use of an old laptop?

[caddi daddi]

one of the kids staying with us through the storms found my old dell inspiron 9200 lap top, it has not seen the light of day in so long when we hooked it to the internet it even needed the service pac 3 update.
I chucked it in the pile because it has a flickering stripe down the middle of the screen.
is it even worth sending out to have fixed and give it to the kid..... or better off just leaving in the pile?

 

[EarthDog]

Worth it is up to you... how much would fixing the monitor cost?

 

[caddi daddi]

that would be the question, what's it cost to have a laptop screen replaced?

 

[Alaric]

If you scour the interwebs (OK, ebay and craigslist) and get a broken one for parts or just the screen new it isn't too bad. The worst part of replacing parts in a laptop is getting in to the thing. It's a Chinese puzzle box.

 

[knoober]

Old laptops have become a passing hobby of mine and it is hard to find a broken one that hasnt been stripped of a screen (and hard drive) but that is dependent on the particular machine and the seller. With the link above you get to use an external monitor you might consider throwing a lightweight linux distro on it also, just to get some tolerable use.

 

[caddi daddi]

so, no such thing as a new screen, it's last use was 2007, I can't remember when i actually got it.
it does have video outputs though.

 

[Alaric]

They (old laptops) pop up for parts on craigslist around here pretty regularly.

 

[caddi daddi]

well, it's been sitting in the junk pile 7 or 8 years, i guess another 8 or 9 years won't hurt it.