What can I do with a laptop with a broken screen

K

klaus

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My daughter dropped her dell Studio 1537 and the screen broke and also cracked the cover. The quote to fix it came to about 300 quid so I got her a new laptop instead. Now I've inherited a laptop that still seems to power-up but no screen. Is there anything I can do with it? I was thinking media centre or whether I can hook up the laptop to an external screen, or buy a cheap case and build a pc?
Thanks
K

The specs for the laptop are
Studio 1537 : Pentium Dual Core T4200(2.0GHz,800MHz,1MB) N0453502 Display : 15.4in Widescreen WXGA with TrueLife - CCFL Palmrest : Standard Camera : Integrated 2.0 Mega Pixel Camera - CCFL LCD Back Cover : Jet Black Colour Matte Finish Ship Accessory : English Docs Resource DVD : Studio 1537 Diagnostics and Drivers Memory : 3072MB (1x2048 + 1X1024) 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Hard Drive 250GB Serial ATA (5400RPM) Optical Drive : 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including software Power Supply : Inspiron 90W AC Adapter Power Cord : UK 1M Battery : Primary 6 cell 56W/HR LI-ION Carry Case : Not Included Graphics : 256 MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3450 No Bluetooth Upgrade Wireless : Dell Wireless 1397 (802.11 b/g) Mini Card European Wireless Label - Pentium Dual Core No Mobile Broadband Selected Keyboard : Internal UK English Qwerty Keyboard Operating System : English Genuine Windows Vista SP1 Home Premium including Media
 
That laptop is still a decent spec inside, so perhaps you could take the screen off and then just use it as a media centre as you've already suggested. It make not look great though, so perhaps you could knock up a case for it? I don't think you'd be able to buy anything off the shelf that would take a laptop motherboard, so you may need to be inventive :). It should work fine if you wanted to hook it up to an external monitor/TV (assuming everything else survived the fall - particularly the HDD).

Otherwise, I'm sure you'd still get people buying a laptop with a broken screen via ebay which may offset the cost. Another option is to see if you can pick up a screen from the likes of ebay and see if you can repair it yourself?
 
Thanks Ian.
The tech I had gone to had mentioned that not all dell studio 1537 screens are the same, which was what put me off trying to look for screen in ebay, besides it seems like replacement lcd screens tend to be more expensive than laptops that are not working (with working lcd).

You mentioned that it would be hard to find a PC case that will directly take laptop motherboard then what would be the limitations of getting a laptop that is not working? I mean, do I have to buy Dell studio 1537 with 15.4in screen or can I broaden the used laptop search parameters to, say, all dell studio laptops?
 
£300 ????? So they are basically going to charge you £240 for half hour of labour...Find out the part number for the screen and get one online for £60 - £90 and do the replacement yourself. There are plenty of tuts on Youtube and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to replace it :D
 
Have a look at MicroMart at most good newsagents plenty of adverts for Laptop Repairs.
And may give you an idea how much it's worth for parts if you want to get rid of it?
 
One thing you could do with a broken laptop is turn it into a desktop. You should have a VGA port on the side or back. Connect monitor, keyboard, mouse and you now have a desktop.

You may have to use the keyboard to turn the external monitor on. Usually it is a FN of the number keys.
 
You can fix it and it can be very cheap. You have to find the same model laptop on eBay broken. Then take both of them apart and swap the good screen into the good PC.
 
klaus said:
Thanks Ian.
The tech I had gone to had mentioned that not all dell studio 1537 screens are the same, which was what put me off trying to look for screen in ebay, besides it seems like replacement lcd screens tend to be more expensive than laptops that are not working (with working lcd).

You mentioned that it would be hard to find a PC case that will directly take laptop motherboard then what would be the limitations of getting a laptop that is not working? I mean, do I have to buy Dell studio 1537 with 15.4in screen or can I broaden the used laptop search parameters to, say, all dell studio laptops?
Click to expand...

well if you want to get a low cost tv/monitor goto a pawn shop that sell thems they should go for about 99 to 150 dollars depends on luck and the size of the inches on the tv/monitor.
it might be a used item but them again it not a new computer good luck with that. and yes i know about ebay and ebid highly recommended.
 
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i have a dell 1500 vostro computer works just find no problems but i like to watch movies on the website movies 2k.com and well the grafic are not all that good. is there any way i can get a usb grafic card for this computer if so which on is recommeded .
 
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