I Put some old Memory on the Wall....

PixelSpielkind · July 6, 2022

...sort of...

I just wanted to share my latest strange Upcycling Project , with a "Why throw it in a landfill, if it might still be usable" Laptop....
Hope this does count as a "Build Log", even though it´s no fancy Power-Machine, not even a real PC....

It started like this:

This used to be a Dell Precision Laptop - it ended up more or less in the Trash with a Broken Display, Keyboard not working anymore (my guess -> due to Coffee ), not booting...

Nothing new, fast or energy efficient by today´s standard, but who knows maybe still working.

It even has a dedicated GPU.
OK it´s just a Radeon Pro WX4150 with 4GB RAM

But hey - a GPU!

The CPU is a Core i7-8750H

6 Core, 12 Threads

2,2 GHz Base Clock
4,1 GHz Max

And it has 4 SODimm Slots

Not that bad...

So after cleaning everything, applying new thermal paste I turned it on and... nothing.. Power LED turned on, no post screen, nothing...
I almost wanted to give up, but thankfully I had a "half working" Dell Display form another project laying around and thought: "Well, it can´t get any worse"...

So I connected the Display via the internal eDP Port and Voila: POST Screen, BIOS Access etc... Turns out I needed to disable the automatic GPU Switching in the BIOS, otherwise the POST-Screen was routed to the internal Display only and not to the dedicated Radeon GPU´s HDMI...

OK so a Laptop in the Original "base" but without a display. Just hide it somewhere under the Desk and use it as a daily driver for light work, right?

Well, that´s what I thought until i saw this one:

11,9 Inch (1480x340), Touchscreen, USB-Powered, HDMI

And a size that might fit the Case if I cut out about 3 times the Size of the
Touchpad without breaking the cover.

Connected to the Outside USB and HDMI, because there´s no chance to use an Internal Connection.

I even had some Ribbon Cables and HDMI Plugs that I could use. Not the best quality Cable,
more for drones probably, but I did not need any 4K Signal and only a short length...

So drilled some holes on the Case, cut some plastic with the dremel (I´m really bad at that.. ) and after connecting everything and putting all back together, the
former Laptop did:

Turn off after a few seconds..... WTF? So.. open the Case, check every cable, connect HDMI for the "internal Screen" and USB-C for the Big Screen... and... wait for it... It turned off again..
After a many iterations of: "Let´s disconnect this cable an see if it makes any difference" I found out, that the Laptop REALLY doesn´t like it when the AC-Adapter is connected AND a USB-C Power-Delievery capable Display (which was how I connected my main Display).

So since it needs the 180w AC-Adapter and refuses to boot with 90w Power Delivery via USB-C only, the solution was to use a simple USB-C -> HDMI Adapter for the Main Monitor (= no PD Confusion). I´ve tried to connect the Display via the mini Display Port on the back before, but this did not really work as well - But at least I´ve experienced then how Windows 11 looks in 640x480...

So USB-C -> HDMI to the Rescue.... Aaaand... it .... WORKS!
Including Touch for the 11,9 Display, Windows 11, 2 NVME SSDs and 32 GB RAM (slightly different config from what´s shown in the first picture). And you can have fun with Dell´s Firmware Updates too - since the program wont install any firmware without a battery - took a while until I´ve found the correct command line option to override....

So now I have a Laptop hanging on the Wall, which will probably freak out because the Cooling solution is old, upside down and vertical (but has new thermal paste of course). I even ran cinebench and almost immediately had some Thermal throtteling (at least until the fans ramped up, sounding like a starting Jet...). Unfortunately there´s no chance to configure fan curves on dell laptops (apart from that Dell Power Manager with 4 Presets you can´t change, which takes ages to start and is still confused why there´s not battery ).

OK this is the current state...

But since it´s a kind of silly project anyway - there´s of course one thing still missing: RGB!

Any maybe some kind of Center Fan to help with cooling, and a few 3D-Printed parts to cover up some holes etc..

Hope you had some fun reading this - I´ll post some updates here, when I have an Idea how to get some RGB on that
(thinking about an USB-Powered ESP8266 with WLED Firmware and individually adressable LEDs)...

Oh, an the Display is not just a gimmick:
My plan is to have a Custom Home Assistant Dashboard there, when i´m using the Walltop (or whatever you might call this - Any Ideas?)...

So I can work on the big Screen and quickly see some Network-Stats and the Weather report or toggle heating, lights etc. (That´s why i went with a Touchscreen-Version)

Now I only hope that it doesn´t drop from the Wall - as it´s attached with some Adhesive Hooks (they should support more than double the weight of that thing, but who knows)...

Regards from germany and good night...

