Advice on new laptop install for newbie

**PThomas** · 11-20-2004, 04:45 AM

Hi all

I have a HP Omnibook 6000 which has a broken screen mounting bracket, an ideal candidate to go in my car !

I have removed the 15" screen leaving a 26-way cable connector. Has anyone tried extending a laptop screen 2-3m away from the laptop ?
I appreciate I haven't the space to mount the screen permenantly in the front of the car but thought I'm make up a way of having it quickly removable for security. Besides I can't afford to buy a new monitor.

The laptop has a built in DVD player so I should be able to play DVD's back in the car as well.

I was hoping to run the audio output from my laptop into my Sony head unit but looking on the internet I would need to spend £100 to get a line-in unit for the headunit !!

Has anyone done anything similar and have any suggestions ?

**Matthew230** · 11-20-2004, 04:50 AM

Originally Posted by PThomas

Hi all

I have a HP Omnibook 6000 which has a broken screen mounting bracket, an ideal candidate to go in my car !

I have removed the 15" screen leaving a 26-way cable connector. Has anyone tried extending a laptop screen 2-3m away from the laptop ?
I appreciate I haven't the space to mount the screen permenantly in the front of the car but thought I'm make up a way of having it quickly removable for security. Besides I can't afford to buy a new monitor.

The laptop has a built in DVD player so I should be able to play DVD's back in the car as well.

I was hoping to run the audio output from my laptop into my Sony head unit but looking on the internet I would need to spend £100 to get a line-in unit for the headunit !!

Has anyone done anything similar and have any suggestions ?

Have you got a CD changer ?

**Fox_Mulder** · 11-20-2004, 05:05 AM

People I think have tried to extend the laptop monitor however it tends to loose quality the further you get due to the fact it was never designed for that sort of distance. Also 26 wires that is gonna be a big cable

There are other methods for hooking up to a headunit such as down the ol' FM route. And depending on where you mount the laptop you may need to extend that dvd drive away from the laptop, using like for example an extended ide cable or ide to usb adaptor and running a usb extension.
[edit]
Also for a startup solution I recommend using a docking station and soldering 2 wires to replace the switch on the docking station to a relay and using some circuitry to turn it on if it is not already on. There is a schematic of this lurking in the hardware section of this forum.
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