Build a Home Theater PC from a Broken Laptop and a Tivo

Step 2 Buy a broken laptop.

When looking for a laptop, keep in mind that whether you're using XP Media Center, Windows 7 Media Center, MythTV or any of the other popular HTPC options, the more horsepower the better.  Luckily there are a lot of people selling laptops on auction sites that have no screen, keyboard, power adapter.  In other words, they're complete basket cases.  For our purposes though, this is perfect. 

Ideally you'll want to buy the fastest computer you can for the least amount of money.  I picked up a Pentium Core2 Duo 1.6Ghz laptop with 1GB of RAM (No hard drive) for about $50.  To get this laptop back into the shape it would need to be in to be a laptop again would have been very expensive as it needed a battery, hard drive, screen, keyboard, and the onboard sound chip was dead.  That was all okay though, we only need the mainboard, RAM and Hard Drive.  EBay is a great resource for laptops that have been dropped or kicked or dropkicked, so head over there to see what you can find.

Remember though, some of these laptops are too far gone even to use for this project.  Make sure you find one that powers up and shows some signs of life.  If not, make sure the seller offers a reasonable return policy.

Comments

[bbear4]

I did that to my laptop. Screen looked exactly like that. It'll make a sweet media computer when I have some extra money to work on it with. Too many projects :)

Thanks for the great ideas.