Hello again!
Following from my last Project, i immediately jumped onto the next one. Again, i apologize for my terrible english. I hope it's understandable enough. Rather that than soulless AI, amirite.
This Project started with an HP laptop with a broken screen that i managed to get for a steal. I think 25 euro, including m.2 and RAM. I thought it would be a shame to throw it away because of its hardware specs. It's using a Ryzen 5 4500U, that alone made me use it. This time i wanted to go for something slim and small, more inspired by gaming Consoles.
The layout of this PCB wasn't as straight forward as the previous one, but i managed to think of a shape that would look cool. Again using 4mm ABS plates for the case. I was initially building with the plans of making a transparent or mesh top panel, hence the copper heatsinks and sticker on the m.2. But it didn't end up that way. Mounted using PC motherboard strandoff screws again.
This was the first "concept" just to see if i would like my idea with the rounded corner and the slim look of it. I also used a small decorative metal ring from a PSP shell, trying to see if i would like the idea. And also the point where i put away the Idea of a transparent or mesh top and, instead, opted for a mesh middle piece.
Now there's sadly a bigger, undocumented leap in time. I used 4 mounting points of the motherboard to use motherboard standoff screws again, giving me 4 points to mount the top panel with long m2 screws. I used a 0.8mm steel mesh, painted black, with a PC dust filter mesh glued on top of it to make it look more sleek and modern. This should be enough for airflow, or so i thought. The CPU still goes up to 90c and i'm not comfortable with that. But, due to the low profile, i don't think there's a way for me to attach a better cooling solution.
Another leap in time and it's finished, for now. I used an 8mm long tactile button, similar to those you'd use in some mice, and wired it up to the internal power button. I also used thin white PLA plates to build a small 'cage' around the status and power LED's in the front so it's not as blinding and more sleek and diffused. It's not really visible unless you shine a flashlight at it, but does a good job diffusing the LED's when powered on. The total width of the case is around 26.5cm, 13.5cm deep and it's 3cm tall, so it's quite compact. I still want to improve on it some more in the future.
Future plans would be to add an additional 2.5" SSD. According to my research there's another port, left of the m.2 slot, that was used for a SATA connector through a ribbon cable in other models of HP laptops that were using this same motherboard. I also want to solder a small, rechargeable coin-cell battery to 2 of the pins where the original battery used to connect. Why? Because there is no CMOS battery on this Motherboard. It was using the big battery for the RTC and all. But, since i'm not using that, i need to do it this way to prevent it from resetting the BIOS settings all the time. I also want to somehow add a LED strip, maybe red to fit the AMD theme, and somehow improve the cooling. Any ideas how i could improve it? I was thinking of buying the original heatpipe and finstack combo again and stack them on top of each other, but i'm not sure if that would work.
Following from my last Project, i immediately jumped onto the next one. Again, i apologize for my terrible english. I hope it's understandable enough. Rather that than soulless AI, amirite.
This Project started with an HP laptop with a broken screen that i managed to get for a steal. I think 25 euro, including m.2 and RAM. I thought it would be a shame to throw it away because of its hardware specs. It's using a Ryzen 5 4500U, that alone made me use it. This time i wanted to go for something slim and small, more inspired by gaming Consoles.
The layout of this PCB wasn't as straight forward as the previous one, but i managed to think of a shape that would look cool. Again using 4mm ABS plates for the case. I was initially building with the plans of making a transparent or mesh top panel, hence the copper heatsinks and sticker on the m.2. But it didn't end up that way. Mounted using PC motherboard strandoff screws again.
This was the first "concept" just to see if i would like my idea with the rounded corner and the slim look of it. I also used a small decorative metal ring from a PSP shell, trying to see if i would like the idea. And also the point where i put away the Idea of a transparent or mesh top and, instead, opted for a mesh middle piece.
Now there's sadly a bigger, undocumented leap in time. I used 4 mounting points of the motherboard to use motherboard standoff screws again, giving me 4 points to mount the top panel with long m2 screws. I used a 0.8mm steel mesh, painted black, with a PC dust filter mesh glued on top of it to make it look more sleek and modern. This should be enough for airflow, or so i thought. The CPU still goes up to 90c and i'm not comfortable with that. But, due to the low profile, i don't think there's a way for me to attach a better cooling solution.
Another leap in time and it's finished, for now. I used an 8mm long tactile button, similar to those you'd use in some mice, and wired it up to the internal power button. I also used thin white PLA plates to build a small 'cage' around the status and power LED's in the front so it's not as blinding and more sleek and diffused. It's not really visible unless you shine a flashlight at it, but does a good job diffusing the LED's when powered on. The total width of the case is around 26.5cm, 13.5cm deep and it's 3cm tall, so it's quite compact. I still want to improve on it some more in the future.
Future plans would be to add an additional 2.5" SSD. According to my research there's another port, left of the m.2 slot, that was used for a SATA connector through a ribbon cable in other models of HP laptops that were using this same motherboard. I also want to solder a small, rechargeable coin-cell battery to 2 of the pins where the original battery used to connect. Why? Because there is no CMOS battery on this Motherboard. It was using the big battery for the RTC and all. But, since i'm not using that, i need to do it this way to prevent it from resetting the BIOS settings all the time. I also want to somehow add a LED strip, maybe red to fit the AMD theme, and somehow improve the cooling. Any ideas how i could improve it? I was thinking of buying the original heatpipe and finstack combo again and stack them on top of each other, but i'm not sure if that would work.
Probably help a bit.
