Hardware Analysis - My Latest Modding Project :cool:

Re: My Latest Modding Project :cool:

Shawn Langley — 2008-03-27T11:53:35-05:00

@ Sean, if i'm totally truthful that was the second attempt at doing the lid, the first did have solid dragons and i didn't like it =P i preferred the fuzzy edge a lot more ... still ashame about it smudging

@john
Thats not a bad idea i saw some textured spray paints while i was looking for these, i remember some velvet effect and pearl ill have to see if they have a rubber type.
I also plan to do a newer faster laptop in heat reactive paint (Thermo chromatic i think its called) put a bright orange under layer and a dark blue over the top which goes translucent when its warm, i think it'd look kinda cool around the CPU area and hand rests and putting hand prints on the lid.

@Mcfly
Ebay my friend, eBay lol type atheros in and you get a ton of different cards in various formats like PCMCIA and mini PCI like i used in this case.

@And finally DR i did something similar to that but i have ended up with a *.mbr file rather than *.LNX maybe thats my problem, but i defiantly have a MBR of some sort in a file cause its 512b which is what im aiming for i think lol

Re: My Latest Modding Project :cool:

Dragon Peaceful — 2008-03-27T06:32:51-05:00

Shawn Langley said:

...
http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/ItsAliiiive.jpg
Is that it booting? Why i think it is, but you can see the numlock LED on and the power LED on, note the multiple instances Linux on the boot screen i was tinkering with trying to get Linux to load with windows boot loader but to no avail so far its like i'm missing something really simply but cant put my finger on it, so i might just use lilo.
...

To use Win2k or WinXP boot loader for linux, you need to:
1. make sure you able to boot into the linux OS's you installed, by lilo or by boot floppies.
2. in command prompt, re-install lilo from MBR to the specific boot partition (e.g. hda3)
3. in command prompt, "peel" the boot partition into a 512kb .LNX file (check google for the command)
4. save the .LNX file to the windows partition.
5. edit boot.ini in windows to load the .LNX file
6. reboot, if everything done right, it should boot to linux when you select it.
Hope that helps.

By the way, nice mod! Nice paint job and LED mods. Job well done, dude.

Re: My Latest Modding Project :cool:

McFly — 2008-03-27T05:15:27-05:00

Very nice. I've been looking for a place to buy a mini PCI Atheros card myself for an Asus WL-500gP for packet injection. Damned Broadcom ...

Re: My Latest Modding Project :cool:

john albrich — 2008-03-27T02:40:05-05:00

It's always fun to do something like that, and great when you get good results.

Too bad about the pic quality. Maybe one overall better quality image of the final?

Something to consider, is on a couple of laptops in the section around the periphery of the touchpad I've applied (separately) both a translucent "matte" finish, and a "rubberized" coating (can't remember the name (it was a sample PC board coating compound), but it took lots of practice on scrap plastic strips). This kept palm-rest wear spots from becoming too obvious too quickly. It was also something I could keep re-applying without making it look like an obvious touch-up because it was intended to make that section look different in the first place. If you decide to try, practice on a separate piece of plastic first.

Re: My Latest Modding Project :cool:

Sean Costello — 2008-03-27T02:19:54-05:00

looks pretty cool, too bad the dragon design didn't come out in more of a solid shape, i think that would make it look even better.

Good job

Re: My Latest Modding Project :cool:

Adam Kolak — 2008-03-27T01:11:06-05:00

It looks like a good way to bring new life to an old laptop.

My Latest Modding Project :cool:

Shawn Langley — 2008-03-27T00:47:58-05:00

Okay where do we start lol I recently moved into my own home and decided since its my first place lets do my first mod, and i settled on doing a modded laptop job. Rather than bore with sentences ill annotate through and explain at end

I also apologies for the bad photo quality I was using a LG U970 Camera phone and i apologies for the length of the post but alot of work went into it

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/RipApart_WithKidGloves.jpg
First Stage to rip the whole thing apart, this took a lot of time and patience to figure out what gets pulled from where and with no disassembly guide on the tinternet it made it that extra bit fun, amazingly nothing was destroyed during this process.

