I'm building a media center box for the upstairs bedroom using an old laptop that a client asked me to get rid of. I've built one into an old sky box previously but we could do with a second one.
The laptop's a dell, it had a cracked screen and wasn't really worth repairing for what its worth so I stripped out everything I didn't need leaving just the motherboard, power mini board and hard drive. I've put in a tiny 40gb hard drive as it connects to our home server so is just used for streaming.
I installed openelec on it via a usb stick and tested it with the tv we have, it wasn't showing anything on the screen if the dell screen was disconnected. I downloaded 'putty' and found with a command or 2 I could get it to display an output temporarily (until it was restarted). I need to write a file to run on start up to make this permanent but I will come back to that:-
This is what I temporarily used to test it: (ignore the low res, It was just one I knew was really commonly supported)
With the hardware and software working I attacked the laptop with the dremel and chopped it down to make it as small as i could whilst still keeping as many of the original screw holes as possible, then used an old soldering iron to plastic weld it back together, melting some offcuts to fill in the gaps.
It took a bit of working out to make sure that all the motherboard mounting points were still in place and so i could screw together the two halves of the case properly when it's all finished. I chopped down the centre of the lid to fill in the hole where the keyboard used to fit, I want to try and keep the dell logo in the centre of the case, eventually all the case will be sprayed black. Ive relocated one of the rubber feet that I had cut off so that it still sits level.
I'm part way through doing the filler work at the moment:
Still got to build up some of the filler on the part where the battery used to sit, there will always be a hollow in the bottom there because it gives me access to two screw holes. The original bottom cover still screws back on as it should and will cover the rest of the underside
Inside looks quite rough but gives plenty of clearance:
Motherboard fits comfortably:
I'll update it once ive got a bit more done
The laptop's a dell, it had a cracked screen and wasn't really worth repairing for what its worth so I stripped out everything I didn't need leaving just the motherboard, power mini board and hard drive. I've put in a tiny 40gb hard drive as it connects to our home server so is just used for streaming.
I installed openelec on it via a usb stick and tested it with the tv we have, it wasn't showing anything on the screen if the dell screen was disconnected. I downloaded 'putty' and found with a command or 2 I could get it to display an output temporarily (until it was restarted). I need to write a file to run on start up to make this permanent but I will come back to that:-
This is what I temporarily used to test it: (ignore the low res, It was just one I knew was really commonly supported)
xrandr --output VGA1 --mode 1024x768 --rate 60.0With the hardware and software working I attacked the laptop with the dremel and chopped it down to make it as small as i could whilst still keeping as many of the original screw holes as possible, then used an old soldering iron to plastic weld it back together, melting some offcuts to fill in the gaps.
It took a bit of working out to make sure that all the motherboard mounting points were still in place and so i could screw together the two halves of the case properly when it's all finished. I chopped down the centre of the lid to fill in the hole where the keyboard used to fit, I want to try and keep the dell logo in the centre of the case, eventually all the case will be sprayed black. Ive relocated one of the rubber feet that I had cut off so that it still sits level.
I'm part way through doing the filler work at the moment:
Still got to build up some of the filler on the part where the battery used to sit, there will always be a hollow in the bottom there because it gives me access to two screw holes. The original bottom cover still screws back on as it should and will cover the rest of the underside
Inside looks quite rough but gives plenty of clearance:
Motherboard fits comfortably:
I'll update it once ive got a bit more done
awesome work matey!
