Hi guys, didnt really know where to put this so kinda put it in general, mods feel free to move it elsewhere if you want!
I have a laptop which has seen better days, the screen mountingshave cracked, the case is split and the battery doesnt work, it overheats and generally is a bit crap, even though it cost me £700 only 4 years ago! (quality Compaq build there!)
The actual specs arent too bad, its got a 2ghz dual core Intel processor and 2 gig of RAM and a 150 gb hdd so seems a shame to chuck it in the bin!
What I would like to do then is take the internals out and turn it into a media centre micro pc. I havent a clue where to start but I'm sure you lot will help me out! The idea would be to put the motherboard into a micro pc chassis with some decent cooling, maybe put a 1tb drive in there and some more RAM and reuse the screen as well. I run a ReadyNAS NV+ downstairs which is hooked up to my main pc and I use a homeplug LAN with my xbox in my room to stream movies to my bedroom, but we have a 40" Samsung telly in the lounge doing nothing but runfreeview and a few DVD's, what I'd like to do is stream some Blu ray and HD goodness from the server to the laptop/media centre from the Nas, has anyone done anything similar at home?
I'm thinking it'd be way cool to invert the screen and mount it to the top panel of the case and attach some hinges or even a gas strut which could elevate the screen if you wanted it up and then you could lower it down into the case if you just wanted it to sit there looking cool. I could handle some cutting of the case and a bit of engineering, but i think it'd make a really cool project!
Any help would be much appreciated!
Thanks in advance!
I have a laptop which has seen better days, the screen mountingshave cracked, the case is split and the battery doesnt work, it overheats and generally is a bit crap, even though it cost me £700 only 4 years ago! (quality Compaq build there!)
The actual specs arent too bad, its got a 2ghz dual core Intel processor and 2 gig of RAM and a 150 gb hdd so seems a shame to chuck it in the bin!
What I would like to do then is take the internals out and turn it into a media centre micro pc. I havent a clue where to start but I'm sure you lot will help me out! The idea would be to put the motherboard into a micro pc chassis with some decent cooling, maybe put a 1tb drive in there and some more RAM and reuse the screen as well. I run a ReadyNAS NV+ downstairs which is hooked up to my main pc and I use a homeplug LAN with my xbox in my room to stream movies to my bedroom, but we have a 40" Samsung telly in the lounge doing nothing but runfreeview and a few DVD's, what I'd like to do is stream some Blu ray and HD goodness from the server to the laptop/media centre from the Nas, has anyone done anything similar at home?
I'm thinking it'd be way cool to invert the screen and mount it to the top panel of the case and attach some hinges or even a gas strut which could elevate the screen if you wanted it up and then you could lower it down into the case if you just wanted it to sit there looking cool. I could handle some cutting of the case and a bit of engineering, but i think it'd make a really cool project!
Any help would be much appreciated!
Thanks in advance!