What to do with old laptop screens? [closed]

This question is inspired by another SU question I came across earlier today: What to do with old hard drives? It made me think about two long-dead laptops I have with perfectly good screens still inside. One is a Dell Inspiron 5100 and the other is an Averatec E1200, but responses need not be geared towards those particular models' screens.

Rules, based heavily on the original question's:

Objectives and suggestions to keep in mind when you post an answer :

  1. Should showcase your geekiness, be plain ol' fun, serve a social purpose or benefit the community.
  2. Your answer need not be limited to only one screen. For a really good answer, I'll go out and buy additional leftover screens.
  3. Your answer need not be limited to one project per screen.
  4. If additional accessories need be purchased, make sure they are common. Don't tell me to get a moon rock or something.
  5. The projects you suggested should serve a useful purpose; art is nice, but functional art is way better.

Thanks in advance, folks.

EDIT: Found another related question. Fun projects to do with an old 17" LCD monitor

EDIT 2: I, for one, am enjoying the new outpouring of creativity here. Best fifty bucks... I mean, rep points... I ever spent.

EDIT 3: That does it. At the end of the week, there was a tie for most votes between the accepted answer and the game platform answer. The game platform answer was cooler, but less reasonable as a project to actually do; in other words, it was more moon rocky. Unfortunately, I think fencepost had the best comment on the topic, which is that displays on their own have no good interface. Thanks for playing, everyone!


Line the underside of a glass coffee table with them and have some button that will cycle them through screensaver/visualizations and rss feeds.

Mount a camera or cameras in your fridge, and some screens on the outside. Peek into your fridge without opening the door. This kind of applies to anything you want to look into without opening.

Set up a geeky 2-way peephole on your front door. Hang a screen on the door and have a second one where you like, incorporate a couple of cameras for two way door greeting.

Edit to add: Virtual window - set up a camera on the outside somewhere and wall mount the screens, possibly in a decorative window frame.

Aquarium background - find a similar size aquarium and have a tropical undersea backdrop for your fishies. Or the surface of the sun, or some other backdrop to fiddle with their little heads.


If you have the time and money, you could build a portable XBOX 360/Playstation 3, like this guy did.

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Convert it to a stand alone monitor.

  • Low Cost (Under $50)
  • Simple Interface
  • Simple Construction
  • Readily Available Components (i.e. no ordering, all locally available)
  • Low Build Time ("weekend" or Saturday project)
  • Low Weight

Can never have too many monitors :D


I would have recommended converting them into a digital picture frame (make a wooden box to go around the screen, setup VNC on the laptop, put up a rolling slideshow, connect to the the laptop via wifi to change the pictures around), but alas, your lappies no longer work.