How to turn your laptop into a computer

turn, your, laptop, computer

What is better a computer or laptop. Differences between them. Comparison and Differences.

Everyone has probably already asked themselves this question. Let’s try to understand this question.

First, the biggest difference is the speed (productivity, power), which is always higher with a desktop computer.

The second difference is the presence of laptops Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. For a desktop computer you have to buy them additionally as USB devices.

They don’t have a liquid crystal display. Another difference is the keyboard. No separate button block for laptops. But it has built-in devices such as: ports for access to cameras, ports using infrared, all kinds of wireless. This is a high-tech apparatus, unlike the PC, which is its greatest advantage. Laptops are good to use because they are medium in size, you can easily take them on trips, on the nature and other activities, which can not be done with a computer.

An old laptop. Disassembly for parts

to the computer via USB?There are times when laptops fall into disrepair and gather dust on the shelf. “Bored” they are because it is a pity to throw them away: “There are working elements; maybe someday I will fix; and then I will make”. But in the end it is a loss to repair your old laptop. However, everything is not as bad as it may seem. From the old you can always make something new, namely in this article I will tell you how to make a full-fledged webcam with USB interface from a useless laptop. In my hands got a laptop Toshiba satellite l300

Here is your plan of action: 1. First of all we need to take apart your monitor to get the webcam out. Usually plastic (covering monitor with camera) holds on screws hidden under the round rubber band located around the perimeter of the screen. Once you remove the plastic cover you will see your monitor and camera. Disconnect the webcam from the cable that connects it.

Now we have our camera in front of us. How do I connect it to the USB? In my case it was much easier than I thought. If you look at the picture.1, then on the right we will see a jack with a sticker (marked e414 0834, it is from this jack I disconnected the camera from the laptop) is essentially the same USB, only with a slightly different interface. So what I did? I took the notebook apart and found a separate USB input from the motherboard

So, as you can guess from the picture. 3. on the right side of the wire is the same as on the camera and I just took it and plugged it into the camera and the USB input I only had to get a USB type A-A cord

Now you have to put it all together. That is the simplicity of my case. I just had to buy a USB cord. In the other case if there was no such a non-standard webcam interface to USB adapter then I would have to solder. For easy solving of this problem you need not to disconnect the camera from the laptop but just cut off this wire and solder it to the USB port. But how to solder it if USB has 4 wires and there are 5? For more information about USB see wikipedia (https://ru).wikipedia.org/wiki/USB).

You must be wondering what to do with the 5th wire? Just don’t solder it and then it should work fine. But if you look in my case the 5th wire (yellow) is connected to the black wire, so you can assume that they are soldered together or the “yellow” goes to the USB body itself, but to be sure it’s better to leave this wire alone and solder there using a matching method.

Connect everything to the camera. After our entire construction is assembled it is necessary to connect it to the USB2 port.0.

After connecting the camera the system should not require any additional drivers (in my case it worked automatically). Now we need to check the camera for performance, in this we will help Skype or the Internet, enough to type in a search box in your browser: “check web-camera online” and select the first link that appears. As can be seen in Figure 8, the LED is working,

Wired connection

The easiest thing is to connect the cable to the video jack on your laptop and video card of the main unit. But this way will not work in all cases. Even if the laptop has a jack for video output, it may not work as an “input” jack. And when you connect you will not get any result. It is also possible that the video ports, such as VGA and HDMI, will not fit together.

INFO! Only wired connection via video ports will allow you to use your notebook as a full monitor. Other ways will have their own limitations and disadvantages.

There is also a USB connection. But if you use this method of connection there will be periodic freezes. Yes, and the quality of the image will be somewhat reduced. In this case it is better to use a wireless connection. The picture quality will remain the same, but the mobility will increase significantly.

What you need to connect

  • For a wired connection you will first need the cable itself.
  • On the laptop itself and on the card must have the same ports for video connection.
  • The laptop must have a “video input” port, which is set for conventional monitors. But it is not present in every laptop model. Not every MacBook from Apple, for example.

How to connect a computer to a laptop

So, you have found the necessary port in your device, its type corresponds to the connector on the video card and you even need to find the cable. Such complicated connection conditions are paid off by the image quality and ease of connection. To use the system and notebook, proceed as follows.

  • Connect the cable to the connectors on your notebook and to the PC system unit.
  • Then launch both devices.
  • After launching, right-click on an empty area of the computer desktop.
  • Depending on your operating system, choose “properties” or “screen resolution.
  • In the item “multiple screens” set the value “Expand these screens”.
  • Apply and save the settings. And freely use the additional workspace.

