Today's hack project: turning a laptop into an iMac-like desktop

c0y

Hello folks,

First of all I would like to say that I am not really new to LowEndTalk, but decided to create an appropriate account after lurking for a long while.

I decided to do this project on a fine performing laptop due to the following factors:

• I just ordered a notebook (as-in mini-laptop)
• There were scratches all over the lid
• Some keys were broken (read: missing from the keyboard)
• The battery seems to get overcharged because this is the second one to die after a month (so I need to keep it on the charger on my desk)

So I just randomly started (always have: low end PC, low end laptop, iPad and iPhone to work with)
Please do not comment on the order I did all of this because I won't even know what the best order would be myself, haha!

First removed the panels of my display:

Then screwed the anchors off and swapped my display and screwed it back:

After that I removed the panel above the keyboard: (showed the Wifi connector cables as I seem to have forgotten to take a picture)

Then removed the rest of the panel and tested if it still worked fine: (including tracking pad)

And yes, it still worked fine! :-)

Now let's put put it all on the right place: (without screwing anything)

---

That went all nice and well, just then I realized the following:

How would I get to my boot button?! :-P
I think I can just carefully take the button off and solder my own cables to it.
Any opinions or suggestions on that?

I also asked myself whether I should buy some small speakers and implement them. (old ones were tiny and would be behind the screen)
At the other hand, I always use my headphones or subwoofer, and it's not exactly portable now anymore, hehe.

Share your thoughts! Suggestions, criticism and of course compliments are welcome!
(was occupied for 3 - 4 hours, seeing this is cost efficient I thought it would fit in the "General" category just fine)

Derek

You should of just made it a hackintosh laptop instead of taking it apart :P.

Sounds like a cool project, hopefully everything goes well.

http://www.hackintosh.com/

c0y

Hi @Derek,

My intention was to just make it into something pretty rather than trying to build an iMac.

I would have dual booted hackintosh, but I have yet to succeed on that on an AMD machine... My new notebook is an Atom N2800, decent little notebook and I planned to put hackintosh on there from the beginning ;-)

Going to take advantage of my bulky (I tend to only use minimal disk space as I'm used to SSD) 320GB included hard drive by dual booting Windows, Mac OS X and Linux one that little notebook to take advantage of every OS (considering I'm a software engineer).

Thank you for you kind reply!

PS:
Made thumbnails

earl

if your going to put the lcd on top, put some padding just above the button you can stick it on with some tape on the back of the lcd panel and when you need to boot just press on the whole lcd panel..

c0y

Hi @earl,

Seeing how neat I have done things so far I think that won't really fit the style, haha! (and it will damage the display long term)

I took the front panel which fits almost perfectly in the bottom and apart from using a screwdriver to detach the keyboard-holding panel which made lots of scratches in the plastic. So I think that's pretty neat.

I think carefully tearing it off and soldering my own cable to it and putting a button on the side or even on the stand (which I have to make) is a slightly more elegant solution ;-)

Thank you for your reply nonetheless!

c0y

Hi @Zen,

Putting together random spare parts is so much fun, especially when these parts were reported as EOL or broken.

Would love to see it when you did it, make sure to make pictures and PM me, because I love seeing other people executing these kind of projects! :-)

earl

would be interesting to see what you've done so far..maybe a pic?

Could be an option?
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/turn-pc-android-phone-wakeonlan/

c0y

Hi @zen,

Aren't the crazy ideas the most fun to execute?! I just love doing the unusual and fiddling something custom together like I did today.

I got a free laptop to play around with last week: it's an MSI-1723 but it doesn't seem to turn on which it should, so that will need some diagnosing tomorrow.

I'm just trying to think of creative things I could do with it considering my notebook hasn't arrived yet.

c0y

Hi all,

So I decided to take the guess and just solder off the power button to then connect my own cabling, well, better should not have done that...

After all I feel stupid and @earl's idea suddenly doesn't seem that bad (I would put it to sleep or leave it on). I sincerely apologize making fun of your idea @earl, I wish I took the less elegant safe way. :-(

Another lesson in life, or rather in electronics: never trust soldering, haha!

earl

No worries, was going to tell you to hold off on the solder but it seemed you had your mind set, did not want to discourage you..