Old laptop - what to do?

So not too long ago, my acer laptop decided that it didn't like me, and the screen was going to get a huge thick white strip right down the middle, and some other stuff which rendered only about half the screen visible. Just a couple of months out of warranty, and only 2 weeks after getting it fixed for a problem with the fan, I decided to cut my losses, and i got a new laptop. 

I don't have the exact specs for it with me, but it was only about a year and a half old when it broke a month or so ago, so my question is: what would you do with the old one?

I am quite keen to open it up and perhaps play a bit, as i already used an HDMI cable into my TV to get all the important stuff off it. I was also thinking i could set it up as a dedicated minecraft server or something similar. any tips on what i could/should do?

I'd slap Linux on it. And once your bored with Linux, use it as a minecraft server. Using a Linux Minecraft server is more efficient than a Windows one since Linux uses a lot less resources, especially one built on lightweight interfaces, such as Lubuntu.

I have an old Dell (and I mean really old, like a decade old) that I'm currently running Crunch Bang off of. I'm learning quite a bit, but I since I don't play minecraft, it kinda just takes space when I don't want to use Crunch Bang. I'm eventually going to use Arch Bang, then just Arch.

given that I have approximately half a display, I imagine i will get quite bored of half linux quite easily :/ my other thoughts were pull out and sell some of the parts, or something with the parts?