Possible problems

Unfortunately, sometimes users have the following problems:

There is no picture on one of the devices;

everything is OK with the picture, but there is no sound;

all the folders disappear on the laptop desktop, and an empty desktop appears;

There is a problem with the connection of adapters.

In the first case for the latest versions of operating systems. 8 and 10, you can try to solve the problem by typing the combination of keys OS and P in Latin and go to the “Extension”.

For Windows 7 you can solve the problem by clicking on the working interface and selecting the parameters.

If there is no sound signal, you must make sure that the default settings are correct.

Empty working interface indicates a wrong settings of the laptop.

The root of the problem with adapters lies in a bad cable. The device must have different inputs and outputs. Your adapter must convert signals from analog to digital and vice versa.

Connect the laptop to Wi-Fi

Let’s start by reviewing the connection process without any settings and checks. Why complicate things, you may already have everything set up. If all is well, your laptop sees a wireless network and is ready to connect, the Internet connection icon in your system tray will look like this:

If the network is password-protected, there will be a window in which you must specify the password and confirm the connection by pressing Ok.

That’s all, your laptop should connect to the Wi-Fi network. The connection status will be like this:

It means that you are likely to have everything set up on your laptop, but the laptop just does not see the networks available for connection. Perhaps in this place there is simply no coverage. If you’re connecting to your network, make sure your router is turned on. If it is on, try to reset it.

I wrote about the solution to this problem in a separate article: No available connections in Windows.

This is exactly how the connection will go when you have installed the driver for the Wi-Fi adapter and the adapter itself is switched on. But very often the adapter on the laptop is turned off, or the driver for it was never installed. There are a lot of questions in these cases. Now we will detail both cases that can cause you to have problems connecting your laptop to the wireless network.

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How to combine the advantages of a laptop and a desktop computer? A breakdown of the problem and solution ideas

At the moment, laptops and personal computers are very different from each other. The system unit of the desktop computer is usually understood as a “tower” of mostly midi-tower standard, weighing 15-20 kilograms (or more), which occupies a huge space under the table. To move the system unit from place to place usually requires a lot of effort.

The notebook computer is a lightweight and mobile solution, which can be used at home, in the office, on vacation or even on the way from one place to another. In addition, the laptop is built into all of the peripherals that need to be connected to the system unit. Unfortunately, laptops are almost always significantly inferior in performance to desktop computers, and if they are not, they have a very high price compared to their “big brother”. But perhaps the most unpleasant. almost impossible to make a laptop “for yourself”, to choose those components, which in speed, performance, price and appearance are relevant to you exactly and exactly today, and after a couple of years if you want to change these components for more modern.

So. Is it possible to combine the advantages of a laptop and desktop computer, and if so, what to do to do this?

To begin with, let’s say that in this post we are not talking about portable monitors, mice and other peripherals. In this post we are going to talk almost completely about the computer case. What should be a case and what kind of components it should contain to provide high performance in a relatively compact size, as well as the ability to assemble the computer as the end user sees it? At the moment, solutions that partially answer this question are beginning to appear. The most popular and affordable solutions are, for example, SilverStone rvz01 (rvz02) and Node 202 from Fractal Design. But we should admit that such computers have more disadvantages from notebooks as well as from PCs than advantages: the computer built in such cases is not very compact (the volume of both cases is more than 10 liters), at the same time it sags in performance.

turn, your, laptop, computer

We want solutions that are not greatly inferior to either laptops or personal computers. In other words, we want compact and high-performance systems. Can this be done?? Let’s try to find a way to a solution.

Of course, it is not possible to make a case capable of accommodating all the components of a “big computer”. But our goal is to design an enclosure that is more efficient than the above mentioned popular compact chassis.

Goal: Development of an enclosure to assemble a high-performance computer that can be carried in a laptop bag.

P.S. of course we are not talking about a slim case for an ultrabook with a diagonal of 13″. But the bag for the proposed solution should be comfortable enough. My vision of a “convenient” case I will outline later, but first let’s study the standard components to understand, and of what we will “assemble” the computer?

Note again that we’re going to build a case that involves swapping out components and assembling it “for yourself”. So the concept of the case will be built around things that do not change much over the years, not in relation to specific models of specific processors (power supplies, graphics cards), more powerful analogues of which will be released in one year after this publication.

