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

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 11:12 pm

I found some interesting stuff on eBay, if any others are thinking of following me:

P4 SBC:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 29549&rd=1

Two Socket 370 PCM-9576 (simular to mine, but you can get a complete wiring kit from advantech) boards:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... eName=WDVW
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... eName=WDVW

The P4 board isn't exactly low power consumption (+5V@3.6A; +12V@4.6A using IntelÂ® P4 2.4G with 512K L2; 512MB DDR SDRAM), but it'd give you a lot processing power in a small package.

teraflop122 · Post by **teraflop122** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 11:23 pm

You know what they say: if it looks to good to be true, it probably is. The seller of the P4 board bought it for $384, and now, for some reason, is selling it starting at 50, with no reserve, and mysteriously set to 'As Is'? The very phrase "As Is" is synonomous among newb eBay sellers with "doesn't work". It is a way to sell inoperable items without getting in trouble for it, and hopefully avoiding negative feedback as well.

I wonder how many people on this forum are eBay sellers...

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 11:34 pm

He could just be expecting that it will go for much higher. Seeing as how eBay charges extra if you put a reserve on the item, that is a pretty good tactic. AS-IS 'untested' could mean exactly that, he has no idea how to use the item and therefore has no idea if it works or not.

Still, depending on how high it goes, it might not be that bad of a gamble.

teraflop122 · Post by **teraflop122** » Tue Jun 28, 2005 11:45 pm

(drools at sexy motherboard)

It is a rather nice peice of hardware...if not for the power issues. 8 D batteries could possibly power it for an hour or two.

Good point (smacks self for not paying close attention). I guess he just isn't in the know like all of us. All those connectors and pinouts, they...they must've ganged up on the poor boy.

If I had even the least amount of money, I'd try to buy it. Unfortunately for me...I'm broke

and my PCp poject is on hold until moneys become available.

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 8:00 pm

The P4 board went for $117.

Anyways, I've gotten the trackpoints ordered (got two, in case modding goes wrong, and to meet minimum order) and the IDE adapter as well. :/ I'm also working on a HTPC as well and picked up a P4 SFF mini-ATX(a little bigger than mini-ITX) board. Need to order the stuff from digi-key now, but there's no way to directly bookmark the parts, so I have to search for each one, again.

teraflop122 · Post by **teraflop122** » Wed Jun 29, 2005 8:11 pm

Neat. What will the specks of your Media Center PC be like? I just listed a Media Center PC on eBay actually, using the most complex and picture laden auction format I've ever created. I'm very proud of it ^_^ (the auction, not the PC).

EDIT: Yeesh, I have to lie low a while before my rampant moralizing gets me beaten up...

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 6:58 pm

Mostly the HTPC will be built with parts a friend and I have laying around:
P4 1.6GHz
160GB HD
TView 99 capture card (This may get replaced, as I think the tuner on it may be blown)
512MB DDR RAM (need to purchase)
P4 SFF board (purchased)
Older AGP video card, with excelent composite output
Apex AD-500W DVD for optical (uses IDE)
Apex AD-500W DVD player for the case

Will be running Linux/MythTV installed using KnopMyth.

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Fri Jul 01, 2005 9:55 pm

Once again, a late addition causes troubles with one of my projects.

The second battery isn't as easy to incorporate as I had hoped. I had gotten the height of the battery confused with the height of the HD enclosure. One battery causes little trouble, as it can fit sideways in between the motherboard and controls/screen. Each battery the height of one inside of the case. Depending on the thickness of the case itself, I may have to one or both batteries outside the case. I didn't notice this until I did a test fit with both batteries in the case today.

I took apart the PSOne screen, that was a pain and a half.

I used the wrong guide to figure out how to open the screen, and did some cosmetic damage to the screen casing (I like being able to resale things, so that's a pain) becuase I didn't know about the screws under the speaker grills (which cracked when removed). Anyways, hopefully it still works. I looked up the LCD screen part number on google, and found out it's made by Samsung, and only has a native res of 320x240.

