Windows Can I salvage an old laptop and make it a dedicated HTPC?

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...000K3DONM)

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...004QPY4NY) 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...udio.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

Maybe something like an LVDS to DVI Adapter - where you take off the integrated screen and connect the ribbon to an adapter like this:

(2012-04-03 17:22)live4ever Wrote:  Maybe something like an LVDS to DVI Adapter - where you take off the integrated screen and connect the ribbon to an adapter like this:

That would not make for a very elegant solution. Plus, it would be nice to retain the screen to play around with the settings. I am looking for any experiences with either USB 2.0 to HDMI Video or Expresscard 3.0 to USB 3.0 to HDMI (Audio + Video) - Reviews seem far and in between.Or have folks on the forum experimented with laptop to HTPC conversions and how have they gone about it without splicing the computer open.

Also, I found another USB 3.0 adapter that carries audio for about $70. Add a Expresscard USB 3.0 for about $20 and I can do this setup for sub $100 but I still want to make sure that this will provide reasonable performance on XBMC.

I've used countless usb2 dvi/hdmi solutions. They're good if you're doing simple office type applications, I wouldn't recommend video though. typically, these are for adding support for a 2nd or 3rd display to a notebook in business/office environment. With most of these adapters, you'll see a noticeable difference in video quality, easy test is to drag a browser from one monitor to another. The USB connected screen is usually easy to spot.

I say usually as some are better than others, but none are as good as onboard/integrated video.

I don't have experience with the low power HTPCs though, I'm a strong group 7 and perfer an over powered system. So take that bias into account.


I have a friend using an old (3 years about) notebook as an HTPC, but it has HDMI on it. He has no complaints.

Here is a guide for installing an external video card using an ExpressCard port. Not ideal, but a nice little project. I'm planning on doing myself at some point, just for the hell of it.

Thanks guys for the feedback. Fris- have you tried USB 3.0 display link solutions? Same result or better for video?

And that's a very handy link - numb7rs - I am going to keep that as the last solution because of cost factors though. At ~200 dollars I can pick up a zotac zbox.

We haven't had any 3.0 video adapters to test yet. That won't mean much for you as your notebook doesn't have 3.0. USB 3.0 is about 5 gb/s while express card can do 2.5 gb/s, I don't know that an express card to usb 3.0 adapter would really exceed the 480 mb/s usb 2.0 speed limit.

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sorry, startech makes one that we've played with:

http://www.StarTech.com/USB32HDE

again, not many systems can use this due to 3.0 being fairly new, we haven't tested through a any adapter to a non 3.0 system