Starting my ultra-portable PC project (PCp?) update Nov 26th

sammy · Post by **sammy** » Sun Jun 04, 2006 2:50 pm

Hey that thing's got my name!

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Sun Jun 04, 2006 6:00 pm

I decided to try installing Windows 98 to the harddisk today. The first part of the install went fine, but the part after reboot came up 'Windows Protection Error -- Please Reboot your computer". I tried rebooting and it locked up at the choose safe mode screen.

RAM was definitely hot. I'm going with that overheating being the cause of the crashes. Now to figure out how to cool it down easily. It looks like the only way to cool the chips on both sides of the SODIMM is to blow acros the board width-wise.

dman762000 · Post by **dman762000** » Sun Jun 04, 2006 7:45 pm

From the way you have it set up in the pics it should not be over heating
then again if you are working with it in some sort of case you could always use power supply fans to get a lot of air across the board
just set one up on one side blowing air into the case and one on the other side sucking air out it will give you a nice little cross wind to keep things cool

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Sun Jun 04, 2006 10:09 pm

I've made a photoset with some newer pics of the board. I've made sure to note where the RAM slot is in pics where it appears, to give you an idea of how it's setup.
http://flickr.com/photos/tom61/sets/72157594155892554/

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 7:17 pm

Gah.

More troubles...

I managed to find an old Pentium 166MHz that had a 40mm fan attached to it. I pulled the fan off it, and managed to wedge it between the VGA plug of the SBC and my desktop case, blowing directly across the RAM. It still crashed, about the same time as usual.

joevennix · Post by **joevennix** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 7:57 pm

Portable water cooling.

Maybe you should make the back of the case metal, to act as one huge heatsink. Then throw in a fan or two.

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 9:34 pm

Bad keeps getting worse.

The 20GB drive I'm using for the project is now making a dreadful clicking noise. Quite possibly the 'click of death'.

I tried booting Windows 98 again. It continues to fail with writting to disk. I'm not sure if this is caused by the harddisk, or the earlier problems encountered with Linux.

Everything is running cool now, but the crashes keep on coming.

I'm on the edge of killing this project with all the troubles I keep running into. On the other hand, I really want a UMPC/OQO/UX50 type device but can't afford the current models.

Post by **Triton** » Wed Jun 14, 2006 9:40 pm

yea 1200-1800$ for what basically equals a smaller weaker tabletpc is stupid, i hope your luck turns around tho man, have you tried different ram? could it be a bad mobo?

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 2:10 pm

I just recently pulled the board out of storage.

This is what I saw after removing the fan:

Considering it was laying pretty much flat the entire time, I don't really know how it could have rotated so much.

After applying about the same amount of force as it takes to open a soda bottle the first time:

I'm currently looking for a passive northbridge with intergrated video heatsink replacement to replace that heatsink. The Zalman ZM-NB32J Northbridge heatsink looked close, but specifically said it is not for Northbridges with intergrated video, which this is. Ideas welcome.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 3:22 pm

So are you still going on this project? I hope you finish it sometime.

Indigno · Post by **Indigno** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 4:49 pm

Pull one off of an old/ broken Mobo.

Also, to save spape, you could perhaps pull a heatsink and fan off of an old laptop so that you could vent the air out.

Also, what are you using for the PSU? PicoPSU, or a custom or what?

Post by **Sparkfist** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 5:55 pm

[music] Never ending project! [/music]

So going to take another stab at trying to make the excalibur of portables. I'd like to give you an idea for what type of heatsink to use... but I'm not that much into building computers (anymore). The best I could suggest is go to RadioShack and pick up a standard heatsink and just cut/grind it down to the size you need.

teraflop122 · Post by **teraflop122** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 6:18 pm

Something to consider: if it looks about right, it probably is about right ~_~ If that Zalman is made of the same material, or something better like copper, I say go ahead and give it a try.

Every now and then I get an urge to build a PCportable, but the funds and time never materialize. I'm also not sufficiently experienced with a soldering iron to do it properly and well.

If anyone wants an 80watt PicoPSU, I've got one I'm lookin to get rid of for relatively cheap (30~40 bucks shipped).

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 7:02 pm

vskid wrote:So are you still going on this project? I hope you finish it sometime.

The sub-$800 UMPCs still haven't materialised, so this is pretty much my only way to get one. I hope I finish eventually too.

Indigno wrote:Pull one off of an old/ broken Mobo.

Also, to save spape, you could perhaps pull a heatsink and fan off of an old laptop so that you could vent the air out.

Also, what are you using for the PSU? PicoPSU, or a custom or what?

I'll have to check with my broken laptop having friend and see if he has one to spare. All of my old PCs are too old to have chipset heatsinks, and a Pentium CPU heatsink probably wouldn't work too well when trimmed down to 1.25x1.25 inches.

The PSU is part custom and part intergrated into the motherboard. I take the 9Volts coming out of the battery, and take it down to 5 Volts, which is then converted to all the different voltages needed on the motherboard.

teraflop122 wrote:Something to consider: if it looks about right, it probably is about right ~_~ If that Zalman is made of the same material, or something better like copper, I say go ahead and give it a try.

Every now and then I get an urge to build a PCportable, but the funds and time never materialize. I'm also not sufficiently experienced with a soldering iron to do it properly and well.

If anyone wants an 80watt PicoPSU, I've got one I'm lookin to get rid of for relatively cheap (30~40 bucks shipped).

I am tempted to just grab one, as they are pretty cheap, however the bondage to the chip would be fairly permanent. The Zalman is made out of aluminum, same as the old heatsink.

If that PicoPSU was the newer flexible input voltage one (8V to 24V) I'd snag it from you.

Indigno · Post by **Indigno** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 7:14 pm

I would suggest raiding some office buildings that are going out of business, and grabbing a decently new PC at an auction or something.