the not-a-laptop

[ivanlabrie]

Another thing worth checking out is the upcoming amd Trinity chips, they promise powerful igpu's with more cpu muscle than the current Llano, whilst having lower tdp's.
You could kill two birds with a single shot with those.

 

[MadRush]

Another thing worth checking out is the upcoming amd Trinity chips, they promise powerful igpu's with more cpu muscle than the current Llano, whilst having lower tdp's.
You could kill two birds with a single shot with those.

yeah i know its bugging me that new stuff is about to come out but im planning on buying parts in the next few days. : / i kinda need to get this project started.

Wow though, that ram is short, it might help my situation out. I think I'll pick up the samsung for now, apparently the guy got it up to 2400mhz, stable at 2133. Time will tell what it will do in my setup.

Keep up the good looks guys !

 

[MadRush]

power
I've been looking for power supplies and can you believe nobody seems to make a 24VDC 1U power supply? I keep finding 48VDC input units, but 1) I'm feel like the lower volts the battery supplies the easier it will be to construct it and 2) I can't seem to find a place that actually lists and sells a 350 or 400 watt 1U DC-DC supply. Odds are I'm going to have to get a PS/2 form factor unit and modify it anyway, so if that's the case, screw it I'll try mine first even though I know it's not that powerful.

I have to dig abit more about the HD6750, but apparently it will draw 245 watts at load according to these guys: http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/sapphire_hd6670_ultimate_hd6750_hd6770/18.htm
And apparently the i5 will eat up 125 watts under load according to these guys: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/...core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/21

Well, I'm pretty sure we're talking DC watts here in which case you just sum them up and end up with 370 watts under load ... so I'm looking at a 400 watt PSU or preferably a 450 watt to allow room for overclocking. I dug up my old DC-DC power supply and unfortunately, it's 300 watts.

I didn't bother taking any pictures before tearing it apart because the only difference is the input.
It does 15A on the 3.3 and 12, any of you guys have anything to comment on that? Maybe I can underclock the CPU / GPU to get things off the ground using this unit? I can at least build the chassis around the video card and simply not install it untill I find a beefier PSU. That is probably a good idea for now since the LCD controller is still a variable; I've never played with one of these things and it may not be a 'plug and play' situation. That's probably the biggest variable in this build, followed by the battery and PSU situation. Oh and I almost forgot that I don't have a chassis or a cooling system yet. Regarding those two, I have some solid ideas for construction: it's going to involve a bit of copper. The case's structural members are going to serve double as heat sinks. I've looked at enough information about heat pipes that I feel confident about fabricating some on my own. I guess that's a big variable to heh.

I'd really like to use a 1U so I don't have to modify the PSU; I want the convenience of bolt-in parts. If the PSU blows, not only will I need to track down another weird one, but also custom modify it to fit my chassis ... that's a bit against the grain of the goal of the project. I will, however, make compromises if the need be, and right now I'm leaning toward compromise at least in the short term.

The other annoyance with this old PSU of mine is its old school ATX connectors, nothing modern. So aside from it being too tall to fit without mods, and I'm not afraid of modding it, but I've also gotta reterminate it just to test it out with the new gear. Bah. Anybody got old busted 24pin unit(s) they want to donate for their connectors?

space
I may ened up using one or a pair of single 2.5 removable bays depending on how the real parts fit together, because alloting the 3.5 space is a limiting factor.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817997012
Yes I know newegg doesn't have them but it's a common enough item.

I got sick of my slow loaner laptop so I decided to do a rough model in cardboard. The only problem is it's a bit thicker than it should be, but ultimately my specified dimensions were really just a jumping off point.

This time around it's Prototype 01:
As much as I want the ports to go to a side (so I don't have to blindly grasp around at the rear of the case to plug things in), this layout fits better.

If I move that big capacitor I can easily fit the low profile HD6750 card this way. I was suprised how small the card is, I cut out a piece of cardboard to match it's foot print and glued it to the back of that old low-pro dell card for reference. I guess with the big plastic shroud on it, it looked as big as a full size card; it is small for having a powerful GPU.

Of course, those tall heat sinks will disappear, or be rotated or something. Odds are there will be a heat pipe or two for the final iteration of the PSU.

