1. Salvage the hardware

Ifyour laptop has fallen down the stairs, simply doesn't work, or youdon't have the inclination to upgrade it, then you could insteadsalvage some of the parts. The hard drive is a logical choice, becausewith a USB caddy, which you can pick up on eBay for a few pounds, it ispossible to quickly create an external, portable hard drive.

Dependingon how much RAM is fitted, you may also be able to remove the memorysticks and use them in another laptop, or simply sell them on eBay.Both the hard drive and memory are easily removed from most laptops,with the use of a screwdriver, so even the least advanced user can getthem out.

Another option is your laptop's optical drive. Thiscould be used in a home theatre-style PC case that requires a slimlineoptical drive, converted to an external drive with a caddy, or sold asa spare part.

Finally, if you really want to tear the laptop tobits, you could try removing the CPU and monitor. You can sell both ofthese components as spare parts, but if you don't fancy getting rid ofthem, you could even make use of the monitor yourself (see tip number2).

2. Reuse the monitor as a second screen

Whileit's technically possible to remove the screen from a laptop, all theelectronics required to make the screen function as a monitor are builtinto the laptop's motherboard. To use it as a separate monitor, youwould need to purchase a controller board, and connect this to thescreen and your laptop or PC.

It's beyond the scope of this article to run through the procedure, but a MP3Car.com has good guide. If you're technically minded, it's a fun project.

Thealternative is to use software to share your graphics card's outputover the network. To do this, you can use a free piece of softwarecalled ZoneScreen.

3. Upgrade the hardware

Whileyou might see a laptop as essentially non-upgradable, there areactually a number of things you can do to breathe new life into an oldmachine. If your laptop is simply struggling to run some of the latestprograms, than a RAM upgrade may be in order.

Adding morememory to your laptop is one of the most cost-effective ways of givingit a real performance boost, and is also a very simple task to perform.Depending on the laptop model, you can install up to 4GB of RAM ifusing a 32-bit OS.

The memory is usually found under a panel onthe laptop's underside, and there should be a couple of slots to holdthe chips. Use a memory checker, such as the one at www.crucial.com/uk, to find out how much memory your laptop can handle, and what type you need.

Upgradingthe hard drive will not only give you more storage space, it willprobably speed up Windows and your applications, due to the fasterspeed at which drives now spin. You will need to back up all your data,or create an image of your drive beforehand; Paragon's Drive Backup 9.0 Express can do this for free.

Youcan also often upgrade your optical drive, if it's broken or you simplywant to add a drive with more features. Even if you can't find aninternal one to fit, external drives are relatively cheap and theportable ones are fairly unobtrusive. While it is technically possibleto upgrade the CPU and graphics chips in laptops, they were neverreally designed with upgrading in mind.

You will need to takethe entire laptop apart and find a suitable upgrade part. Not onlythat, but the cooling hardware for your current CPU may not be able tocope with an upgraded CPU. Still, you'll find plenty of laptop CPUs oneBay, should you wish to give it a go.

4. Replace Windows with Linux

Windowsdemands a lot from a laptop, especially Windows Vista, and many of thelatest software applications will also struggle to run on olderhardware. Linux is a lot less demanding, however, as are theapplications that run on it.

A laptop that takes an age to bootWindows will seem like a thoroughbred racehorse in comparison whenrunning a lightweight Linux installation. While Ubuntu may be theflavour of the month, it's starting to get a bit bloated, so why nottry some slimline alternatives, such as Puppy Linux, Damn Small Linux or for the ultimate diet OS, give gOS a try.

5. Turn it into a home automation server

Hollywoodloves the idea of the computer-controlled home, where you walk into aroom, tell the house computer to turn on the lights, make some coffeeand open the curtains. While this might seem like a fantasy, a degreeof automation is possible, and you only need a low-powered computer, oran old laptop, to control it all.

One of the best known systemsis X-10, which uses your home's mains wiring to control light switches,plugs and motors to open and close your curtains as well as activate awhole host of other devices. The system is controlled by softwareinstalled on your laptop, and a master unit which plugs into a wallsocket and a USB or serial port on your laptop.

