Thread: I have a laptop w/busted screen, can I gut it?

you already answered your questions with the specs you provided.

Originally Posted by Motorcity

you already answered your questions with the specs you provided.

If I knew the anwser I wouldnt have posted the questions. Im assuming thats a no its not sufficient and a you cant run the video to the lilliput after you gut it. Thanks.

Originally Posted by GScherler

If you were able "to run 40 Gigs of Mp3's, GPS, and the occasional video" on your laptop before than yes it will do it now. Don't tear it apart just use it as before. All you need to do is plug the Liliput monitor into the vga port on the back and power the monitor with your power inveror and you have a complete rumnning system.
Hope that helps,
Gary

Ive never tried to run anything on it honestly, it was my wifes. She used it for email and the internet and that was about it.

The reasons I want to gut it out are
1) I dont want to deal with the bulk of the computer, or the screen that doesnt work anymore.
2) I want to put it in the glove box of my crx. The whole laptop wont fit in there.
3) If I just wanted a laptop in the car, Id get the screen replaced and mount the whole thing on the console.

When I gut this notebook will it recognize the lilliput automatically as its primary display?

Best to remove the whole screen panel and just replace it with aluminium or something similiar (insulated).

Infact you can even remove the keyboard including the top panel...depending on how the laptop is constructed and how far you wanna go in making your laptop streamlined. Just leave the bottom casing as it is...such that you are left with a nice flat laptop based car PC.

With the monitor you should be able to connect the VGA screen directly to your laptop. Well I havent really seen a modern laptop without a VGA out. The GPS depend if its USB or serial. Probably better to go with USB GPS as this elimates the extra wire to the serial port...run everything off the USB. Not sure but I think some USB GPS can take power from the USB port. Your laptop might not even have a serial port anyway.

Try to use a car-laptop adapter rather than inverters...up to you really but its just alot neater and more efficient with one of those car 12V - laptop adapter.

With performance you should be fine. Youll find your car PC is more powerful than most in here

The reasons I want to gut it out are
1) I dont want to deal with the bulk of the computer, or the screen that doesnt work anymore.
2) I want to put it in the glove box of my crx. The whole laptop wont fit in there.
3) If I just wanted a laptop in the car, Id get the screen replaced and mount the whole thing on the console.


Gutting it completely can be tricky. All depend on the shape of the motherboard, how the drives are placed...etc. I know you may wanna remove the DVD drive and place it in the dashboard rather than having it tucked away somewhere.

You also have the battery to worry about. It maybe be a good idea leaving it as this will serve as a tank battery.

I have seen many laptop motherboard with all sort of shape and sizes, gutting a laptop with L shape motherboard wont exactly save space.

Just open it and see how much you can strip it by and decide from there.

that makes alot of sense what you said about removing the screen and the keyboard and such. my only question is how do I load DVDs without opening the glove box and removing the whole laptop to do it? I guess thats what Im trying to get around really. I want to just be able to flip open the glove box and pop open the tray.

i do have the vga out but i wasnt sure if it would auto detect the screen or not after i remove the connection for the lcd thats on the notebook. i already have a serial GPS earthmate. Ill prolly use that for a bit then goto USB.

I didnt know there was such a thing as the laptop adapter. I figured I would hardwire and fuse the inverter to the battery so it would be hidden as well.

Thanks alot for your help. things are making alot more sense to me...

Car to laptop adaptor :

http://www.maplin.co.uk/products/mod...moduleno=36455

Just an example but theres plenty more out there just take a pick.

Up to you how or where you wanna place the DVD. But if you do need to move it away from the PC best is to get a USB - IDE adaptor... or just buy a whole external slimline DVD drive and place it on the dashboard.

The laptop should sense that theres only one monitor connected and therefore switch over to the external monitor. If not it should be in the BIOS setting or a keyboard hotkey.

Since you gonna gut the laptop might as well place it permanently under the seat or behind the dashboard together with the adaptor...providing you can find a place for them.

Thats how I did mine anyway.

I guess thats more than enough for now

Dont forget, you can also remove the internal floppy disk drive and just use a USB one for maintenance purporse. Thats how my one was done.