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/EssentialGuides.jpg
What can i say, your mad if you take something so intricate apart and don't label where things came from, despite this i always find every disassemble-reassemble i'm always one screw too many

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/SoManyTidgyBits.jpg
Don't loose them? And designed for Windows ME?

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/TheSexiAtheros.jpg
This is one major part for the mod/upgrade its got the Atheros AR5006XS chipset and supports packet injection and A/B/G formats which ill talk about more at the end.

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/WifiAtena.jpg
Of course we need a kick ass wifi antenna for this build as will come into play later.

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/TwoSticksPlease.jpg
Our new sticks of ram to make this thing nice and nippy for its task

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/ILoveTheseThings.jpg
The paint i used, may be not the best choice but it certainly did the job up to my standards and better, had to go out and get more because i ran out and my lovely GF paid for the taxi for me so credits to her I have about 4 layers of blue, a few of black and the white and two clear coats which i'm leaving to harden for a week.

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/ThePaintShop.jpg
The corner of my semi decorated bathroom got turned into my paintshop for the time being, i put TONS of paper down for this trying to avoid any mess.

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/Crap__.jpg
But it didn't work As you can see i haven't even gone near the edge of the papers but now i understand why you should do this outside the whole bathroom got coated but it comes of easy enough, which i have also to thank my lovely other half who cleaned it up

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/FirstLayer.jpg
After a thickish first layer of paint it already looks good me thinks

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/StencilFromEggBox.jpg
The stencil i made out of a donated easter egg box (Again from my GF). I found the pic on the linux distro i'm using then cut it out in photoshop made it solid black and white and then finally traced it onto card from the packet of the egg.

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/Sprayyy.jpg
The stencil half way through being done!

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/WootItFits.jpg
It fits all back together and works ~phew~

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/BlueeeDrive.jpg
Just a taste of what sort of color i have used and the finish.

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/RedLEDs.jpg
I have replaced all the LEDs near the monitor ie caps num hdd ect with nice red SMD Leds and the Optical drive LED with red, and i decided go a bit funky and did the floppy in UV Purple and the power in a nice deep blue LED.

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/ItsAliiiive.jpg
Is that it booting? Why i think it is, but you can see the numlock LED on and the power LED on, note the multiple instances Linux on the boot screen i was tinkering with trying to get Linux to load with windows boot loader but to no avail so far its like i'm missing something really simply but cant put my finger on it, so i might just use lilo.

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/FinishedOpen.jpg
There we have it, note a few surface blemishes on some of the pictures due to dust and crap that got on the wet paint but i was too lazy to remove

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/FinishedLid.jpg
It gets better, i promise also note i used a dremmel to remove the manufacture logo of the lid on the raised section if i had the materials next time id remove it altogether, fill it and have it flat against the rest of the lid.

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/Drives.jpg
Again another little shot but not in the best of lights or quality

http://blackhawk.rrss.co.uk/HWA/LaptopPaintJob/TheEyes.jpg
finally i decided on doing eyes for the dragons cause it just didn't look right without them. The camera really doesn't do these justice in the slightest there quite stunning. I drilled a 1mm hole through the lid through to the LCD compartment and filled the hole flat with some translucent sealant to disperse the light (In this picture it was freshly applied where its still in its white non see through state leading to less light to be passed through than there will be). I used UV/Purple SMD LEDs which are like 1mmx1mm max and they are a pain in the ass to solder onto the end of some tiny thin cable and I am drawing the power from the PCB around the USB ports up through the hinge along side the LCD cable.

Ok now to the boring stuff,

I built this machine mainly for web surfing, using the Atheros chipset because it works very well with madwifi drivers under Linux and is great for packet injection and monitor mode which helps me crack wep keys out and about when i want to use the Internet

Also the 512mb ram more than suffices (although i'm running at 256 atm for a reason i'm not sure of yet ~goes looking for the other stick~) for web surfing for what the machine was intended to do and the play theme hospital which i am strangely obsessed with.

I smudged some of the lid quite badly you might notice in some of the photos as i needed to go to my parents house during the week cause my job requires it :o" title=">:o"> so yeah semi wet paint and transit on a train is a no no.

And finally a lot of thanks to my girlfriend AGAIN since she helped a lot with this project

So Yeah thats it, what you guys think? Be kind....