To begin with, let’s talk about things that are more or less obvious to anyone who has ever built a compact case:

As a rule, for dual-channel processors more than enough two memory cards the maximum possible amount (that is, in the days of DDR3 was enough for 16GB, with DDR4 is enough for 32, with DDR5 will be enough for 64). It is a bit more complicated for quad channel processors, because such processors are purchased for a specific task. But in general, four slabs should be enough.

There are two types of storage devices: HDD (hard disk drive) and SSD (solid-state drive). SSDs have faster data transfer rates, lower power consumption, and less noise, but are inferior in terms of “per gigabyte”, the maximum storage capacity of the device, as well as in terms of lifetime and the ability to continuously rewrite information on the device. Therefore, at the moment most users prefer to combine two types of devices in their computer: hard disk (for file storage) and solid state drive (for fast operation of the system as a whole and some resource-intensive programs). But not without reason many people think that modern SSDs are good enough already, that in everyday life their disadvantages don’t show up. Nevertheless, for the organization of the case, you need to consider the possibility of installing both SSD and HDD. First of all about the HDD. There are two HDD form factors for 2.5″ и 3.5″. It is believed that the former are designed for laptops, the latter for desktop computers. If you do not take the maximum capacity of the device (which in domestic cases does not matter), the hard drives form factor 2.5″ HDDs are not inferior to devices with 3.5″. They have about the same relative cost, less heat, have about the same data speed. Even in server solutions the choice is often made in favor of devices in form factor 2.5″. Adding the fact that the device 2.5″ is physically smaller than 3.5″, we obtain that in a small enclosure the choice is obvious.

At the very beginning of the article I told about two mass housings, most suitable for building systems Mini ITX. Now let’s move on to the existing solutions, much less mass-produced, which have a volume of less than 10 liters and at the same time allow you to fit all the components listed above. Such solutions, as a rule, are built on the basis of two formats:

In this format of enclosures, all components are placed in one plane. This principle of component arrangement guarantees the smallest possible thickness, and it is in cases such as Dr.Zaber Sentry is limited by the thickness of the power supply SFX.

A notebook from parts of an ordinary computer with my own hands

It all started when we had to go to another city to record sound for a movie, and we had no money, so well, you know. The only ADC of suitable quality, which we could afford, was a Creative Sound Blaster Surround 5 external (USB) sound card.1 But it needed a computer. Of course, I didn’t have a laptop either. And I really did not want to carry a desktop computer with me. It was necessary to make a notebook by our own hands.

To begin with I brought some plastic case from the garbage, I think it was a typewriter. It was decided to place the computer parts in it. The main problem was the monitor. The CRT was bound to fall off, I had to carry it by myself. Then I bought a 15″ TFT monitor without enclosure. It cost only 50 bucks with the “used” price. I had a hole cut into the lid of the case to fit the size of the screen. Around it in places of monitor fastening to the case drilled holes for screws. Through them from inside the monitor is screwed to the lid. But since the case had to go on the train and we don’t know where, I had to put a good-sized plexiglass plate between the monitor and the lid. It appeared to have practically no effect on the image, but it protects monitor from scratches rather qualitatively.

At the bottom of the case there was a Micro ATX motherboard with Atlon processor attached to the stand. XP at 1000 MHz and a Seagate Barracuda 20 Gb hard drive (in photo 3 in the lower left corner under the CD.drive). The rest of the parts in the case simply put. The power supply is mounted so that its fan blows air around the hard drive, protecting it from overheating. the case cover with monitor in operating position is put vertically and held in such position by the monitor’s weight on one side and by diagonal straps from the band on the other side.

turn, your, laptop, computer

The monitor is powered from the output socket of the power supply. The signal to it comes from the VGA.connectors on the mother. The button on the separate cord (in the foreground of photo 4) is for starting the computer. CD.Drive is placed on the corner of the case in operating position and is connected together with hard drive to one channel of IDE, and in travel position it is disconnected and placed in the case. The mouse, keyboard and all cords including the mains one are stacked in the same place. Now just close (carefully) the lid and we get a suitcase you can travel with, no one will think that there is a computer.

Dmitry Vaysburd (at) narod.ru 21/12.2008

A plywood monitor from an old notebook

Probably many hackers are faced with the fact that at home is piling up computer hardware. Something is kept in stock, something for future experiments, something for parts. So I had a disassembled HP laptop for 4 years, died in an unequal battle with the temperature and negligent repairmen. But sooner or later the mezzanine, where the useless hardware is kept, is cleaned. Most of the obsolete, broken and simply useless iron is sent into yet another box, which bears the proud “FOR DISPOSAL”. However, the salvaged laptop matrix made me think of a long time ago idea to turn it into a fully working monitor.

Then, 4 years ago I did not know what to do with it, and my friends told me it was cheaper to buy a new monitor instead of searching for the right card. In the end it turned out to be so, but, hell, the pleasure of the process of designing and assembling a new monitor is no substitute. However, about that below. A quick run on google didn’t get me much results. Nowadays you can read articles about it on hubra and find useful links on forums. Back then the majority of forums raised their hands, to put it mildly. I even managed to find a scheme for soldering the board I needed with my own hands, but it was not for me. It was only in one article, forgotten by everyone, that I found the answer and went to Ebay. A short search, a choice of seller and price and a sea of doubts. At that time most of the forums balked, to put it mildly, at such questions. These Chinese controllers are kind of universal, but I was afraid to order a 50 joke from the other side of the planet. And the cherished parcel was on its way. It quickly crossed the border and disappeared The package was more than two months long. not a record, but in that time it went through cessation of acceptance at customs, a fire at a Russian Post warehouse, was in Samara, returned to Moscow and finally arrived at me. Naturally, the new gizmo is a must try. However I apologize to my readers for the quality of some of the pictures below. Connected to one of the inhabitants of the mezzanine design:

So, it’s time to come up with an enclosure. At the time, and it was a little less than a year ago, I had an old 19″ 4:3 monitor on my desk (I had no plans to replace it with a matrix monitor, viewing angles leave much to be desired), so I was inspired by it. And that meant a frame that framed the monitor, a thick case, a stand (though there were already thoughts of a bracket). The frame was also needed to hide some of the metal parts of the sensor itself. Now the choice of the material itself. While I was waiting for the controller, I was looking through the DIY posts on hubra. There were plastic and even cardboard painted products, but there were also works of art made of wood and brass, lovingly and skillfully made and painted. Although I originally did not plan to save on material, plywood was chosen for one simple reason. it is used to make a cabinet, table, shelf, casings and even a window sill in my room. Two semesters of engineering and computer graphics were enough that I had no problem with the drawing in the 2x projection with dimensions. The drawing showed only the front frame, for the die itself. Then there was the drawing of the bottom, with cutouts for ports and buttons. The side panels were cut out from blanks and glued afterwards, and the back cover was just a rectangle of proper dimensions. How the sides were glued together (you can see the bottom part here, too):

Honestly, this whole project took about a year to complete. Sometimes I had to wait for the parcels, sometimes I simply had no time or desire, which made the unfinished workpieces and the box with the “iron” and wires gather dust on the table, sometimes the time was taken by making another workpieces of plywood or sanding them. All blanks of plywood and sanding the finished product to help me do my father, who works with wood closer than me (the furniture in my room: custom design, factory production, hand-assembly). Reading the hubr, I came across a post about the workplace hubrozhiteli and there, in the Комментарии и мнения владельцев, I first learned what the “touch screen overlay. “Who doesn’t want to poke a finger in the monitor for a reason??”I thought. So I went to Ebay again. What I saw did not make me happy, and I did not want to wait. I was ready to give up the idea, I did not want to risk ordering a rather fragile glass halfway around the world via Russian Post. But then I stumbled upon the online store touchbaza (no advertising), where I found the touchpad I was looking for. There’s also a shipping company, and a panel on 13 “in a box from under the monitor between the foam pads. By the way, this is what the matrix looks like on the back, inside the monitor, and the tail on the side of the touch panel:

The rest was easy, first of all we put the boards on the aluminum strips screwed on the inside:

On the side of the matrix, there are pads glued to the strips, like the ones glued to the furniture underneath, preventing damage to the flooring.

Next was the back cover with drilled holes for ventilation:

Then came the choice of bracket. Originally a stand was planned, but I wanted the monitor to be movable. However, the wall brackets surprised by their lack of mobility, which is, however, quite logical. The price of more or less movable ones seemed to be exorbitantly high. Desktop, in most cases, have screw clamps, which was unacceptable because of the construction of the table. Finally I opted for a Kromax office-7 bracket, which met all my requirements and had the ability to be mounted through the table top, which had to drill an extra hole in it.