Due to unfortunate circumstances (me dropping the laptop) I have now ended up with a half broken laptop that has a broken screen and a dying battery. I could repair it, however, I don’t wanna bother as I’m very likely gonna be getting a new one soon.
The laptop itself still works fine, however the broken screen and dying battery make it pretty much useless as a laptop and I already have a home lab NAS thing, so I’m kinda out of ideas on what to do with it. Any ideas?
Here are the specs:
CPU: i5-8300h
GPU: intel HD830/GTX1050ti
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 128GB SSD
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Do you have a media center and/or server already? It’s a bit overkill for the former but would be well suited as the latter with its dedicated GPU that your NAS might not have/you may not want to have in your NAS.
That is a neat idea, however I don’t really have a “media center” or a TV for that matter, as I always just watch stuff on my PC… That and I am not the type of person who’s gonna go buying movies on disc…
I just pirate that sh!t
You could try to convert it to a “headless” laptop.
Some cash savvy people have been buying M1 macbooks with broken screens and converting them into headless laptops. For the price of a broken MacBook and some tinkering, you can get what is essentially a Mac mini with a touchpad and keyboard.
That is one of the things I’ve thought of doing with it, like a dedicated game streaming machine. It’s got gigabit LAN and a dedicated, even if not latest gen GPU, so yn
Retroarch box for your TV?
What your situation for data backup? You mentioned a homelab and a NAS, are you running regular backups to an off-box store? You could mate it with a few TB of inexpensive USB disk, maybe some software RAID, and use it for off-box backups. Doesn’t have to be fast, just reliable.
Specs like that, you have some options. Virtual assistant, IPCam NVR like MotionEye or Frigate, media server for your car (takes DC voltage, right?), weather base station, ADS-B feeder, smart mirrors.
Or (if you’re in the US) you could repair it and then, if you donate it to a suitable charity, you could take the the cost of the repair as a deduction on your taxes. Probably doesn’t help you that much, but it could maybe really help someone else who needs it.
Or, just wipe it and send it to e-waste.
My situation with data backup is… well I have none, nor can i really afford to invest into more hardware at the moment. I am running RAIDz1, on my NAS so that gives me a small amount of protection in case a drive in it does go bad ig.
Sell or donate for parts. If you don’t have a use for it, someone likely does and it’s better than landfill.
I usually just harvest usable parts like the hard drive and camera and call it a day.
Alternatively, if you’re able to plug an external monitor in and get it to work for setup, you could install some sort of Linux distro on it and run it headless for lots of different purposes.
Camera?
Like a Webcam camera? What’s the use case? Can you map the pins to a SPC like a raspi or ardrino?
Yeah it’s relatively easy to reuse most webcam cameras, you just have to get them connected to a USB cable, then most computers will immediately recognize them as cameras.
Email server and password vault This is something that should be a physical object in your own home. And it should be only that (ok, maybe include a notes and calendar app but keep it simple, stupid)
