Several years ago I was given a hand-me-down Sony vaio laptop. It was a decent machine- ~300gb storage, 8gb ram. But after staying with me for 3 years and suffering day after day of being shoved in by bag, the hinges of the screen began locking up, and eventually I could no longer open it and the screen display would come and go. I since bought a new laptop, but held onto the old one for a couple of years. Just recently, I decided to look up what I could do with it, and here is what I did:
My first thought was to take it apart (I was ok with doing this since the machine was practically a brick anyway) and I located the hard drive. I happened to have a USB to SATA cord on hand (this can be purchased online for $20), allowing me to plug it in to my new computer and access the files on the drive, treating it like an external hard drive.
While I was doing this, however, I realised I had a perfectly operational motherboard that I could easily turn into a "desktop" computer. After doing a ton of research, watching some video tutorials, and drawing up some plans, I bought the supplies I needed (a bit of aluminum and some soft wood). I put it all together and now have a fully operational desktop computer that I leave plugged into my tv, serving as a much cheaper alternative to smart TVs. Its not the prettiest, but it works!
If you are not confident with taking apart and reassembling computers, I suggest utilising the first option of making an external hard drive out of your old one, which could run you only about $20.
This is just what I did and is all opinion too, so whatever you decide to do with your old computers, that's up to you. I just thought I would go ahead and share what I did with mine!
October 30, 2018 at 08:39PM
