• You could hook it up to a tv and use it as HTPC (home theater pc), i.e. streaming movies or music from the web or an hard drive or even gaming. Depending on the hardware either natively on the machine or streaming using steamlink or geforce now.

  • Turn your smart TV into a dumb TV by disconnecting it from WiFi and plugging the laptop in. No more (less) tracking and spyware, no more ads.

  • If you run any services (jellyfin / a media server, torrents, document storage, etc), have them run on it.

      • You use the laptop to run the server that dishes up the content for the client devices that have working displays to watch on

      • To make it easy, start off with plugging your old laptop into external monitor. Install RDP, VNC, ssh, ftp depending on your OS. Install tailscale and join the network. Now with another computer, connect to that same network with tailscale and then you can connect and see your laptop screen with RDP. Or if you want VNC you can get a “dummy” hdmi adapter or try installing software for dummy monitor output. After that, use wired ethernet to plug old laptop in router, set to never turn off (recommend removing laptop battery beforehand) and there you go, you have your own personal server you can access anywhere including your phone! From there, look into self-hosting with apps like jellyfin, immich, etc. tons of great resources online.

        • Yup, many laptops even have a sim card slot so with that you could even configure it to fall back to mobile data in case of a power outage that also takes out your homes wired internet.

          I have a thinkpad at work that has been in that role for years. Its the central syncthing node for like 10 other laptops and computers. It then also does regular automated backups to off site storage in case anything bad happens with the syncthing setup.

  • It depends on why it stopped working. If the display doesnt work because it got dropped chances are other parts of it are broken as well.

    Assuming everything else is functioning properly and it has an HDMI/VGA/DVI etc, than it can be connected to an external display.

  • Yes, you and a group of your closest friends could have a grand ole time at the local park playing Frisbee with it.

  • Replacing a display in a laptop is a routine operation for IT companies hardware teams. So it should be easy to find a shop that replaces the display.

    • Totally, assuming of course it’s a business class laptop (indeed if it’s a thinkpad or similar most anyone can grab a $50 screen from China, find a yt tutorial and have a go themselves with a fair chance of success). On the other hand if it’s a glued together ultra thin consumer POS, it’s likely more than it’s worth to get it fixed.

  • u might be able to buy the display cheap and fix it. I’ve previously bought the same model on ebay