I was hoping that it was a higher native resolution, and could use my board's intergrated controller to use it at a non-interlaced decent res.

I also grabbed a serial touchscreen unit intended for a 9" display off ebay for $17 (after a nice 10% off eBay PayPal coupon). I'm not sure that it'll fit my case size, but it doesn't matter much as it is an IR based touch module. That means that it can be phyically trimmed down, if it comes to that.

teraflop122 · Post by **teraflop122** » Sat Jul 02, 2005 2:49 pm

Was it a Sony Branded PSone screen, or a 3rd party branded PSone screen? All the screens which physically say "Sony" on the outside are SUPPOSED to be 640x480.

I should know, actually, because I have had my PSone screen turned on. It looked pretty good, but the image was heavily distorted as expected- I hadn't yet gotten Powerstrip working.

Are you going to do the VGA mod or the RGB or Composite mod?

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 3:23 pm

Was it a Sony Branded PSone screen, or a 3rd party branded PSone screen? All the screens which physically say "Sony" on the outside are SUPPOSED to be 640x480.

Orginal Sony PSOne screen.

Are you going to do the VGA mod or the RGB or Composite mod?

Aren't RGB and VGA mods the same? I'll be hooking up the RGB in to the controller board to my VGA output, and then outputting 15kHz.

I should know, actually, because I have had my PSone screen turned on. It looked pretty good, but the image was heavily distorted as expected- I hadn't yet gotten Powerstrip working.

Unless you have the image looking good non-interlaced at a specific res, that's no indication of the native resolution of the LCD.

watermelon · Post by **watermelon** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 3:57 pm

have you got any pictures of your power connection?

im completely confused as how to wire up the 20 pin mobo to a battery power source.

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 6:43 pm

watermelon wrote:have you got any pictures of your power connection?

im completely confused as how to wire up the 20 pin mobo to a battery power source.

Thanks to my board, I don't need a 20-pin connector, basically all I have to do is plug 5Volts into it, using a connector like you'd use to power a CDROM in a PC.

To use a board with a full ATX power connector, you'll need a mini-ITX power supply.

teraflop122 · Post by **teraflop122** » Sun Jul 03, 2005 9:40 pm

I said it LOOKED good, not that it was certainly/definitely 640x480 ~_~

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 9:36 pm

The last of the parts will be arriving this week and the first part of next week. Barring yet more troubles, I should be wrapping up this project soon.

What's coming in the mail/UPS:
9" touch module
Trackpoints
1U blower heatsink (this makes it easier to make a tunnel for exaust)
40 pin to 44 pin IDE adapter
Parts to finish off the power supply

That just leaves the WiFi. Anyone know of a natively supported in Linux 802.11g USB adapter, for $20 or so?

tom61 · Post by **tom61** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 11:33 pm

Current status:
Almost to stage 1. I misplaced the Pulse Wave Modulator (MAX787) chips, so I can't put the power supply together. When ordering parts, I ended up ordering a 10 Watt 2.7K resistor, the sucker is huge. the resistor is nearly three inches long (not including leads) and over 1/4" in diameter. :/ Radio Shack, at least my local one, doesn't have 2.7K resistors by themselves, or part of a sane quantity. I'd have to buy a 50 pack of resistors to get one. I'll have to see if I can salvage one from somewhere, or just use the large one.

The touch unit was much bigger than I had thought, as well as harder to hack. So, that won't get used.

I have to do some fiddly things with wiring, install and configure Linux to the 20GB drive, and make the circuit for power, and then I'll be done. I don't think I'll go past stage 1 for awhile, as I'm kinda dissappointed with the results.

The heatsink was as small as I had hoped, however, all the stuff it mounts to brings it up to be nearly as tall as the previous heatsink.

Here's a picture of the UPC so far:
http://tom61.arcadecontrols.com/pics/upc.jpg

VHS tape in pic to show size. My recently arrived Socket 478 SFF board in the background.