Is there any way to dock a laptop to a pc tower?

When docked the laptops acts as a interface (keyboard, mouse, display, camera, mic etc) for the tower while all laptop components shutdown and are completely replaced by those within the tower.

It would be like cloud supercomputing with no latency/lag based on connection (since the client is directly connected to the supercomputer).

 

Lol... what would be the use of this?

And no, it is not possible (if nothing on the notebook works, it won't be able to control the tower or use any of the hardware specific devices the notebook has...).

 

There's always latency.'

Just use "remote desktop" software.

 

hi9580, you can use Lapdock Atrix or Bionic for this, they're very good and dirty cheap. Be warned that other models (100, 500) won't work.

 

Dufus and Starlight5, those are not solutions...

Because of the bolded text in the OP's post...

 

tilleroftheearth, technically it is. :trollface: Since a mobile phone (including modern ones) serves as lapdock brains, connecting cables from desktop instead of phone does exactly what OP looks for - and no latency if HDMI is used. Ofc we may argue for hours whether lapdock can or can't be treated as a laptop.

 

Technically there is one kind of laptop which really docks and has a docking station with many desktop options. That is called a midrange or higher Business Class Laptop with a docking port. Everything else really is not a dock.

 

Not quite what you're looking for, but how about using something like Mouse without Borders?

 

Depends on what you want to do. If it's just desktop work, then that's fine. If it's any kind of 3D apps or games, it will be problematic.

 

One word NO! The mouse/track pad keyboard and other outside peripherals all work to the laptop over powered ports. Nine time out of ten these ports use up some CPU cycles as well. Even docked the laptop would have to be powered and interfaced. Your options are as mentioned and that is some type of remote desktop, or desktop control, software.

 

Just noticed I made a grievous mistake in my last post, corrected it and marked.

 

If anyone actually reads the first post, this is the final answer if the notebook is to draw no power at all as the main 'requirement' for the OP.

Just like I said back in post #2...

 

Which contradicts itself by saying the laptop is a client meaning power.

lol, the only reply that is not a possible solution is your's which is just an answer to point out something which is obvious to some but not to the OP.

Possibly some components of the laptop can be shutdown such as a discrete graphics card and/or storage while taking the advantage of the tower which might have high end processor(s), high end graphic card(s), fast RAM, fast and high bandwidth networking, fast and large storage and so on.

Unfortunately since the OP is absent from his own thread we may never know what is acceptable.

 

...I guess this would be pretty neat if we had laptops weighing 0.2kg, made in plexiglass, and had holographic keyboard and 3d interfaces, and things like that. So you could for example plug in a secondary device with additional processing power, or disable redundant components in the laptop device... say, when you move into the "home-zone" or "office-space", or whatever. So you could play "Barbarella and the frozen lakes of Venus" on your phone - and then get it in fifteen times the resolution and detail when you put on the home-screen... stuff like that.

But until then, you basically have to do it the other way around. Have a desktop computer running, and then for example remote desktop from a touch-pad, or your laptop, etc. Or use a vpn to a gateway of some sort, set up for dealing with your rote work-related heavy lifting... and you can do that via a mobile phone or your laptop tethered to your mobile phone - and don't have the bandwidth requirement from a remote desktop or is limited to sitting at your desk.

Or, essentially you run your laptop on power-saving and traffic your heavy tasks to your home-computer or some gateway. Perfectly possible right now, and all kinds of useful if you want to sit outside and work. You know.. in a bar. Or.. I don't know.. another bar. Anywhere that serves alcohol, really, there's no limit as long as you don't mind the latency.

 

No, its not possible.

When you make a suggestion like this, I'm guessing that your actual intent is one of these...

1) if you're looking to share a single set of interface (keyboard, mouse, etc) between two computers, look into a KVM switch. It lets you use a single keyboard, mouse, and monitor between two computers.

2). If you're looking for high-powered computing when you're at home, but light mobile computing when you're moving, then the closest thing you want is a laptop with dockable graphics.

It is relatively new as a product that you can buy. It is limited to only a few models (Alienware 13, Alienware 15, and MSI GS30). It is limited to just graphics cards, for purposes of adding gaming power. And it is generally impractical, since those laptops end up costing more that buying a separate laptop and a separate gaming desktop.



Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

Oh, yeah, that's actually a thing now isn't it? A desktop with an external pci-e connector? Obviously will keep the laptop running - but still.. pretty neat way to get a gaming capable laptop that doesn't weigh 6kg. Anyone know if you can get that without a proprietary connector box so far..?

 

Realistically, no, not possible without a proprietary connector box.

There are some DIY hacks to connect an external enclosure via Thunderbolt. But those require some hacking / tweaking to do. Those are definitely not as simple as just buying the right hardware, installing a driver, and having everything work. It's also worth noting that almost all external GPU options will output to an external monitor. Only the Alienware external graphics dock allows the graphics to be outputted to the laptop's display.

But again, external graphics isn't an elegant solution at all. It's relatively immature, very limited in availability, unknown whether it will continue to be supported / developed in the future, and very expensive. It's literally cheaper to buy a separate laptop and gaming desktop, than trying to run external graphics through a laptop. External graphics is a neat idea... but I can't really think of a single use case where it makes sense to go down the route of external graphics (instead of a separate gaming desktop).

 

at first I considered egpu but it's not enough as the laptop's parts will bottleneck the gpu especially in sli, so i'm looking for external everything in a box which would eliminate those bottlenecks

 

If you are looking for everything in a box then why not just get a desktop and laptop with network storage?

 

i don't get it, why would that help?

 

hi9580, so, connecting your desktop to lapdock (which is a brainless laptop, with hdmi for audio&video, and usb for keyboard, touchpad and 2 usb ports) doesn't solve the problem? Because AFAIK all other solutions involve some lag.