I spent the saturday destroying (taking apart) my old laptop that I wanted to use as a server. I had all the parts and was playing around a bit.

Sunday I woke up, made a plan as I ate breakfast, and started working at about 9:30. It's now 20:30, and its FINISHED! Heres the pics:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21070187@N07/

I will probably put this behind the tv or under some cabinet so that it doesn't bother anyone or attract attention. It's so quiet it's silent in a normal environment, in my very quiet room you can just hear the small harddisk spinning up sometimes.

What I did, in order, was:

- Get the insides of a laptop and everything together and make sure it all still works
- Find something to build it into.
- Brainstorm stuff that you will (need to) do to it to make it fit and work. In my case, make a fan controller and fanhole, make a fan switch and power switch
- Get the stuff you need at the local store (i spent $6)
- Build a fan controller using ur 1337 electronix sk1llz
- Wire everything you need to
- Find a way to mount the thing into the case so that it won't.. fall out. I used nails through the screwholes, but if you have any common sense just use the screws.
- Keep testing making sure it still works
- Mount the motherboard in the case
- Think of a way to mount the screen, if you want to. I had the genius revelation of using these tubes I get my NE555s in.
- Do more glueing and taping and isolating stuff
- Mount all the buttons somewhere
- Oh, don't forget to mount the fan and superglue the heatsink to the processor.
- Test to see if the final product works, and fail. Get angry, play around with the wires and wait until it fixes itself.
- Take pics

(This post was last modified: 27/01/2008 05:37 AM by Ge64.)

Finally its here,.. now,.. hmm,.. where can i buy one and whots it cost!?!

so,.. no one should notice this server now,..?
You glued the cpu fan to the cpu,.!

lol, that's a cool idea you had there ge64, bet your bored now all the excitement is over :P
im gonna have to try this though..
* dedat goes out to find the parts he needs to build his own folder server..

I believe you can also get things designed to reduce HDD noise (and probably heat too).

If you can't get it, basic insulation should do the trick.

the laptop had one small fan on the tiny heatsink. it made a hell of a noise. i put in a 8cm silent fan at 12v, it doesn't get warm at all now.

anyway i bet if my parents don't notice for a few days that means theyre ok with it, cause its so stealth :P

They don't like ugly stuff in the living room, and they don't think i 'need' a pc in the living room either. my dad would say the network is fast enough for anything i want to do.