2012-04-03, 13:23
I have an old Dell Inspiron 1520 that has begun to show it's age and I was wondering if I could retire it from active use and make it a HTPC running XBMC for my second television in the house. I think hardware wise, it should be up to the task since it has a C2D T7200 2.0 GHz processor, 160 GB 7200 RPM HDD, 2GB DDR2 Ram, NVIDIA 8600M GT 256MB video card and Vista Home Premium.
However, the VGA port has stopped working and currently S-Video is the only video output available. Also audio is currently available through the analog headphone jack. The only other remaining interfaces are USB 2.0, Expresscard, Firewire, Ethernet, Bluetooth and IR (I think).
So, I was wondering if there any solutions to add HDMI to support audio and video through either Expresscard or USB 2.0. I came across a Belkin Docking solution through Expresscard but the software implementation seems to be quite bad (http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Speed-Lapto...B000K3DONM)
I could go the Display Link route where you have USB 2.0 to DVI \ HDMI converters (Something like this -> http://www.amazon.com/Plugable-USB2-HDMI...B004QPY4NY) but I am not sure how these perform in the realworld since the USB pipe is pretty narrow. Also these cannot carry audio.
The third solution is getting a Expresscard USB 3.0 adaptor and then connecting it to a Displaylink USB 3.0 to HDMI (With Audio) Adaptor (http://www.siig.com/it-products/usb/conv...audio.html) but this setup will cost me at least ~$150 which makes this conversion to expensive.
Finally, the laptop will be stashed begind my AV setup so I will need to figure out a way to power on from USB (Using a Windows MC remote) or a wake from lan option. Not sure if this is a possibility at all.
If I invest time and money (~$50) into this solution, I want to ensure that I get lagfree performance with 720p \ 1080p files. I am a Group 6 user. So is this a worthwile project? Would appreciate any suggestions or other solutions that I may be missing?
Thanks,
V
However, the VGA port has stopped working and currently S-Video is the only video output available. Also audio is currently available through the analog headphone jack. The only other remaining interfaces are USB 2.0, Expresscard, Firewire, Ethernet, Bluetooth and IR (I think).
So, I was wondering if there any solutions to add HDMI to support audio and video through either Expresscard or USB 2.0. I came across a Belkin Docking solution through Expresscard but the software implementation seems to be quite bad (http://www.amazon.com/Belkin-Speed-Lapto...B000K3DONM)
I could go the Display Link route where you have USB 2.0 to DVI \ HDMI converters (Something like this -> http://www.amazon.com/Plugable-USB2-HDMI...B004QPY4NY) but I am not sure how these perform in the realworld since the USB pipe is pretty narrow. Also these cannot carry audio.
The third solution is getting a Expresscard USB 3.0 adaptor and then connecting it to a Displaylink USB 3.0 to HDMI (With Audio) Adaptor (http://www.siig.com/it-products/usb/conv...audio.html) but this setup will cost me at least ~$150 which makes this conversion to expensive.
Finally, the laptop will be stashed begind my AV setup so I will need to figure out a way to power on from USB (Using a Windows MC remote) or a wake from lan option. Not sure if this is a possibility at all.
If I invest time and money (~$50) into this solution, I want to ensure that I get lagfree performance with 720p \ 1080p files. I am a Group 6 user. So is this a worthwile project? Would appreciate any suggestions or other solutions that I may be missing?
Thanks,
V