hardware
25
Jan 10
watercooled xbox 360, 2010 update
so i’ve noticed hundreds and hundreds of hits coming from my youtube videos regarding my watercooled xbox 360 project and i know there really isn’t any closure on the project yet anywhere on this blog, so i thought i’d post this up real quick.
the project’s done. it’s running just fine. there’s another video on the way, i promise. i just need to finish editing it and upload it. i hope to find some time this week to actually do that, so please check back often. i have another big watercooling project on the way and will try to document that as much as possible.
meanwhile, why not enjoy some of these recorded gaming sessions i have up on youtube? =)
(you’ll find a lot of cod:waw and halo ODST, although i’m more of a mw2 person now)
6
Oct 09
osx on hp mini note, part 2
i’ve noticed a lot of users visiting my earlier post, osx installed on hp mini note.
that hp mininote 2133 is long gone and although i’ve purchased 2 of the newer hp mini 1000 units, i’ve never attempted to install osx on them. but what i do want to do is give a little more insight into the controversial topic of installing osx on the hp mininote 2133.
i’ve seen all of the threads about my laptop and i’ve also seen the blog articles. there’s been a lot of controversy over it all due to the fact of my lack of actual installation steps. but there’s a reason behind all of that.
you see, i’m all about pushing those that are into technology to further developing this world into a better one. pushing them to do new things, experiment more, document and publish their findings. but people out there are afraid; afraid to try things on their own. afraid to do things for themselves. so instead, they go out there on the internet and google tutorials and conform to what other people have already done.
so for something as difficult as installing osx on a piece of hardware, i was not just about to release the information so easily. in my mind, i knew i could do it. basically. osx is an operating system; a collection of programs communicating with each other to run software. with the proper hardware, osx can be installed on anything. the majority of all laptops usually have the proper hardware already.
the mininote 2133, running on the via chip, could run osx. all that was required was the modification of the kernel. doing so, i could reallocate the appropriate amounts of memory and resources to the debuggers, compilers, text editors and such to run on the mininote 2133 hardware, regardless of it’s cpu chipset. the compiler, with enough resources, can translate the patched code into binary that the mininote’s hardware can understand. please note the word “patched”. obviously, for all of this to work, it’ll require a few extra lines of instructions to run on the altered hardware, but it’s possible.
so please, stop conforming. we don’t want to be stuck at our current stage with a bunch of copycats. that’s all you get.
22
Sep 09
watercooled xbox 360 update: passive cooling
passive cooling on the watercooled xbox 360. cooling all voltage regulators and the ana chip. still running like a champ!
14
Sep 09
from good day to a really bad day
- woke up late for meeting. rushed to get to the kingdomhall on time. turns out i wasn’t as late as i thought.
- awesome talk, awesome watchtower study. awesome.
- bento with all of south bay. i mean literally. sat at the bosses table with the usuals + ian jay and jaymar.
- joked around about homophobes and what jec and i plan to do to a homophobe that we know. commence laughter. LOUD laughter.
- chill at jec’s for a bit, pick up a CPU for real cheap for jerome, then walk around the container store while my brother shops for shelves for his room.
- rush back to chula vista because we were late for our 3pm meeting for duncan ranch maintenance/sound/phone/ac/security training. turns out we weren’t late at all.
- awesome 3pm meeting. chilled around duncan ranch with josh and kuya sonny until our 5pm meeting.
- after the 5pm meeting, we spent some time in the west hall with leonard, jay, josh, the riveras, the santos’ and the angeles. everyone was claiming their seats and parking spaces while josh jay leonard and i made a few decisions for the stage, sound and literature/magazine counter. excited fun.
- picked up some L&L. that’s always a good thing.
- chilled with jerome before putting together the final touches on his computer.
here’s where the day takes a complete 180
- i get home and find one of my two triops dead.
- we put in the new cpu. the PC still doesn’t start up. definitely not a cpu problem. must be the motherboard (memory and PSU already tested at this point. the only other culpurits were the cpu and mobo). newegg mobo was pronounced dead on arrival.
- i take apart the HTPC and drop a screw in the freaking power supply. i have to remove it later on. go me.
- taking out a motherboard with the entire watercooling system is no easy task.
- jerome’s cpu cooler is too large for the motherboard. the screws dont fit. the only other screws we had were 2″ long which we had to remove material from so it wouldn’t hit anything on the cooler.
- i screw the cooler in the wrong order (washer, nut, washer, etc). i spent 10 minutes doing this only for it to be removed again.
- we toss the motherboard in. boots up. but josh and i forget to rearrange the brass standoffs. this means a shorted motherboard.
- we spend an hour trying to turn on the motherboard since it keeps shutting off. we check everything and find the short after the hour’s gone.
- after loosening the board so the short doesn’t happen, we start up the pc. it boots. but then the motherboard starts to smoke and one of the voltage regulator’s turns red. goodbye motherboard. (the brass shorted the bottom of the regulator’s soldering, re-soldering it to another point on the circuit board, causing it to heat up constantly and die on us).
total losses at the end of the night:
- $20 socket 478 cpu that is useless to us.
- $90 xfx 630i hdmi motherboard that shorted out.
- $50 pair of ocz memory sticks (night before)
- $70 motherboard from newegg was DOA. 15% restocking fee and shipping fees for the refund.
10
Sep 09
updating my design/gaming rig: motherboard
just scored myself a $200 motherboard for only $32. ebay ftw. the seller thought his motherboard was busted because after upgrading from an e8200 to an e8400 processor, the computer wouldn’t boot up. what he fails to realize is an outdated bios will cause this. hahaha what an idiot.
(more on my updated parts list for the design/gaming rig later)
20
Aug 09
been wanting to get into hardware hacking
arduino and other similar microcontrollers to be more specific. it’d be nice to put together a motion sensor security system based on how much light is in the room and how much movement.
arduino basics with accelerometer
a really cool EMF detector
21
Jul 09
electrical hack: 1tb HD media player for the bmw
the goal for this mod is simple: to be able to watch anything from my entire movie collection in the comfort of my own car via a western digital media player and western digital 1tb passport drive. hardwiring something like this to a vehicle’s unregulated DC electrical system was not going to be easy either. stage 1 photos inside!