The softwareenables you to set up scheduled events, take control of any device and,if your laptop is connected to the internet, you can even control yourautomated devices when you are away from home. Yes, there is even avoice-control option, although it does require some training andpersistence to use.

But because the software is veryundemanding, it is especially suitable for old laptops and, becausethey consume so little power, you don't need to worry about yourelectricity bills. You can find out more at www.domialifestyle.com.

6. Use it with an external monitor

Oneof the most common ways laptop screens become damaged is when somethinglike a pen is left on the keyboard and the screen is closed. It'sexpensive having a laptop screen replaced, but just because the screenis damaged, it doesn't mean you can't use it, as most laptops have aport for an external monitor.

As it's not very handy having abroken screen in front of you, you can treat the laptop like a PC, butplug in an external keyboard, mouse and monitor, and hide the laptopout of sight. One idea is to use a mesh document holder, which is screwed to the back of your monitor,using the wall-mount screw-holes, and then place the laptop in thedocument holder. Some laptops can also be switched on using an externalkeyboard or mouse, if the option is turned on in the BIOS.

7. Give it to a worthy cause

Aslong as your laptop isn't actually broken, there are plenty of peoplewho may be able to make use of it. While a charity might be the obviouschoice, many charities end up being lumbered with old, unusablehardware, donated by well-meaning people, which they can't actually useand which they then have to pay to dispose of.

In the same way,many schools don't want to be given out-of-date hardware, as it servesno practical teaching purpose for them. Still, there are plenty oforganisations that will take old laptops, so check out www.donateapc.org.uk and www.itforcharities.co.uk/pcs.htm for a list of organisations.

Sincemany people don't need a high powered, do-it-all laptop for email andthe internet, why not give an old laptop to a friend or family memberthat only needs a basic machine? A laptop loaded with gOS (see tipnumber 4), makes an ideal choice.

8. Turn it into a server

Wetend to think of servers as huge, noisy boxes living in air-conditionedrooms, but home servers can be amazingly low-powered devices. Thismeans that even a fairly low-powered laptop has the potential to beused as a basic server, with only a minor bit of tweaking.

Alaptop also has the advantage of not occupying much space, so it can betucked neatly away from sight. Most laptops also usually have some goodpower-saving features built in and, if it doesn't have built-inwireless, it's easy enough to add with a USB or card-bus adaptor.

Plugit into your printer and an external hard drive for additional storage,turn on Windows File and Printer sharing, install the latest version ofWindows Media player, and you have a low-profile file, print and mediaserver you can tuck away in a cupboard somewhere that the whole familycan use easily and safely.

9. Turn it into a wireless bridge

Youmay find that you have several devices around your home, such as anXbox 360, a media centre or internet radio, that have an Ethernet port,but no wireless connection.

Microsoft charges a lot of moneyfor its proprietary Wireless adaptor for the Xbox, but using yourlaptop's wireless connection, you can create a bridge between yourwireless network and a wired device.

To use your laptop as abridge, you need to connect your laptop to your Xbox or other devicewith an Ethernet port and share the wireless connection. A fulltutorial can be found here.

10. Make a digital photo frame

Ifyou've ever looked at digital photo frames, but been put off by theprice and you're prepared to do a little DIY, then you can make yourown.

The basic idea is that you remove the frame from yourlaptop screen, strip the laptop down to basics, and mount the wholething in a custom frame. There are several ways you can display yourpictures, depending on what OS you choose for the laptop and whether ornot the laptop has a working hard drive, floppy drive, optical drive orwireless connection.

If the hard drive still works, then theeasiest choice is to install the OS on this, and store the pictures ina specific folder. If you have a working wireless connection and useWindows as the OS, you can use a great application called Slickr, which displays photos from your flickr account as a screensaver.

If the hard drive doesn't work, but the optical drive does, then you can create a bootable CD or DVD with the pictures on it.

For ideas on how best to convert your old laptop, have a look at this project using Slickr, or go to this site, which has a huge list of conversion projects, using a range of different laptop makes and models.