Modding a Laptop into a mini-Frankendesktop?

I was posting about a scary moment with my Envy 14 in the Owner's Lounge just now and I began to follow a rather tantalizing tangent. Long story short, I was afraid my Envy 14's Radiance screen had broken and I was wondering what I could do with the laptop if that were to occur, since the Envy 14 was never sold here in China so sourcing a new screen (even the vile Brightview) would be extremely difficult for the next six months.

Has anybody here ever gone this route with a notebook whose screen died? Essentially, my thinking is that you follow a few steps from dead laptop to mini-Frankendesktop:

1 - Remove the display assembly entirely.
2 - Remove the wifi antennae and webcam+microphones from the display.
3 - Reconnect those parts and set them up elsewhere, whether on a reformed coat hanger or around the edge of an external monitor.
4 - Connect an external monitor to the bottom half of the laptop.
5 - This would be the trickiest part if possible, and purely optional: Frankenstein the power supply of the monitor and the notebook's built-in monitor power supply together, so the external monitor is drawing power from the notebook (and could run on battery power if necessary).

I'm not sure if step 5 would be possible. It would be the functional equivalent of having an expensive backup power supply for a regular desktop computer (without it the computer runs but the monitor doesn't when the power's out), but wouldn't be necessary most of the time.

Has anybody tried this? I certainly have no need for a machine like this, but it would be fun to have such a machine as a replacement for the desktop I use at the school where I work, since even a mid-range laptop from the last two or three years would be noticeably faster. It's unlikely, but I might look around at the local computer market this weekend to see what options I would have for cheap laptops with no screens - the shops are generally going to replace the screens themselves so it won't be like eBay where you might find someone selling a $1000 laptop for $100 because the screen's gone dead, but it's still probably worth looking into.

 

pretty sure it's doable, but the time and effort just to hold it together will be a pita
as for number 5, there are USB powered travel monitors available which could be easier than hacking an existing monitor to work with the laptop.

might be cheaper to just get a replacement LCD for it though, specially with some HP laptops where they split motherboards and ports to 3-5 different pcs and just connected by flimsy connectors.

 

The idea here is not so much to salvage a headless laptop (though that was what I was initially thinking), but rather to have a unique and uniquely-small desktop computer. Keeping it together shouldn't be a problem, since it would be used as a stationary device on a desk rather than a mobile device. Mostly I'm just thinking of how cool it would look to have half a laptop running on a desk, to be honest.

The USB-powered monitor idea would be worth considering, but I wonder if there are any real quality monitors that fit that description. I'd still be most interested in the idea of jacking a regular external monitor into the machine for its power, since many people might have a spare monitor and not want to buy a new monitor specifically for this purpose. Then again, a full-size desktop monitor running on power provided by the laptop (especially on battery) does seem a bit of a stretch.

 

yeah something like this would definitely work HP intros its first USB-powered monitor, the U160; goes on sale this month for $179
anything 22inch higher would probably require additional power source like a modified higher wattage power supply modified to power both the laptop and monitor lol.

interesting to see it work though

 

There really isn't any issue to do doing this; people have done it before plenty of times. What exactly is OP's concern about the matter?

 

Removing the power cables that attaches to the laptop's screen to power an external monitor

 

Sorry had a tl;dr moment. Why not just connect the external display through one of the laptop's external ports?

That is the usual way to do this; I don't know why you want to go through the extra steps to do otherwise.

People sell adapters for VGA/DVI inputs to LVDS screens, but not vice-versa afaik.

 

While I'm sure many people have done it, I've never actually heard about it being done. It's not really a concern, I was just trying to suggest something that sounds kind've fun, mostly. However, the idea of powering a decent-quality external monitor (that HP in the link above wouldn't qualify as decent - sounds like it's basically a cheap notebook monitor on a USB cable) directly from the notebook's power cables is definitely a question worth asking if you're pursuing this kind of modification/repurposing.

The idea is not just connecting the display, which I would suggest doing via a DVI/DisplayPort/HDMI/VGA port on the laptop, but powering it so the battery can work as a PSU for the entire system in the event of a power failure (like I said in the OP - far from necessary but not useless either).