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DIY tablet computer, maybe.

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S. Heslop:
Blargh, so much for cheap PC parts. Spent £50 on a 4 year old i5-4590T CPU that hopefully wasn't ran full blast since its manufacture. The i3 chips turned out to be more expensive than the i5 ones. By coincidence at least the motherboard I found uses the same range of chips as my desktop, and the processor I just bought is a little bit better than what i'm currently using. So assuming what arrives is functional I can shove that into this computer if all else fails.

The whole computer parts world is in a weird place at the moment, mostly because of bitcoins. Graphics cards are especially hard hit with the prices rocketing, although starting to come back down a bit as the hysteria fades, since most of the calculations are done on the GPU. I figure people must be buying up second hand CPUs and other hardware to assemble mining computers as cheap as possible, and perhaps people assuming that i3s are the cheapest option has people fighting over those before looking at the mid range chips.


There was that whole reveal a bit back that most of intel's performance gains in the last few years has been through removing security features. Which were eventually discovered by no-goodniks and had to be patched in, massively tanking performance on alot of chips. I hear intel has given up alot of its R&D, and focussed more on directly competing with ARM and the low power chips, so their desktop stuff has been somewhat stagnant and most of the developers have quit for hopefully better jobs. But maybe the performance changes have made the older chips seem just as good as the newer ones.

I think all I need now is an LVDS cable. I hate shopping.

S. Heslop:
Hope nobody minds these rambling posts!

The motherboards manual is pretty barebones on the info included. But in the diagram legend it says "LVDS connector (For All-In-One Specification)" so i've just looked up what all-in-one specification means. Intel has a big bunch of documents that are thankfully publically available outlining the thin mini ITX specification in more detail than I can understand. But right off the bat it says 40 pin LVDS when my screen uses 30, so that dashes all hopes of it just working right off the bat. Should've counted those pins to begin with!

LVDS is interesting. It's hard to find any info on it, along with inverters, but from what i've read it's barely a standard. It seems every manufacturer just changes stuff around even between models, as a joke, so little is interchangeable. But thankfully most displays are making a move towards eDP which is more standardized. But apparently really hard to make work right in a DIY sense since it's all RF black magic.

It's still exciting though, since a lack of standards is a big part of why DIY portables are uncommon. If I have some success with this build then it might not mean much to anyone else, since i'd be using a specific display model and specific digitizer model that might become hard to get ahold of if even just a few people decide they want to follow my steps and buy them up. I'd be surprised if that were to happen though. Hell i'll be surprised if this works at all!


So yeah i'll need to slap that Chinese board in the middle. But that runs off of 12 volts when the motherboard takes 19. I'd slap a buck converter somewhere in the line but I'm not sure if they'd have some kinda... whats the word. Transients? That might upset the motherboard.

S. Heslop:
Here's a concept. Dimensions are about 400x270x40mm so it's quite a big thing.



The general idea though is to have an aluminium or maybe steel plate for the top, an aluminium or steel band bent around into a kinda squareish shape for the sides, wooden bottom, then some kinda grip thing on the left with buttons. The idea is that there'll be some buttons arranged in a fan to match the arc of your thumb when holding the left. It'd probably end up so heavy and off to the side that picking it up one handed wouldn't be feasible, but resting it on your lap or on a table you'd likely still be holding it with a hand to steady it.

I got carried away a bit though and those tapered edges would be hard to build. Tapered sides are a classic feature of chunky electronics, they've been doing that for years to give the illusion it's thinner than it really is, and I think it's a vital part of making this look 'semi-professional'. But I could try out a stepped side, which is visible in some of those early tablets in the OP and looks more interesting

awemawson:
Simon,

Any chance you could limit your pictures to 800x600 pixels, so those of us without wide screen surround sound mega gaming pcs on steroids can see them WITHOUT having to go to the other side of the road ? Thanks

. . . oh welcome back by to way  :thumbup:

S. Heslop:
I did consider that, and made it an effort in the past. But with the world moving towards 4k i'm starting to consider regular HD to be getting old. Not that i'm in love with 4k. 1920x1200 is ideal, with pixels so small I cant see them with the display at a comfortable distance that doesn't require panning your neck around to see the edges. But I guess they've gotta make us buy new stuff somehow.

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