That transformer is a thorn in my ***. Well one solution is to just make the case taller by 5mm. My cardboard model is already taller than 45mm; it's 45mm on the inside. That's not the end of the world I guess. Anyway the final PSU probably will be different height

I still have plenty of room in there somewhere for the LCD board, hopefully right above the CPU.

 

[johan851]

It does 15A on the 3.3 and 12, any of you guys have anything to comment on that?

It's not enough. That's 180w max on the 12v rail. It's apparently an older PSU, because it's providing a lot of its wattage on the 5V rail. That was common in older PCs, but newer stuff sources primarily from the 12v rail, meaning that 400w figure you ballparked is going to have to come almost entirely from 12v. You're short by more than a little bit with that PSU.

I think you're going to have a really hard time doing this build with a powerful, or even mid-range, discrete card. It can be done in some mITX cases, but those builds have good ventilation and an ATX PSU.

 

[MadRush]

I think you're going to have a really hard time doing this build with a powerful, or even mid-range, discrete card. It can be done in some mITX cases, but those builds have good ventilation and an ATX PSU.

A modern 24VDC or 48VDC 450 or 500 will be my holy grail. A couple hours ago found a 450 I think it was, but I didn't look at its per rail specs. It was a 1U server unit, so who knows. As far as ventilation, you're right, but I prefer to look at it as a challenge. I think between fluid dynamics modeling and amazing technology known as heat pipes I should be able to engineer something. The case size may end up changing in the end, we'll see.

Just picture 3 fat heat pipes from the CPU 1 from the south bridge, 3 from the GPU hopefully touching the gddr, and another few from the PSU area. Thankfully there aren't many parts to this thing so I should have a lot of volume left over for heat piping. However, one problem I can't avoid as far as keeping everything upgradable and serviceable: the heat pipes aren't going to fit from one motherboard to the next or one gpu to the next ah well can't eat that proverbial cake right?

 

[suresh419]

so... when are we gonna finished pictures?

 

[Galgotha]

Cool project, were you able to build a decent enough air ventilation system for cooling.

I believe this should allow you to use a decent GPU Card in your space allowed



It is a PCIe x16 90 Degree Riser Card its 5.50 US dollars if you didn't already find something to work.

 

[misternumberone]

Ask Ben Heck to help you. Ben Heck knows EVERYTHING about making laptops out of things that aren't supposed to be laptops. Really, he does. Look him up.

 

[xxgokouxx]

if you're looking for some old power supplies, have you tried the small form factor HP and or DELL power supplies? I'm heading to work this weekend and if I remember to, i'll take pictures of it, EXTREMELY thin, and it goes wide and long instead of tall.

I've actually ebayed quite a few if you're interested.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=HP+PSU&_sacat=0

 

[misternumberone]

Server Power Supply. rack Server power supplies are thin and designed to go in flat limited space cases.

 

[markp1989]

for charging the battery and auto switching between mains and battery power you could use something like the PicoUPS, the only problem I can see with it that it does limit you to 120w which wont power any graphics card. I dont know if they make any that support a higher load.

http://www.mini-box.com/picoUPS-100-12V-DC-micro-UPS-system-battery-backup-system

Paired with a Pico PSU, you could get the charging circuritry and power supply in a very small area.

http://www.mini-box.com/PicoPSU-120-WI-25-12-25V-DC-DC-ATX-power-supply

I dont know if they make any with higher wattage ratings .

 

[pau-ken]

Hi, MadRush this here is my first post from years forum ghosting. Maybe you should take a look into Mini ITX. Im not sure if they meet your needs but i know they are very compact and output desktop power.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817338081 @ 3.2" x 1.7" x 6" dimensions this wouldn't be so tall as yours but, longer. I do see quite a bit of spare space in your build length wise.

p.s. i like what your doing here .

 

[Knufire]

The difference between 1333MHz CL9 and 2133MHz CL9, for example, in gaming, is usually a fraction of an FPS, at most 2. RAM speed just doesn't make a difference for 99% of tasks. If you're doing something with your machine that you KNOW is memory-intensive, then by all means get the more expensive kit.

The other thing is that if you go with the Llano, the integrated GPU uses your system memory, so you do see better graphic performance with higher speed memory. However, once again, diminishing returns REALLY comes in after DDR3-1600.

In short, a cheap DDR3-1600 CL9 kit is plenty for any task, unless you're doing something specialized. No need to overclock the RAM.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4503/sandy-bridge-memory-scaling-choosing-the-best-ddr3/1