Pixel-Spielkind

thrasher_565 · July 8, 2022

On 7/6/2022 at 3:07 PM, PixelSpielkind said:

...sort of...

I just wanted to share my latest strange Upcycling Project , with a "Why throw it in a landfill, if it might still be usable" Laptop....
Hope this does count as a "Build Log", even though it´s no fancy Power-Machine, not even a real PC....

It started like this:

This used to be a Dell Precision Laptop - it ended up more or less in the Trash with a Broken Display, Keyboard not working anymore (my guess -> due to Coffee ), not booting...

Nothing new, fast or energy efficient by today´s standard, but who knows maybe still working.

It even has a dedicated GPU.
OK it´s just a Radeon Pro WX4150 with 4GB RAM

But hey - a GPU!

The CPU is a Core i7-8750H

6 Core, 12 Threads

2,2 GHz Base Clock
4,1 GHz Max

And it has 4 SODimm Slots

Not that bad...

So after cleaning everything, applying new thermal paste I turned it on and... nothing.. Power LED turned on, no post screen, nothing...
I almost wanted to give up, but thankfully I had a "half working" Dell Display form another project laying around and thought: "Well, it can´t get any worse"...

So I connected the Display via the internal eDP Port and Voila: POST Screen, BIOS Access etc... Turns out I needed to disable the automatic GPU Switching in the BIOS, otherwise the POST-Screen was routed to the internal Display only and not to the dedicated Radeon GPU´s HDMI...

OK so a Laptop in the Original "base" but without a display. Just hide it somewhere under the Desk and use it as a daily driver for light work, right?

Well, that´s what I thought until i saw this one:

11,9 Inch (1480x340), Touchscreen, USB-Powered, HDMI

And a size that might fit the Case if I cut out about 3 times the Size of the
Touchpad without breaking the cover.

Connected to the Outside USB and HDMI, because there´s no chance to use an Internal Connection.

I even had some Ribbon Cables and HDMI Plugs that I could use. Not the best quality Cable,
more for drones probably, but I did not need any 4K Signal and only a short length...

So drilled some holes on the Case, cut some plastic with the dremel (I´m really bad at that.. ) and after connecting everything and putting all back together, the
former Laptop did:

Turn off after a few seconds..... WTF? So.. open the Case, check every cable, connect HDMI for the "internal Screen" and USB-C for the Big Screen... and... wait for it... It turned off again..
After a many iterations of: "Let´s disconnect this cable an see if it makes any difference" I found out, that the Laptop REALLY doesn´t like it when the AC-Adapter is connected AND a USB-C Power-Delievery capable Display (which was how I connected my main Display).

So since it needs the 180w AC-Adapter and refuses to boot with 90w Power Delivery via USB-C only, the solution was to use a simple USB-C -> HDMI Adapter for the Main Monitor (= no PD Confusion). I´ve tried to connect the Display via the mini Display Port on the back before, but this did not really work as well - But at least I´ve experienced then how Windows 11 looks in 640x480...

So USB-C -> HDMI to the Rescue.... Aaaand... it .... WORKS!
Including Touch for the 11,9 Display, Windows 11, 2 NVME SSDs and 32 GB RAM (slightly different config from what´s shown in the first picture). And you can have fun with Dell´s Firmware Updates too - since the program wont install any firmware without a battery - took a while until I´ve found the correct command line option to override....

So now I have a Laptop hanging on the Wall, which will probably freak out because the Cooling solution is old, upside down and vertical (but has new thermal paste of course). I even ran cinebench and almost immediately had some Thermal throtteling (at least until the fans ramped up, sounding like a starting Jet...). Unfortunately there´s no chance to configure fan curves on dell laptops (apart from that Dell Power Manager with 4 Presets you can´t change, which takes ages to start and is still confused why there´s not battery ).

OK this is the current state...

But since it´s a kind of silly project anyway - there´s of course one thing still missing: RGB!

Any maybe some kind of Center Fan to help with cooling, and a few 3D-Printed parts to cover up some holes etc..

Hope you had some fun reading this - I´ll post some updates here, when I have an Idea how to get some RGB on that
(thinking about an USB-Powered ESP8266 with WLED Firmware and individually adressable LEDs)...

Oh, an the Display is not just a gimmick:
My plan is to have a Custom Home Assistant Dashboard there, when i´m using the Walltop (or whatever you might call this - Any Ideas?)...

So I can work on the big Screen and quickly see some Network-Stats and the Weather report or toggle heating, lights etc. (That´s why i went with a Touchscreen-Version)

Now I only hope that it doesn´t drop from the Wall - as it´s attached with some Adhesive Hooks (they should support more than double the weight of that thing, but who knows)...

Regards from germany and good night...

Pixel-Spielkind