Right, so during a thunderstorm there was an electrical surge while my laptop was connected to my external monitor. The connection to the external monitor has been fried. Everything else still works, including the internal screen of the laptop and the external screen itself. It's just the port to the external screen that doesn't work.

I took it to a shop that repairs these kinds of things and they tried replacing the external port. It worked for a while and then it fried again. So, basically, it's f*cked.

However, I don't want to use this laptop as a laptop anymore, it has become my desktop computer. So I'd really like to be able to hook it up to my fairly new external HD widescreen moniter, for watching films and the like.

So, to cut a long story short: Seeing as the internal screen still seems to work, would it be possible to make the internal cable that sends the pictures to the internal screen send them to my external screen instead?

Not as far as I know. The 'internal cable' is not a thick one like the one that comes out of your external port. Plus you wouldn't want the guts of your computer exposed all the time would you?

Is it an on-board graphics chip or does it have a graphics card? If it's a card, replace it, but if it's on-board, you might need a new motherboard.

Extremely unlikely. It's probably technically possible to make something that could turn the ribbon into a conventional VGA cable, but you might struggle to find someone to do it. What you can do, though is get a USB to VGA cable.

The graphics are on-booard, so the whole motherboard needs to be replaced.

I did look into the USB to VGA/HDMI cables, but the USB port isn't fast enough to support high resolutions, unfortunately.

However, after looking for spare parts on e-bay, I see that Dell sold a docking station for this laptop, with an extra external monitor port + two PCI slots (where I guess I could install a graphics card as a last resort).

These docking stations are going for 30 quid or so on E-Bay, might be worth a pop.

[/nerd]

The docking station plugs into a PCMIA slot (or whatever they're called these days), presumably? Because otherwise you're going to have the same bandwidth problem as the USB solution.

A somewhat more radical (and expensive) option would be to get an external graphics card. They're designed for gaming performance rather than external monitors per se, but it would solve your problem.

What model of Dell is it, Bryan? If it's a Latitude, the docking station will be fine. It runs off a custom bus on the bottom of the laptop.

Yes, Latitude D530, there's a thing at the bottom of the laptop that the dock plugs into. The dock comes in two flavours, one with PCI slots and one without. The one without may still have the same problem if it's just extending the same banjaxed port I already have, so I might get the one with the PCI slots.

External graphics card looks interesting too, might look into that.

If you can do the dock, I wouldn't bother with an external card unless a) you really want a gaming capable laptop , and b) you don't mind about as much as you would to get a more powerful desktop.

My computer game playing is limited to the odd Flash tetris thing on a website. Just want to run in full resolution on the big screen for watching films/TV.

I used a four year old Acer desktop for exactly that - you may well be able to find something of that spec on Freecycle for nothing. You need a 2.0ghz processor or greater to run HD files, but with a set of £30.00 2.1 speakers and the computer (with XBMC installed on it) plugged straight into the PC in plug on the back of the television, it works like a dream.

I'd have a go at the docking station.
If you're in London, I'll give you one if you like. We've got a load here but are upgrading to E series lappys.

Make sure if not, that the £30 gets you a power supply too. You need a PA10 to power the docking station and laptop. The standard PA12 adaptor doesn't provide enough current.

Thanks for the offer, I'm in Sweden though.

Top tip about the power supply.