New Heights of Hardware Dorkery

As way of background, check out my "Brain Transplant" hardware dorkery post from May--this post is continued work in making that broken Pentium 4 laptop work as a media player machine. While testing it out, I found that one hinderance to using it for this purpose was that the CPU cooling fan would noisily jet into action every few minutes--not something you want in your living room, as you're trying to listen to music.

Therefore, at the end of the post, I threatened to attach a desktop CPU cooling fan to the bottom of the laptop, like a supercharger sticking out of the hood of a hot rod. Yeah... I made good on the threat.

I was at Micro Center a while back, and saw an Asus Silent Square cooler in the clearance bin... just had to get it. After several fits and starts, I managed to modify the mounting brackets enough to attach it to the laptop's motherboard. Ugly hacks were required, like threading plastic standoffs with a 1/4-20 tap, and using washers as spacers.


You know things are bad when you have the laptop clamped into a workbench, and saws are involved. I powered the CPU fan was powered by a variable 3-12V DC wall wart transformer.

So... it was time to give it a shot. Cooling fan started: check. Laptop power: check. Huh... the thermostatically controlled fan is starting to make really bad noise... but it's making it through startup so far. Man... the fan is really thrashing... I wonder what the CPU temperature is? [Starts CPU monitor]: WHAT?! 85 C?!! (185 F) [Machine promptly dies].

D'oh!

Didn't see any magic smoke, if it got let out, though.

After dejectedly ignoring it for a few days, I took the fan off... turns out that the mounting bolts kept the cooler's plate from hitting the CPU's heat sink. Crap! Yep... the machine was bricked.

Well, fortunately, you can get a used Pentium 4 2.6 GHz processor off of eBay for about $20. Back up and running. Take two:


Modified mounting bracket: check. CPU fan power: check. Laptop power: [whirrrrrr]


Awesome! Check out the previous performance--temps were bouncing between 45-50 C. Now, it mostly stays below 40 C. Schweet.

I have to say, though, that this pretty much spells the end of this machine being used for any portable purpose:


This shot also makes me look like I'm doing my level best to expose my 'nads to Čerenkov radiation.

Anyway, it works! I'm using S-video out to feed the TV, and I'll probably pick up the small LCD monitor from New York next time I visit my parents.

To conclude, there was an apt quote in a New York Times article on Maker Faire a while ago:

“We are grabbing technology, ripping the back off of it and reaching our hands in where we are not supposed to be,” says Shannon O’Hare, who has brought his three-story Victorian mansion on wheels, one of the most prominent examples of the anachronistic style known as steampunk, to the Faire. He is holding forth in a vintage British military uniform and pith helmet, and is gesturing with a hand that holds a sloshing tankard of ale.

“We’ve been told by corporate America that we cannot fix the things we own,” says Mr. O’Hare, who goes by Major Catastrophe and works as a fabricator for the stage and businesses. “All we can do is buy their stuff and like it.” Cars have become too complex to work on under a shade tree, and people have no idea what is inside their cellphones and cameras. “All this technology, and it’s not ours. It’s somebody else’s,” Mr. O’Hare says. “ Make is about taking that back off and making it yours.”