Today I did something to a PC/laptop

Joeface

there is one of these threads in the motors section ...we should have one

Anyway the PSU for M14x stopped working , just makes a chirpping noise.
And I could get a new replacement one ebay for €39.99 shipped from China and arrive in a month or so . Or spend €65-€70 get if from the UK , but I am still in a recession

Soooo Crack it open . Normally this is the output cable from the PSU to the laptop a wire has gone short from all the flexing and bending and wrapping it up in your laptop bag , I checked this with a multimeter when It was open , direct short



Any way when it was opened I also noticed one of the 120uF caps on the Supply side was just a little bit bulged so best change them now while I have it open



And best change both caps as if one goes the other will or could follow at some stage .Looked up for a alternate and got 120uF 450V replacements from Digikey ( thank you work )$0.31 each so got some spares



I just love how much of this silicone the manufacture used



Looked up for a alternate and got 120uF 450V replacements from Digikey ( thank you work )$0.31
So all cleaned off and Prepped for the replacement



Both Caps in and soldered , Not bad soldering for me as I so rarely do it






And Just for saftey I suppose i should add some silicone myself , but really not half as much



On To the wire repair

So I just clipped the wire back behind the strain releif some bit and also keep the strain relief to one , I actually cleared out the wire from the centre of this and got it back on to the wire before prepping for soldering
So seperated the GND wire into a connection for soldering , I used some PTFE
Around the GND side just as an insulator


Soldered in place , and some heat shrink pulled down to Help keep everything neat


All back into the case , and as I said managed to keep the strain relief in place




Plugged it in for a test ..............



Perfect , laptop back up and charged

K.O.Kiki

OP please report if your house is on fire right now.

Joeface

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

OP please report if your house is on fire right now.

Harsh

No its not, all good here . I did it in work , it's been on for a few hours now and no issues

Joeface

So I am dragging up my old thread , cause I found something else to do.

I was handed this Optiplex 745 to put in the trash , and I was going to but thats always a last resort . I have to say it was one of the worst looked after systems I have come across .

Its spec was a P4 3.0Ghz St775 , 2GB of DDR2 ram , 40gb sata Drive .DVD and a Zip Disk





and throw in some blow capacitors for good measure




It was so bad in places I decided to open the PSU as well cause that need dust monsters removed as well , and also to check the condition of the capacitors in here .



So I began with replacing the blown capacitors.




Cleaned all the dust off with Air and also cleaned up some other spill areas on the board with IPA .

Then Cleaned the PSU



yes that is the same PSU

I did do a bench test then with the old parts to see if worked after the repair and clean , no image of that as it is a health and safety issue.

So this starts to take and interesting turn ( for me anyway )
I had 8GB of DDR2 in 2GB sticks and A Q6600 going spare



. so there was an upgrade for the system at least . But I came across this



Its a PCI-E 1x to Msata Adapter , and as there is a PCi-e slot on the board I thought i might be a interesting way to use this pc. So I got 60gb Msata off adverts and yes I could of got something different but this is kinda sleek and leaves 2 HD bays for future upgrades and I figure the SSD would benfit more from the 5GB bandwith that the 3GB on the old SATA connectors



With all the plastics ,Shrouds & Fans out I scrubbed all and cleaned, including the exterior bezels








more wastes of my time to follow

TerrorFirmer

While that's interesting it seems a bit of a waste to invest so much time/effort/gear on such an ancient piece of hardware! You'd get an infinitely faster i5 based machine for €80-100 on Adverts/Ebay....

Is it always a good feeling to rescue and do up older stuff though. I did something similar to my parents HTPC recently, cost €50 to go from a G630 and HDD to an i5-2500 and SSD.

Joeface

You didnt wait Terror , your ruining the surprise . not really

I have a GPU on the way to it , and really have not spent anything only the money on the MSata . everything else is off the scrap heap

I have a decision to make as well

B-Sel mod the Q6600 for 3Ghz , or Xeon Mod the system I have an X5460

most of the bits have been thrown in now anyway and it came together neatly








There will be no DVD , CD drive in the completed build , still looking for the correct black 3.5inch bay and 5.25inch bay blank plates for the sleek front look

TerrorFirmer

The Xeon is probably more of a hassle - they don't work on all boards and I think you've to file away some notches on the socket? The Q6600 tape-mod is a far easier method.

I have a couple HD7470's, you're more than welcome to one if it helps bring the Frankenstein to life without having to spend

I think they have Displayport and DVI connections rather than HDMI though as they came from workstations.

Joeface

yeah Xeon mod you remove 2 polarisation notches , and add a pin swap kapton tape to bottom , micro code mod Dell bios then as well ...
will do the Q6600 tape mod first anyways before deciding to go Xeon

its a workstation card I have for it , just not on my desk to fall into my drawer yet

Nvidia Quadro FX3800 1GB , I think the heatsink shroud is sleek and single slot helps



and its also a single 6pin which the Dell PSU has

pretty sure the decomissioned one I will get will not be so clean ....heavy handed users

K.O.Kiki

But can it run Crysis?

Joeface

Crysis eh in 4K.... I will test that .

I will test for Fortnite a Native res , I have 19inch or 20inch widescreen for the system as well ...that will be a success . close enought to minimum requirements

confirmed :
Monitor is AOC 931Swl
Native Resolution 1366 x 768 at 60 Hz
Contrast Ratio 1000:1 / 10000:1 (dynamic)

it will do

TerrorFirmer

I think a Q6600 @3ghz would be golden for Fortnite, it's not very CPU taxing. It would still be pretty OK for even a lot of stuff like Overwatch, Dirt Rally, DOTA, CS:GO etc.

The card'll be the massive bottleneck. If you have a single 6 pin, if you could score something like a HD7770/GTX650 for €25 you'd be fairly solid all-round for games like that, and still keep it quite economical.

Joeface

The Decomminsed GFX card arrived into my Drawer and then my bag




Unsure how the user scratched the Bezel/shroud that much . Cleaned it out and Installed it



It neatly slips under the CPU Cooler shroud . :eek:

I do like the cable managment points Dell provided ..just not the cables







Still havent found the 3.5inch blank plate , hopefully that will be sorted next week




Next is the Gaming standard , I will do a base benchmark cause thats all the rage . and then Do the pin mod and also try a bit of OC on the GFX card .Don't expect it to be super but I have a whole pile of Steam games I never used so It should play all these ( some listed below & have maybe another 30) . The end use of the system is my Nephew wanted to learn how to build one so once this is working 100% I will take it a part and let him put it together . good system to learn on he can break it without worring about cost .


Crysis 2 Maximum Edition
Dead Space
Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
Medal of Honor
Mirror's Edge
The Last Remnant
+ most of the Starwars games

Joeface

Well this didn't turn out how I wanted , while cooling off yesterday evening I took the System apart to do the BSEL mod , Didnt work , system would not boot. Tried both versions I have seen on line Tape one pin or take 2 pins .

had done this once before on a newer optiplex (760 or 780) years ago no idea if I taped one or 2 pins , just it was on much newer Optiplex .

Disappointed I have to says. System boots perfect with the Q6600 @ stock . Anti Climax for me wasn't expecting miracles or anything just something at least . Still it is spotless and passed the time .

it does "play" Fortnite but poorly , say 18-25 FPS . Going to stick the other steam games on it and see how it runs them.
I do have a better screen for it also Dell E198wfp 1440x900 which is a decent enough res to be gaming at and at least it uses the DVI rather than the an adapter for VGA .