out of the box. To run it, a BIOS flashing was required, which, however, turned out to be not particularly difficult.

Next, it was necessary to equip the tablet with acoustics, a function for locking the display and sensor at the press of a button, an indication of the battery charge, as well as brightness adjustment (the board had a certain bug with a PWM signal for the backlight brightness - it simply did not exist). For acoustics, speakers from the same laptop were used, the amplifier was cynically sawed off from a sound card from the times of mammoths. Since in 2011 I did not yet know how to work with microcontrollers, and a laser printer + iron was not available, all the electronics were assembled on a breadboard from all sorts of discrete rubbish. Here's what happened: amplifier, locking trigger, display backlight control, battery charge indicator:

To power the tablet, a 12 V 9800 mAh lithium-ion battery was purchased, originally intended for use with CCTV cameras.

The most difficult step was to build a case for the tablet. Using fiberglass and epoxy resin, I completely redesigned the laptop lid. A kind of hump was glued to it, into which all the filling was placed, and the central part was cut out for access to the electronics. Inside view:

Exterior view after puttying with two different compounds and sanding:

On the display frame, in places where there were once hinges, a mesh for speakers is glued:

Next came painting, making the necessary wiring [a special pride is the barbie-sized SATA cable] and installing all the components:

Everything is fine with the matrix, I was so good at photography)

Final look:

A huge bunch of interfaces: [COM and LPT are output to the right connector - take a bite, Apple)]

Connectors for headphones and microphone, another USB:

The result was a giant tablet with WinXP, a 15.4-inch screen, 2 GB of RAM, 320 GB HDD, Wi-Fi, a single-core 1.6 GHz Atom, 1.5 W stereo speakers, four USB, COM and LPT (brought out just to have them), weighing 2.4 kg and battery life approximately 6 hours.

What can you do with an old or broken laptop?

Any person who has encountered a laptop breakdown, the cost of repairing which sometimes approaches the cost of a new device, has the thought of what can be done with this laptop. Of course, a lot depends on what happened to your laptop; I will not talk about the options for using a broken laptop, but will simply talk about what I made from the carcass of a freshly killed Samsung laptop that I received.

A little about the laptop itself

Of course, I got something, this “something” had a damaged monitor, a destroyed keyboard with torn out buttons, a missing hard drive and a dead battery. It lay there for a long time collecting dust while I was thinking about what could be done with this destroyed laptop. Of course, I could order spare parts for this laptop (screen and keyboard) and get a working laptop, but I already have two more powerful laptops in my apartment and there was no need for a third one. Besides, I really wanted compact file storage, and this laptop was perfect for that. By the way, here is the laptop itself (it looks prettier when closed):

Rework sequence

dle_image_end Recommendations on how to make a tablet from a computer are quite simple.

First you need to prepare the system components of the device. To do this, you need to separate the display from the body and remove the front frame from it.
Then you need to detach the top and bottom panels of the case.
The lower part of the case contains the main system components of a potential tablet (RAM, motherboard, processor, etc.).
At this stage of remodeling, the user must decide for himself whether the power that the PC has is enough, and whether he is ready to increase it by performing a number of certain manipulations.
At his discretion, the user can replace a weak processor with a more powerful one (as well as dimmed backlight lamps).
In order for the created tablet to have access to the Internet, the user can install a mini-pci board.
To obtain free space from the CD drive and fur. It is better to get rid of the PCMCI part. This procedure can facilitate the redesigned structure as a whole.
The power button should be attached to the free space. To improve the ventilation of the structure, you need to increase the number (or diameter) of holes in the lower section of the housing.
Next steps are assembling the tablet. You need to secure the antenna, and the hole in the housing can be closed with a plastic cover of the appropriate size.
You can get rid of the gap between the main structure and the display by extending the sides of the frame.
To obtain a smooth surface, the connecting seams should be sanded.

Winchester

If the laptop's hard drive is working properly, you can turn it into a portable drive that connects to any computer via a USB port and does not require additional power. To do this, you need to purchase a special housing or adapter. The most important thing is to choose the right box. Look at which interface the hard drive is connected through - SATA (on the left in the photo) or IDE (on the right) - and select a case with the same connector. In the case of connecting via SATA, you still need to decide what speed you need - medium via USB 2.0 or high via USB 3.0. The connection standard is indicated in the box specifications, but some sellers (for example, on AliExpress) may lie, so it is better to check this point with them separately. Empty hard drive cases are sold in computer stores and on the Internet. In China they cost from 150 rubles with free delivery.

Winchester

Hull work

This is, without a doubt, the most dreary and difficult part of the job. The walls were drawn out manually using epoxy plasticine.

Mounting a Wi-Fi antenna and a view of an epoxy plasticine wall

Please note: in order to get an even line between the top and bottom covers, I traced the side walls on the already assembled tablet, and then sawed it in half with a thin circular saw on a drill. The result was a thin, neat gap, like on factory plastic.

All that was left of the entire case was the back cover, the inner frame of the display and a piece of the upper inner cover (the one in which the keyboard is attached).

To attach the lid, I used a trick - I made new mounting legs to fit my holes. The technology is as follows: we take a sheet of paper, fold it on a pencil and fill it with two-component epoxy, and press it to the desired place. It turns out to be such a peg.

Blank for display mounting leg

Then I drilled the top of the post, and glued into it the nut that had been broken out of the cover or body fastening. Actually, all the screws are wrapped in such nuts; you can pick a lot of them out of the old case.

Display mounting leg with embedded nut

The display is attached to the frame using the same technology.

Attaching the display to the lid

The cable and inverter can be routed like this, you don’t have to solder them and nothing gets in the way anywhere:

New cable and inverter gasket

Changing the possibilities

Some configurations of this model are equipped with a Wi-Fi module, but in my case there was no adapter there, and with a clear conscience I twisted the adapter from the Samsung described above along with the antennas. The antennas were placed on the right side inside the case, and the wires to them were routed directly along the laptop board and glued with double-sided tape in several places so as not to interfere with assembly.

Installed Wi-Fi adapter

My package included a Bluetooth adapter, but it was immediately mercilessly thrown away as it was completely unnecessary for my purposes. This made it possible to use the Bluetooth adapter's power button as a laptop power button (Thanks, abcart! :))

I didn’t increase the processor frequency, and that’s fine) Moreover, this can be done at any time