Do you mean that you have a desktop computer, but you want to use a laptop monitor for the desktop computer? I don't think you can do this, to the best of my knowledge. Your laptop's video card would need to support a monitor-in connection (I forget whether it's a male or female connection for some reason).

Many laptops offer a monitor-out connection. This would allow you to expand your monitor's screen onto a regular desktop monitor.

Hi,
Cant remember the technical details for this but it is very dificault to use your laptop screen as your desktop monator.
basicaly the screens have no hardware built in to handle a strait vga input. all of the techincal stuff is on the laptop main board. having seid that i have seen it done by someone out there and there was a lot of electroics involved, you need a board with a chip designed exacatly for the screen to handle all of its functions and another to convert the vga into something usable and a circut for the power. sorry that all so fluffy but its been awhile.

as an alturnative have you thourght about using your laptop as a thin client, or vnc terminal? this way you have your keyboard mouse and monator and one cat five cable running to the main box, you mite even be able to to this with wifi, leaving you free to wonder about.

let me know how it turns out.

spikes

Can't be done. I'm sorry. The circuitry inside the laptop drives the display in a non-standard way -- you can't tap into that signal path.

Speaking as an electronic technician, computer technician, and monitor repairman...

If both computers can be placed on your intranet, you could try tightvnc

yes as a matter of fact It can be done and I am presently doing it now. There are some small problems to handle. Basically what you need is a PCMICA card with a video imput This may be hard to find If you have any problems P.M me and I will send you to a web site so you can view the card The card when inserted reconizes the dual imput and kind of shuts off the video imput from the laptop and allows an external source imput to come through.
Hope this helps.

So are you essentially bypassing the laptop's video card? What handles the actual video processing between the computer processor and monitor? The external computer's video card? The pcmcia card?

thats sounds really cool could you post the link to that card i would like to look into this alittle more. thanks

yes as a matter of fact It can be done and I am presently doing it now. There are some small problems to handle. Basically what you need is a PCMICA card with a video imput This may be hard to find If you have any problems P.M me and I will send you to a web site so you can view the card The card when inserted reconizes the dual imput and kind of shuts off the video imput from the laptop and allows an external source imput to come through.
Hope this helps.

WILL THIS TYPE OF CARD WORK EVEN IF THE LAPTOP HAS NO OPERATING SYSTEM ON IT?

CHEERS

This is not the same thing. Video resolution is nowhere near that of computer display resolution; if it was, I would have suggested that to begin with.

This is not to say that this approach doesn't have its uses (video networking, etc.), it just doesn't answer the original question.