Making Use of Old Broken Laptops

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DrRipley

New member
I have several broken laptops lying around and I've been a bit too lazy to revive the hard drives to pull out the contents on each, but I'm thinking now is the time. My question is what are the best ways to make use of these spare parts that are left with these broken laptops? Can I make a sort of Frankenstein CPU out of them or should I just give them away to our local laptop repairman so he has free spare parts?
 
I have an old laptop that's still working and fine to use, but it's... well, old. hehe. I use it to experiment with, for example loading different flavors of Linux on. I've been thinking of making it a server for our home network recently too.

Broken laptops, assuming they're old like you say, aren't worth keeping. I agree with Victor in that case.
 
I have a broken laptop too (tho I was told it is not worth fixing by the computer place) and so far I have kept it. I tell myself that I am going to try to get it working, but then remind myself that the computer repair place said it is not worth fixing. It is fairly new and lost all power right after my warranty was up - not happy there! Now I am running on my old laptop.

If I had several laptops, I probably would mess around with them to get them working together. I used to work with testing electronic circuits so the troubleshooter/technician in me wants to tinker with them. But on the other hand, I worked on high powered power supplies and never on the inside of computers and there is a difference. I am one of those determined to fix things kind of person.

If you do decide to work on them, make sure to buy a grounding strap or else you will fry the components in the computer - electronic parts (especially chips) are very sensitive to static electricity!
 
I have gone through a number of laptops (6 to be exact) - same thing, computer place says it is more practical to just get a new one instead. That's one of the reasons I have decided that a desktop should always be available in case the laptop crashes or something like that. It may be helpful if you just sold them for parts (which is what I did to mine)...instead of just storing them somewhere and it gathering dust, why not try to get what you can for it anyway?
 
Generally, broken laptops are good for spare parts only. You can get hard drive from one, and RAM from another.

If you know how to assemble computer parts, you wouldn't find it difficult to build your own system by making use of parts from different laptops. On the other hand, If you have never looked inside your CPU, then you better sell these, or give them to someone who can put them into good use.

Personally, I would play with them, and make good use of video tutorials posted on Youtube. Believe me, you will find many tutorials out there for computer assembly, and that's what you need to get started.
 
I think you can try to sell computer parts!
You can earn some money, I for example have a computer, which I am using to write this post, and is a bit old, damaged keypad, etc., so when you buy a new try to sell this piece!
 
I have an old laptop. It's still working, but there's no sound. I haven't decided what to do with it. I used to play around with desktops, but never opened up a laptop. If it wasn't working, I would donate it to the Goodwill. Many computer geeks go there to buy broken laptops to source for parts.

I use computer geeks as a term of endearment because I count myself as one.
 
There's a market for broken laptops. :) I noticed this when I was searching for a laptop on Ebay, and lot's of users we're selling broken laptops. They were getting bids too, so maybe you should list some of your broken laptops for auction on Ebay.
 
I have sold a few of my old laptops on ebay for spares and repairs! You get a healthy amount of return for them usually as people want them to harvest the keyboards, screens, mouse pads and other internal components. People will buy anything on ebay! ;)
 
Thanks for the suggestions you guys! I am now battling with myself between creating a Frankenstein laptop combination of all 3 broken ones that I have, and just selling all 3 of them on eBay. I actually didn't know that people bought even broken laptops on eBay so thanks for that. Still welcoming any other suggestions or tips on this as I am really wanting to do something more with this other than selling them or giving them away, but I'm open to it if no other options are left. Thanks again guys!
 
DrRipley said:
Thanks for the suggestions you guys! I am now battling with myself between creating a Frankenstein laptop combination of all 3 broken ones that I have, and just selling all 3 of them on eBay. I actually didn't know that people bought even broken laptops on eBay so thanks for that. Still welcoming any other suggestions or tips on this as I am really wanting to do something more with this other than selling them or giving them away, but I'm open to it if no other options are left. Thanks again guys!
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If you have a desktop, you can try playing with the hard drives. Get some adapters so that you can connect the hard drives to your desktop. Then you can learn how to make raid arrays. Just for learning.
 
fermlour said:
I think you can try to sell computer parts!
You can earn some money, I for example have a computer, which I am using to write this post, and is a bit old, damaged keypad, etc., so when you buy a new try to sell this piece!
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Yes that's what I did with my old laptop too. At least you can recover some cash...
 
I have never had a computer I would refer to as an old broken laptop. Every computer in my house is used. I have an old dell with no battery, a broken hard-drive (i recovered and replaced), I now use it as a media center and use it attached to my TV with XBMC to stream movies and what not. I have another "old" computer which has a cracked screen, I replaced the screen, formatted the machine and sold it. If you plan on selling it, please make sure you securely wipe the drive, as it is very easy to pull data from a formatted drive.
 
If you can make a laptop from the broken pieces, do make it!
It will be helpful for you when your very speedy laptops won't be able to do your work for a given amount of time.
Just a part of experience which I have shared.
 
scottyxx said:
I have never had a computer I would refer to as an old broken laptop. Every computer in my house is used. I have an old dell with no battery, a broken hard-drive (i recovered and replaced), I now use it as a media center and use it attached to my TV with XBMC to stream movies and what not. I have another "old" computer which has a cracked screen, I replaced the screen, formatted the machine and sold it. If you plan on selling it, please make sure you securely wipe the drive, as it is very easy to pull data from a formatted drive.
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I have also used old machines for things such as media centres and even Linux test machines. I have also setup a dedicated server for my web development, which I access via ip just like a regular web sever.

:)
 
Lee said:
You can buy a little tower that you can plug a laptop hard drive into, allowing you to build your own cluster of external hard drives too. Just another thought.
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I'm particularly interested in this solution. What kind of tower should I search for? I'm actually most partial to making these into storage units like you suggested and I'd love to hear an easier way to pull out my old files from said hard drives if you have any further suggestions.

Thanks for the comments guys keep those suggestions coming. :)
 
DrRipley said:
I'm particularly interested in this solution. What kind of tower should I search for? I'm actually most partial to making these into storage units like you suggested and I'd love to hear an easier way to pull out my old files from said hard drives if you have any further suggestions.

Thanks for the comments guys keep those suggestions coming. :)
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You have a choice of towers, from mini to medium to full. I suggest, since you are talking about small laptop drives, that you just get the mini tower. You will need some adapters to connect to the drives and a good power supply to keep things running. Also you will need to do some modifications to hold the drives in the casing.
 
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