Advice Side endeavour: Build a desktop system inside a laptop case? (ThinkPad W700)

[hrh_ginsterbusch]

So I just got kinda derailed when seeing the "old school 386" sleeper question in the "What ATX cases tempt you" thread:

A few years ago I already pondered about doing a (mostly) simple mod of picking up a damaged P51 case, and shoving its innards into a T500 or T60 case, while retaining the original keyboard and touchpad.

But what about doing that with regular desktop components instead? So, what ThinkPad case might be big enough to fit ITX-size components? After studying and comparing sizes in the ThinkWiki, the best candidate was found: ThinkPad W700, which is a desktop replacement / workstation, with 41 x 31 x 4.1 cm size, roughly translates into a volume of 5.2L.

As a rough sketch, keep the keyboard and touchpad, and stuff an ITX board with eg. a Ryzen 5700G or 5600G inside.

Questions arise:
- cooling solutions? some kind of "wind channel" to push hot air out? or maybe use one of the extremely specialized radiator options?
- is 4.1 cm (if its not only 3.5, because there is also the case lid + screen) even enough height? ought to have to raise it?
- PSU oughta be left outside, like with a regular notebook ..
- might there be space enough for a battery? maybe look up specs for current high-end notebooks?
- position of the mainboard?
- remove parts of the external connectors, and rewire them, so they fit better into the notebook case structure?

Anybody got ideas on how to do that? I've done lots of tinkering with notebooks over the course of the last 15 years, but never went that far off the rail

cu, w0lf.

 

[msystems]

If you must use desktop parts, I don't think you can re-use any of the laptop's heatpipes and blowers because they have such a specific design. You need a low-profile blower specifically designed for AM4 socket, such as the one integrated on the x300 Jupiter.

ASRock Jupiter X300

AM4 Socket APUs, up to 65Watts<br />AMD X300 Chipset<br />178 x 178 x 34mm / 1.07L<br />2 x USB 3.2 Gen1 Type-C<br />4 x USB 3.2 Gen1<br />2 x USB 2.0<br />DisplayPort, HDMI, D-Sub<br />M.2 (2280) slot for SSD (PCIe / SATA 6Gb)<br />M.2 (2230) slot for Wi-Fi<br />2W Speaker, TPM V2.0<br...

www.asrock.com

The Jupiter is a laptop board in more ways than not. It has a low profile blower fan and it has horizontally angled Sodimm ram. And it takes 19v dc barrel input, same as most laptops.

The Jupiter height including the case is 32mm, so the height of it's board + blower is somewhere between 20-30mm. Optimistically that might get you small enough in height but it's hard to say without knowing the internal dimensions.

Conceivably you could use a removable 19v LIPO battery pack to power it's DC barrel internally, but this is not best safety idea since thermals will not be good. But people have used Lipos before for proof-of-concept mobile SFF type things where the novelty was more important than practicality or safety.