Laptop into funky miniature quiet desktop?!

imnotryan · Post by **imnotryan** » Wed Dec 19, 2007 11:54 pm

Reasons for doing this below. I also have little experience with laptops so... Sorry.

Is it possible to use all of the parts of a laptop in a desktop configuration, using a regular keyboard/mouse and moniter? I'd like to scrap a Compaq Presario 2500 I have to build something along the lines of a shuttle or apple G4 cube, possibly even a modified ammo box... It has a single keyboard/mouse ps2 input, and a VGA output on it already.

Obviously I intend to remove and not use it's stock display, keyboard, and mouse. I don't know how to actually do this yet....

I figure I could stuff all these parts into a small custom enclosure, run one nexus fan at one side with a couple custom heat sinks and be OK file storage and web browsing.

Would this work or is my project fundamentally flawed?

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Prologue - nothing below this line is necessary to read.

I have no experience with laptops except I just got a delightfully silent apple powerbook G4. Needless to say this laptop negates the need for the 2nd.
The Compaq Presario 2500 is extremely effing loud, the display sucks, and the letters are worn off the keys. After a few minutes it fires up fan #1 making it one of the loudest computers I've ever heard, under any circumstances. About 10 minutes into it, it fires up fan #2 making it as loud as a hairdryer. This is not an exaggeration, there is something wrong here. Battery is going, also.

I paid too much for it by trading a gun I had traded another gun for, a friend was involved.... anyway selling it for 100 bucks or something would leave me with a stinging feeling. So I'm somewhat interested in making a go of it one way or another, ya know?

CountTyro · Post by **CountTyro** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 1:15 am

If you just remove the display and battery it may be small and light enough to _hang_ behind a monitor. Specifically, some monitors have VESA screw holes in the back, for wall mounting. While on the table, those holes are unused and a frame for holding the ex-laptop could be screwed there.

That may even solve the loud fan problem, since the cooling around the case would be much better.

Just an idea..

mb2 · Post by **mb2** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 2:29 am

not fundamentallly flawed

turn it upside down, take the cover off where the cpu cooler is, disconnect the existing fan (or put a resistor in or something to slow it down), and then blow a low speed 120mm fan over it. test it with speedfan + stressing program to check that it doesn't overheat.. if so then you can get into 'custom heatsinks'.
plugging kybd/mouse/monitor in should be easy; you can do that when its setup as a normal laptop anyway, will just need (atleast) one of mouse or kybd to be usb.

i wouldn't fuss about getting it into a custom enclosure straight away.. that will be a lot more hassel.

Bluefront · Post by **Bluefront** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 2:32 am

It certainly can be done, since it's possible with many laptops to simply run a vga cable out to another monitor. I'd try it first before ripping anything apart.

However.....you still have the loud fan problem to deal with. It may be something as simple as a dust-clogging problem, maybe fans going bad. But it won't fix itself. What you suggest has been done many times before.....usually using a laptop with a faulty display that was too expensive to fix. Done properly, it can make a quiet computer.

imnotryan · Post by **imnotryan** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 9:26 am

The reasons I'm thinking custom enclosure are that the stock fans simply are not working and I'd like to experiment with passive cooling. Furthermore I might try to boot and run it off a 2-4gb USB flash drive - making this as close to silent as it gets + lowering the need for cooling.

The only way I figure this has a hope of being passive cooled, or using a quiet fan such as the nexus, is to get the components out of that ugly laptop case.

Wondering if the keyboard and display are "hard wired" into the laptop's circuitry or can be unplugged.

aaa · Post by **aaa** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 12:19 pm

Well before you make huge plans, try dusting it out first. I don't think the original fans were designed to be that loud...

And yes, the keyboard and display are easily unplugged, the display requires a bit of unscrewing as well.

Passive cooling... would involving figuring out how to mount some other heatsink on it (nonstandard mounting arrangement). I doubt the current heatsink is capable of passive cooling.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Thu Dec 20, 2007 1:14 pm

I wouldn't count on being able to fit it into a cube case, most laptop motherboards are odd shapes and obviously designed to be compact in terms of height, not width. As others have suggested I believe your best bet would be to mount it to the back of a monitor in the original casing. Clean the heatsinks out, remove the stock fans, and aim a low speed 8cm, 9cm, or 12cm at them and it should work pretty well.

As far as running it passively, can't offer much advice there, you just have to be creative. Find some heatsinks with widely spaced fins and mod them to mount on the board. At the risk of sounding like a broken record you could then mount it on the back of an LCD monitor. This way the heatsinks would be exposed to outside air and would receive about the best possible passive airflow.

Also keep the battery, even if it's going out as long as it has a few minutes of juice left it would be handy as a battery backup when power goes out.

Vahan · Post by **Vahan** » Sun Dec 23, 2007 7:27 am

imnotryan wrote:Furthermore I might try to boot and run it off a 2-4gb USB flash drive - making this as close to silent as it gets + lowering the need for cooling.

booting off a usb drive is SLOW

you could gut your laptop so the motherboard and assorted chippery is removed. then mount it to a box with both ends removed, kinda like an air duct. maybe even suspend it from 8 corners with stretch magic lol. then if you mount two or three 120mm fans and run them at 5v or less, effectively silent, blowing across the length of your laptop's guts you could have passive cooling on your cpu. the hard drive would also be cooled by the 120mm fans, you could decouple it from the main system with stretch magic again, that stuff is LEET

! of course if you do this it would most likely be too big to fit behind your monitor, probably would even be as big as a mini-ATX board.

if your board runs hot, you could hide the box under your desk so it warms your toes in the winter