Been awhile since my last post, but it has been well worth the wait. I shaved off another 10 pounds on the deskbook by replacing the monitor with a laptop LCD, and started shaving the heat sinks down for the Xbox laptop.
The biggest news is that after trading some school books in, I finally have the funds to continue on my railgun. Design notes and pictures coming soon…
The case is done and the glue continuning to cure. The fans are mounted, the paint is drying, and the holes are drilled. I must mount the speakers, my front panel that protects the monitor, and finish some more “housekeeping.” Expect this to be done by Tuesday, I have some more work to do… you know… to pay for toys bills.
After making a few models in a 1/4 scale with poster card, I became confident enough to begin my deskbook 2.0.
This build will feature a cooler running graphics card (AMD 5450 – 1GB) and a solid state drive in order to make the system a little more durable. I constructed the case from all acrylic because it is lighter and has my required amount of durability. (in addition to myself having a lot of experience in working with it as well.) I used the monitor from my portable Xbox, since this puppy weighs considerably less than the original monitor. (22″ down to 15″ diagonally) The case is 16×12.5x7in, and it weighs in around 2-3 lbs. I am excluding the battery since that thing was entirely too heavy and fairly useless. I tried working with a laptop monitor, but the analog to digital conversions are costly, and don’t work well with this particular design. The desktop monitor I will be using will add a lot more durability to the box once it is fastened to the front of the shell. The monitor in the front will be protected with a jury rigged laptop case that will be filled with acrylic the same size as the front part of the case. It will be velcrowed into place, and will contain the power cord and wireless I/O devices.
Essentially, I utilized the basic design from a desktop case as far as airflow, sucking air in from one side and venting toward the other.
I haven’t had the time to test the temperatures yet, but I will as soon as this thing is operational.
After a little hiatus, I am returning with a few new projects. I am working on a lot with arduino, and I plan on trying my dice in making a Segway, a train sound generator for a close family member, and a few other interesting projects.
The portable Xbox’s initial design will actually be inside of the original Deskbook’s case to better understand how its heat moves around inside the case.
The major project on the table right now however is what I like to call the Deskbook 2.0. The case will be hand crafted and completely custom to a design that I have found to be the best mixture of weight to performance to temperature.
More to come in the near future, Stay Frosty.
As I write from the beast itself, I am now pleased to announce that I am 95% done with my deskbook prototype. This heavy weight comes in at ~30lbs, and has around 30 minutes of battery life when not under extreme load.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnYIJkmN0E0
The final specs are as follows:
AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition Callisto 3.2GHz (slight OC) Corsair 4 GB SODIMM – 1333 MHzEverything has been temperature benchmarked, and everything runs at around 40C idle, and maxes at around 60-70C at maximum using a tool named OCCT. (That’s just on the GPU, which is normal.)
And now some pretty pictures, 360 degrees! …after the break. Continue reading
Day 2 of the build has required a lot of patience and grinding to come thus far. I managed to fit and mount the battery along with all other necessary components this evening. The only parts that are lacking remain to be the speakers, keyboard, and mouse. I have a hacked desktop keyboard that has been stripped to the bone, and speakers ready to be mounted onto the divided section of the case. With estimations of where I need the fans to be, I will finish the case this coming Monday along with getting SOME of the polishing done. I am planning on swapping out the video card with something that has a little more kick for the space and heat that will generate. All of temperatures seem fine with both the motherboard and PSU without any more than pictured ventilation. The blow holes were made with graph paper and drill, all of the excess wires have been stripped and super glued to the sides of the case to stay out of the way from the fans.
Finally, I added the power and HDD LEDs to the top shell, along with the momentary switches for the UPS and motherboard. All in all, this project is not as user friendly as an expensive laptop. And certainly not as light! This has, however, made me motivated to try an Xbox 360 portable next. (With Kinect? Hell yea!) Who knows, maybe I’d actually USE my Xbox again.
It feels good to work on something you really have a sense of pride in doing. I am have a lot fun figuring out how to overcome the minor and major challenges of this design, and I must say that I am amused with how well everything has been coming together.
Playing games windowed is one of the many advantages of computer gaming over console gaming. One can play their favorite game and also search the web, manage background music, and perform a plethora of tasks without having to wait for the game to reload full screen. Although this slightly lowers the horsepower of that game, most mid to high end computers will likely range little to no difference at all.
Most developers have embraced the demand of users wishing to be able to “alt+tab” out of their titles without inhibiting their game-play. Steam has recently introduced a startup command ‘-noborder’ into their titles, which is simply icing on the cake to their immense fan base. But what about other applications, sush as Crysis 2, that support being windowed but lack a border less option? There are simple applications such as “Shiftwindow” that will move the border up and out of sight, but these applications, in my opinion, are primitive. What other options could there possibly be?
This is something that I have wanted to do for a very long time. Create a portable computer, such as a laptop, with the power and upgrade-ability of a desktop. I finally realized the feasibility of this project when I saw a new SFF (Small Form Factor) motherboard on my favorite internet retailer’s homepage. It not only featured an AM3 socket, but also a PCI-express x16 slot on board. The ideas I had years before came rolling back into my mind. A full size monitor, high end graphics card, and powerful processor all compiled into one portable desktop. IF I wanted this to be simple, I would just have purchased a common case and carried that around. But I want to have some fun, and experiment with some real-life designing. Not the made up kind in school, the REAL kind that separates the boys from the men.
I have already ordered most of the main components, and will have a major post or two coming soon of the build.
Here comes the list: