I’m interested in ripping off the top half off an old laptop of mine so that I can use it for game dev. The monitor is busted so I won’t be harming anything. Damn thing has survived everything for years from falling out a car door to falling down a flight of stairs, then suddenly shattered when I gently closed it.
What I’m wanting to do it pull off the entire top half and then plug it into a monitor.
I know it sounds a little bonkers, but there’s actually some really good reasons for it. Namely, I want a micro PC without buying a new micro PC.
Anyway, is there any reason why this wouldn’t work?
What could go wrong? You could end up breaking it.
If I would have “ripped” the top half off my old HP notebook, it likely wouldn’t have survived it. No way on earth I wouldn’t have damaged the mainboard in the process.
Do it properly:
Disassemble it, clearly disconnect the display from the mainboard, see if it still boots, if so, continue.
Besides that, the WiFi antenna is probably inside the upper half. You’ll want to get that one out cleanly too.
I don’t quite understand what the problem with leaving the top half as it is would be. Can’t the notebook be used with a closed lid and external periphery? My old Macbook Pro could do that, although it tended to overheat even more if you did it.
The windows notebook I bought in 2014 has good hardware with a terrible interface. I only use it with peripherals. It’s main job these days is running ARK and 7 days to die.
@Not_Sure if the machine can still work like that, I recommend taking the entire thing apart and putting the board in its own case. Make a mini desktop out of it But I have no clue about hardware so definitely ask other people about doing that first.
“Monitor is busted” because I lost a game in league of legends. Sorry I had to add that in! Btw true story, I saw my roommate smash his laptop in half in front of me over a league of legends match.
A number of years ago I bought a Gateway laptop with a busted screen. All I had to do was follow the instructions you would normally use for repairing the display but I simply stopped at the point it was completely removed. Just keep in mind that the antenna for the WiFi may be located in the back of the display.
My laptop survived four years and then the hard-drive failed after falling off my bed. I was sick of the laptop and wanted a desktop. So I figured I’d open up the thing and take out the screen/buy a new drive. I took it apart and when put back together, the keyboard keys were no longer flush. Very wavy. So I thought about it for awhile and decided I should get an actual desktop to support a good graphics card. So I went with that instead. I also figured all the cables running on my desk would get irritating.
@neginfinity
If it’s an old and not particular good/popular model (for its time), fixing it might end up being too expensive to be worth it.
As someone who has been there himself (laptop as desktop replacement), I too would remove the upper half. It will be lighter, take up less space and (most importantly) you can use the laptop’s keyboard without the old screen getting in the way of your new one. Having a half-open laptop sitting between you and the external screen is a bit of a PITA. I’ve done this for long enough to know.
@Not_Sure
Just do it.
Open it carefully and disconnect the display. Then test whether it still boots.
It’s doable. I used to be a full time pc tech, and I’ve separated many a screen from a notebook base. You can leave it disconnected from the mobo, and remove all screws holding the hinges and the bezel and whatnot, and just have the bottom half hooked up to power, plus a cable (hopefully hdmi, if not, hopefully dvi, if not then regular vga) that goes out to your display device. Should work fine!
Just plug it into a docking station, that’s what I used to do with my work laptop when I came home. The docking station had the power, keyboard, mouse & monitor connected to it & the laptop used those once it was in. I only had to have the laptop open to get to the power button to turn it on.
Something occurred to me, make sure the lid is in the open position when you take it off, because some models, especially older stuff, might just have a lid closed detector in the assembly around the hinge, and if it thinks it’s closed, it may ignore power button presses and whatnot.
Well, it boots up fine. When it’s loading it shows the windows loading screen on the monitor, but the moment I get to the log on screen it kicks off. I tried all the different combinations of key inputs (fn + f3, f4, f5, and so on). No luck. I know the keyboard is working though.
Damn, now I’m stuck. It’s a first gen Acer Aspire One if anyone has a suggestion.
Hrmmm, try hot plugging and stuff, just taking the cable out and putting it back while it should be loaded into the os, and maybe it’ll detect the monitor and output to it?
But I have no clue about hardware so definitely ask other people about doing that first.