Ideas for reusing old laptop hardware?

[Musty]

I have an old Lenovo y580 laptop gathering dust and am wondering what to do with it.

 

The chassis is in awful condition and pretty much unusable. Over time the screen hinges essentially pulled the whole thing apart. It was held together with tape for a while... The reason I stopped using it was that eventually nudging the laptop and moving the screen would cause shutdowns. It was only usable with the lid closed and attached to an external monitor. 

 

I can salvage most of the hardware, seems like it is in decent condition despite the years of abuse. Not sure if I should just test these thoroughly and sell them as spares if they are still in working order, or if I can do something more interesting with them.

 

For general reference, it is a Core i7-3610QM with 8Gb of DDR3.

 

Anyone here made any fun projects out of salvaged laptop hardware?

[Radium_Angel]

11 minutes ago, MustyStag said:

Anyone here made any fun projects out of salvaged laptop hardware?

I've been in the same boat, and ultimately, not worth the time and money, unless you don't care about about either.

This site: https://www.benheck.com/

 

Might (might) lead you into some interesting ideas, depending on handy you are with tools.

[Musty]

Yeah I didn't think anything would be particularly worthwhile, just potentially some last fun to get out of it :). Realistically my priority at the minute should be saving for a budget desktop build so I can actually play some games.  

 

I did have a replacement for the Y580 but unfortunately it got stolen so I had to pick up a cheap Thinkpad. The most boring option would be to take the Y580 CPU to upgrade the thinkpad. 

 

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out and see if I think of anything

[WH2002]

Isn't this exactly what you are looking for? Because depending what you want to do, those specs are quite great.

 

[kokakolia]

@MustyStag Any old computer can be used as an external Spotify streaming device for your speaker system. You'll just want something to hookup your laptop to your Amp. So something like an external sound card (DAC) will do the trick. So if your laptop is on with Spotify running, you can just choose which device you want to stream Spotify to on your phone anywhere in your house. People use Raspberry Pi computers for the same purpose. 

 

Sadly, this solution is rather ugly, clunky and with many wires. You'll have to spend extra money on the proper cables and DAC as well. Further, most modern speakers/soundbars have Blutooth anyways. and that's a much easier solution (with a marginal tradeoff in sound quality). 

[GenericFanboy]

I just hoard old parts lmfao

[ColinLTT]

You can reuse the display as a secondary monitor/smart mirror display/in-desk screen etc!

 

[Scheer]

I gut an old 24 port switch and put a laptop in it to make a 1U server. The hinges were shot so when the screen broke it was just going to be tossed, figured it would be useful for something. I think I powered it on once and its still mounted in my rack after several years of not being used... but it was a fun little project to convert. lol

 

[Polyvalent]

I've got my old HP ultrabook hooked up as an HTPC in my living room with a wireless keyboard & mouse. I haven't actually opened the lid in over a year.

[lVaderl]

install kodi 

 

then free streaming box

or use it for retro gaming

[Musty]

On 12/1/2019 at 12:17 PM, I7 5820K said:

Isn't this exactly what you are looking for? Because depending what you want to do, those specs are quite great.

 

Wow I haven't been on for a while so missed this. That is one nice mod, damn!

 

On 12/2/2019 at 2:26 PM, GenericFanboy said:

I just hoard old parts lmfao

I wish I could, but I'm moving abroad soon and not sure I want to lug it all back with me unless I have a solid use for it.

 

On 12/3/2019 at 6:52 PM, ColinLTT said:

You can reuse the display as a secondary monitor/smart mirror display/in-desk screen etc!

 

Yeah I watched the recent LTT video on it and thought about it. Might be something worth looking in to if it doesn't work out too expensive (i'm saving for a new desktop at the minute).

 

On 12/3/2019 at 8:32 PM, Scheer said:

I gut an old 24 port switch and put a laptop in it to make a 1U server. The hinges were shot so when the screen broke it was just going to be tossed, figured it would be useful for something. I think I powered it on once and its still mounted in my rack after several years of not being used... but it was a fun little project to convert. lol

 

This is almost exactly what I would probably end up doing . Making a fun project out of it... then never using it again. 

[NewHopeTech]

I'd probably just use it as a Plex and OwnCloud server. 

[TrainFan475]

Just salvage the unbroken hardware. You might be able to make a few bucks. Right now, I'm not seeing an i7-3610QM for under $50 on ebay.

[zogthegreat]

I'm using an old Toshiba Satellite C655, i5-560m as a NextCloud server for my youngest daughters iPhone pictures. I have a 64gb SSD for the OS, (Ubuntu Server), and a 1tb SSD in a caddy where the CD rom used to be. I'll need to upgrade soon, because 14 year old's with iPhone's take a lot of pictures! And apparently, going through them and deleting bad photos is not permited!

[caincha]

How about gutting an old LCD monitor and stuff the laptop boards inside to make a AIO running Linux?