I'm going back with a hammer later.  I dropped a dumbbell I on it for a while earlier:

Emp, what was that, a Latitude D610?

if so then it deserved it, lousy overheating piece of junk

I'm going to take my old Compaq laptop, camcorder and a shotgun to Western MD soon.

if so then it deserved it, lousy overheating piece of junk

Yes it was.

And it did have overheating problems.

That's crazy.

I probably could have fixed it, and those regularly go for $300+ on ebay.

edit:  but i will say, my favorite part is how you neatly organized all of the pieces to take a photo. 

Smashing it was much more satisfying than fixing it would have been.  As much as I love soldiering & thought the problem was that the AC adapter & board connection needed to be resoldiered from everything I read online.

If I had sold it two weeks earlier when I first decided to sell it, I wouldn't have had to deal with the problem & I would have the $300 I was offered for it on craigslist in my pocket.



I'm also scavenging parts to build a new desktop for music & internet surfing at home use...to tide me over until Diablo 3 forces me to build something better.  For a while in college, I was going through a desktop computer every 6-8 months just because I like building them.

We recently phased out all of our D610s at the office, and have probably 40 of 'em in the storage room in various states of brokeness. I believe we even had a few D600s on the floor. Maybe I'll take one or two home and do the same thing!

Destroying technology is highly satisfying.  I can't recommend it enough.

I'm also scavenging parts to build a new desktop for music & internet surfing at home use...

I'm almost positive that none of the D610 parts will work in a desktop machine.

However, take a look at something like this.  It's ridiculously sexy, and probably only pulls about 35W-40W at the wall.

If you want to build something like it on your own, I strongly recommend this with a case.

And then, there are always good deals on ebay.  I bought a similar one of these, from the same seller, and I've been very happy with it so far.

I'm scavenging parts from other sources.  My dad usually has a lot of stuff, as well as various friends.  I might be able to get everything except a hard drive if I'm really lucky. 

I think someone did manufacture a motherboard that used the Pentium M.  It's absolutely certain that no parts from my D610 would work in any machine at this point, though.  I have since laid all the parts on a 45lb plate, dropped another 45lb plate on to it...then went after it with a hammer.

It was certainly fun, but not nearly as fun as taking one of the hand scanners home from Target and smashing the shit out of it.

I think someone did manufacture a motherboard that used the Pentium M.

Yeah, there were a few motherboards & barebones systems which used the P-M.  However, most of them are impossible to find these days.  Needless to say, as a low-power, low-noise enthusiast, I have 3 of them. 

Why don't you just use the hard drive from the D610?  That could be put on an adapter to make it 40-pin.  Unless it was destroyed, along with everything else?

I was going to start a thread about more computer nerd shit, but this looks like the place to do it!

So the fall tv shows start back up this week, and having gotten rid of cable from Time Warner (saved $80/month!) I no longer have a DVR. That is a problem for me, because I rarely watch television shows live. Anyway, I have spent a few months researching various ways of getting a DVR in my living room. I stayed away from an HTPC because I don't really want a pc in the living room, nor do I need the maintenance and upkeep on a pc. The DTVPal DVR looked like exactly what I was looking for. But the reviews are "meh" at best, and at worst the thing crashes fairly frequently during records, and for no apparent reason at all. I need a god damn solution for an OTA HD DVR. I don't want to spend any fees for a guide either on a Tivo box. There just aren't that many solutions.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago I hung my head and started looking into ATSC tuner cards. I bought this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815293002, because the reviews are ok and I love the remote on it. It's not too cheesy and looks like a serious remote. I installed it yesterday in my pc and took it for a whirl. The application that came with it picks up all 10 local HD channels with good signal, but Windows Media Center only picked up 6 and I had to manually add the other 4. Anyway I did some test recording and it records fine. Kind of nifty that it has a built-in FM tuner as well. I can record loveline or whatever and listen later if I want to. I do think I will be replacing the dinky anntena that came with it, with an amplified one just in case.

Anyway so I was all happy and whatever, I can watch tv on my pc. Well I want to watch it in the living room. So, having an Xbox 360, I have the Media Center Extender configured. I excitedly powered up the 360 this afternoon to watch some Live TV and a recorded HD show that I had, and FUCKKKKKK. HD streaming via 802.11G = FAIL. Live TV was of course, worse than the recorded show. The recorded show was fine for about 10 minutes and then would fuck up and the audio and video would get out of synch and I would have to pause it, change the channel and change back. SOOOOO. Problem is I do NOT want an Ethernet cable running from the router in my bed room, into my Xbox in the living room. I also don't want to drill holes in my walls to feed a cable through.

That means, back to an HTPC in the living room. I want a sleek one, that looks like it BELONGS in the living room. I'll probably end up getting a second tuner card as well so I can record two shows at once, but for now I need to find the cheapest and best-looking case available.

I have heard of ultra slim HTPC cases that are powered via fanless power supplies. Basically it's like a laptop power brick that sits "outside" the box. I believe that is going to be something that fits my needs.

Anybody know anything about these cases, seen them in action, know any good brands/models, etc?

Do what I may or may not do, wait for the show to air, then download as soon as its available on a torrent site.

This may or may not work really well if the original airing of a show is in another country, and months before it may or may not reach these shores.

I may or may not have already seen the latest season of Top Gear.

bagman, we can get together someday to talk through your build plans.

I have made over half a dozen HTPCs for myself (I'm only using one right now), and almost the same amount for friends and family.

If you want some advice, I'll be glad to give it.

PS - we'll want to look at a couple of different factors regarding wireless playback, because it works fine for me in my own home.

I don't mind spending a bit of money on the hard drive at this point, since I'll move it to the future computer I will build to play Diablo 3.  I would just prefer to delay buying the processor for as long as possible (for better prices and because I don't feel like researching the current lines of processors right now).

well, again, it's a hobby of mine that i've kept up.  if you'd like some advice, i've...  well, i've already given you some, but I can give some more. 

I didn't even notice that was a combo price for the motherboard & CPU.  That might be worth doing & keeping around regardless of what I do in the future.

yeah, the ION board is all one piece.  like, not separated.  and fanless, so a single case fan in the right place is good enough to ventilate it!