Can I use a laptop solely as an external keyboard and display?

[homebrewdr]

Ideally, I want to be able to have a tower desktop gaming pc without a standard monitor or keyboard, hooked up directly to a laptop. The laptop would function as the screen and keyboard for the desktop. All of the CPU, GPU, power, etc, would be coming directly from the tower (if that is possible).

The reason being is that I want a desktop pc, but it isn't quite practical to set up in my living quarters nor would be convenient.

I know there are threads out there on how to use a laptop as a 2nd monitor (via network programs), which I may need to settle for, but after looking around here and youtube for about 2 hours I get confused on what is possible and what isn't.

Anyway to do this? Thank you!

 

[captaincharisma]

laptops are not designed like that so physically you can't connect it to your desktop computer. however you could remote into your desktop computer from your laptop to control it

 

[InvalidError]

The only way to use a laptop as a display/keyboard for a PC located elsewhere is to use remote desktop software of some sort, which means incurring video encoding and decoding latency. If you want to avoid that, your other option would be to use a KVM range extender which cost anywhere from $100 to $1500. The basic ones give you one HDMI/DVI port, some USB ports for keyboard+mouse and use cat5e/6/7 to give you 50-100m of range to locate the PC wherever is convenient.

You'll still need a keyboard+mouse+display wherever you want to use it. At that point, stuffing the PC under the desk doesn't really use much more floor space.