Background: So an older Compaq Presario notebook started having display problems a long time back. It got sent in and Compaq techies told us that they'd replace the whole mobo for $600. I suspect the problem was something got scrambled (by heat build up?) in the video card and everything else should be ok. I realize the laptop's stuff is all gonna be integrated on the motherboard and that's why they wanted to just replace that whole thing.
The Question: Can I, without any particular computer/electrical engineering skills, have a chance of fixing or replacing the integrated video card of a laptop? I'll prolly give it a shot cause there's little to lose, but I doubt it is feasible. This is a 600 MHz P3 system with a DVD drive so I could at least use it as a travel DVD player, etc.
So is there anything useful or cool that can I do with the working components? The most obvious thing is to use the hard drive in a 2.5" external enclosure but it's only a 6 GB drive. I can also transplant the RAM but it's older SODIMM and I don't have anything else that takes it.
Coolest would be if I could use the 15" LCD screen for another purpose, but I haven't cracked the lappy open to see what kind of connectors there are. Any thoughts or suggestions on that? I'd use the thing as a second monitor but the VGA input (not sure if it has one at all) goes through the video card and prolly won't work.
Thanks for any help! Don't hold back any suggestions even if they seem frivolous, cause this thing is just a hunk of junk in my garage right now.
The Question: Can I, without any particular computer/electrical engineering skills, have a chance of fixing or replacing the integrated video card of a laptop? I'll prolly give it a shot cause there's little to lose, but I doubt it is feasible. This is a 600 MHz P3 system with a DVD drive so I could at least use it as a travel DVD player, etc.
So is there anything useful or cool that can I do with the working components? The most obvious thing is to use the hard drive in a 2.5" external enclosure but it's only a 6 GB drive. I can also transplant the RAM but it's older SODIMM and I don't have anything else that takes it.
Coolest would be if I could use the 15" LCD screen for another purpose, but I haven't cracked the lappy open to see what kind of connectors there are. Any thoughts or suggestions on that? I'd use the thing as a second monitor but the VGA input (not sure if it has one at all) goes through the video card and prolly won't work.
Thanks for any help! Don't hold back any suggestions even if they seem frivolous, cause this thing is just a hunk of junk in my garage right now.