Mo Facta
Epic Member
Hi all,
I've been toying with this idea and I just wanted to run it by you to see if it is indeed possible. First, some background:
I have an old HP DV7-6103ei entertainment laptop with decentish specs: i7-2670QM, 8GB DDR3 1333, Radeon 6770M 2GB GPU, 2 HDD bays, etc. It works, and I currently use it for a media PC in my room, but the right hand display hinge is totally busted beyond repair, the battery is poked and the internal fan doesn't work so I can't run it in high performance mode or use the discrete GPU because it overheats. So I run it in low power mode with the battery removed, use Intel HD Graphics and a laptop cooling pad to keep it cool enough to play movies etc.
Would it be possible to dismantle the laptop completely, screw it down onto a piece of wood, reattached the drives, power supply, etc, and build an external case around it, possibly with perspex?
The reason why I want to do this is I want to be able to add some fans to the box to keep air flowing over the thermal assembly so that I can run it in high performance mode and possibly do some light retro gaming on it while lying in bed hehehe. Could probably even add an SSD and a nice USB hub to connect more peripherals since it only has 3 USB ports.
The idea is to buy a suitably sized square piece of pine, lots of small plastic washers and stack them to create risers that the screws would be guided through and then one on top to separate the screws from the top of the motherboard. Then, I could measure and route out lines on the edges of the wood and construct a perspex lid with openings cut out to access the I/O ports. I would also drill holes and vents to mount several fans on the top and sides of the box. My plan, since the motherboard probably doesn't have any headers for fans, is to use 9v batteries to power the fans since I would want them on at all times. The integrated display wouldn't be connected as I would be connecting directly to my TV via the HDMI port. I realise I will not be able to access the BIOS, but that's ok because there's not much to tweak there anyway and I have it set to how I want it already and it's updated to the latest version. If need be I could connect the integrated display in that event for troubleshooting.
What do you think? Is this possible? Anyone ever done it? Pitfalls?
Talk to me.
Cheers
I've been toying with this idea and I just wanted to run it by you to see if it is indeed possible. First, some background:
I have an old HP DV7-6103ei entertainment laptop with decentish specs: i7-2670QM, 8GB DDR3 1333, Radeon 6770M 2GB GPU, 2 HDD bays, etc. It works, and I currently use it for a media PC in my room, but the right hand display hinge is totally busted beyond repair, the battery is poked and the internal fan doesn't work so I can't run it in high performance mode or use the discrete GPU because it overheats. So I run it in low power mode with the battery removed, use Intel HD Graphics and a laptop cooling pad to keep it cool enough to play movies etc.
Would it be possible to dismantle the laptop completely, screw it down onto a piece of wood, reattached the drives, power supply, etc, and build an external case around it, possibly with perspex?
The reason why I want to do this is I want to be able to add some fans to the box to keep air flowing over the thermal assembly so that I can run it in high performance mode and possibly do some light retro gaming on it while lying in bed hehehe. Could probably even add an SSD and a nice USB hub to connect more peripherals since it only has 3 USB ports.
The idea is to buy a suitably sized square piece of pine, lots of small plastic washers and stack them to create risers that the screws would be guided through and then one on top to separate the screws from the top of the motherboard. Then, I could measure and route out lines on the edges of the wood and construct a perspex lid with openings cut out to access the I/O ports. I would also drill holes and vents to mount several fans on the top and sides of the box. My plan, since the motherboard probably doesn't have any headers for fans, is to use 9v batteries to power the fans since I would want them on at all times. The integrated display wouldn't be connected as I would be connecting directly to my TV via the HDMI port. I realise I will not be able to access the BIOS, but that's ok because there's not much to tweak there anyway and I have it set to how I want it already and it's updated to the latest version. If need be I could connect the integrated display in that event for troubleshooting.
What do you think? Is this possible? Anyone ever done it? Pitfalls?
Talk to me.
Cheers
