Turning my P150EM into a desktop.

Hiya, I've recently purchased a new laptop and have had considerable trouble selling my completely functional (But cosmetically damaged to the point of looking hideous) P150EM.

It recently occurred to me to turn it into a bit of a games console for my other half (Think Steambox functionality).

I don't like the idea of just removing the screen and leaving it as is, so I was wondering whether it would be theoretically possible to take all of the hardware out of the laptop case and have it put in, say a custom Lego case and have it function as normal and what problems I might encounter.

Thanks for your time

 

Sure, no problem. Have run bare motherboard+lcd+keyboard for testing purposes.

One issue might be the keyboard; some bioses halt on no-kb-present, might want to keep it tucked in the lego case (dry-check first, of course). Other thing is the short length of the lcd cable, if you want to keep the display, that is. Before ditching the lcd you want to verify bios access with external monitor+keyboard only.

Heatpipes should be held in such an angle that the condensed vapour (water) drops back to the cpu and gpu. In your system this means rear exhausts point upwards. Could hide or attach the whole thing to the back of a large DP/HDMI monitor, that way it's out-of-sight and cooling isn't compromised.

Start button pcb can be detached and pushed to the left side (bottom fans point away from the monitor, preferably). Same thing for the ODD; can be re-used, but needs something like this slim ATAPI > USB adapter.

Lovely project .

 

I don't think it panics with no keyboard, the bios IIRC will only display through VGA monitors. But yes certainly possible.

 

As mentioned it should be no problem at all. One thing to be aware of is that your wifi antenna typically will be around the LCD bezel so be sure to get those out of there.