Thinking out loud...

halo

A few months ago my Toshiba SATELLITE P840-ST2N01 had an unfortunate incident under some very mysterious circumstances. The bezel around the LED display separated and I heard a crunching sound as I encountered resistance when opening the laptop. Whatever caused this happened when I was not at home. We had guests from out of town staying with us but I cannot pin this on anyone in particular without proof.

It is sitting in the living room now, open, unused. When I pick it up the back (top) cover is just flapping in the breeze on the left side, detached from the LED screen except for a few wires/cables.

I am not super tech savvy but it occurred to me that I can leave it where it is and turn it into a music server. I'd love to back up all of my DVDs and be able to stream / pull up movies on demand and get rid of all the physical DVDs that occupy way too much real estate in the apartment.

I was reading up on some of this stuff and it appears that I'll want a clean install of Windows 7 with not a lot of stuff running in the background? I've had limited experience with Foobar and VLC, I like them both. I also read that I want to slow the CPU down and increase cooling. Not sure how to do either of those things. The Tosh has an i5-3317U with 8GB RAM and a 750GB mechanical hard drive.

I have an iPhone and I'd like to use that as a remote to access my music (and movie?) library.

I have a BEHRINGER U-CONTROL UCA222 USB DAC and I want to connect the "server" to my Denon 2113CI AVR. Since the DENON has built in DACs, do I even need the UCA222? I can run a toslink cable from the UCA222 to the 2113CI or I can run a 3.5 --> stereo RCA to the 2113CI. I was also considering the HiFiMeDIY Sabre USB DAC over the UCA222 but only if it's going to make a substantial difference.

For reference, I've got my SB3 hooked up to the 2113CI with RCA cables now and it sounds really good.

Wondering if the internal DACs on the 2113CI are handling the signals from the SB3 or am I hearing the Boulder Cable Modded SB3?

I have large capacity external HDDs if I need more storage space.

Any thoughts, advice, input, comments, or critiques are welcome.

Thanks in advance!

mrbiron

One critique.....you know you can buy replacement screens for laptops?
I just did mine a couple years ago and it cost me $100. It requires about 4-6 screws, disconnect the old pin connection and insert the new.

I think my GreatAunt could do it......and she passed away 6 years ago at 94!

Since the old screen is KO'd, just open her up. The damage is already done and you can't hurt it any more.

I'll let others comment about your plan.

tonyb

The only thing I'll comment on is the dacs in the receiver are only used when a digital connection is used....hdmi/toslink/digital coax. If your hooked up by analog cables, your using the dacs in the source component.

However, by using the analog inputs on the receiver, you still have to set up those inputs to process the signal as much or as little as possible that you may want.

Other more computer savvy guys will chime in on the rest.

halo

Thanks for the responses!

The screen, itself, is not broken. The display is fine. The bezel around the screen is no longer attached on the left, bottom left, and most of the bottom portions. The hinge appears to be out of line as I cannot open and close the lid without the bezel popping out right after I pop in the portions that will pop back in, which isn't all of them, I've tried.

Because of this, and the exposed wires / cables, it's no longer portable. It still boots and runs fine, it just doesn't look very good and I don't think it will last very long if I keep moving it around.

halo

mrbiron

A-ha!
Ok.....that's a different animal.
Then i support your idea of turning it into a stationary laptop...

Now is when the software guru's step in!

halo

Yay!!

cnh

You have to be quite skilled to do that kind of damage. External monitor, wireless keyboard and mouse, USB DAC? And FLAC everything. Done!

halo

cnh wrote: »

You have to be quite skilled to do that kind of damage. External monitor, wireless keyboard and mouse, USB DAC? And FLAC everything. Done!

I can hook the laptop up to the TV for a display. Now I have to choose a USB DAC (maybe the HiFiMeDIY Sabre USB DAC?). Most of my music library is already FLAC

halo

Looks like I'll be going with Plex as my server software unless someone out there has a better suggestion.

I'll have a removable hdd hooked up to the notebook via USB 3.0.

I'm using the Behringer UCA222 coupled with the DENON's built in Audessey adjustments.

Doesn't sound bad thus far.

I would appreciate suggestions for the best software to backup my DVD collection on to the hdd.

Thanks!

D'prived

MakeMKV does a good job of ripping DVD and Blu-ray discs. Pretty simple to use also. If you want to reduce file size (especially with Blu-ray) I use Handbrake which is free and simple to use also.

halo

Thank you for those suggestions. I only have a handful of Blu-ray Discs in my collection, everything else is DVD.