I have a VERY OLD Laptop that only has like a 1 GB Hard Drive and only a Pentium 1 but the problem is that it needs a charger to charge the battery but the battery charger costs more then what the Laptop is worth. so I was wondering is there anyway I can wire it so it can run by plugging it in the wall? Oh yeah I have already taken it apart just to see what it looked like inside so I hope I can get put make together
mod a normal PSU and put it in there mabye? find out what voltage the charger is and buy a similar one...
if I were you, and I had a lappy I didn't have a use for, I would SO mod it to my car. Buy a massive HD for it, run the audio out through an amp, and put it in your car, AS IS, tO pown your friends systems. Install winamp and kill them all with your 1337 collection of instant music. CD changer? Whats that?
I think You'd prolly be better off using a standard Mini-itx mobo and small screen in your car, on that note, I asked this before but no one answered, how difficult is it to leangthen the monitor cable on a lappy? what should I use?
just to extend it? multilead shielded cable should do... don't think it's anything special about those cables...
Depends on the type of monitor cable the laptop uses. Some use a flexible, plastic ribbon cable... sort of a dark mustard/orange color. You can't extend that, only buy a longer cable. But if it's normal wires, go ahead and whip out the solderin' iron.
Ive got an old laptop too which i was wondering what to do with until i noticed Smilodon say "mod a normal PSU and put it in there mabye?" My question is how do you do this? I have no knowledge of electronics but I know PSU's only go up to 12v and laptop's usually run on 19v.
Depends on the screen. There is a clock line going from the lappy to the LCD. If the cord gets too long, the clock gets off and things go screwy. I think I read about that on www.mp3car.com or one of those sites.
what i meant was to take the cover of a normal psu and put only the electronics in there... INSTEAD of the original PSU.. nor use a psu so supply the lappy psu...
it CAn be done, but it can get more complicated... i'm not sure what the voltage is BEFORE the regulators in a PSU, but if it's high enough you can change it it to a regulator with a output voltage of 19 volts... OR you can use both the positive and negative voltage lines HOWEVER! often the negative 12 volt linge can't supply much current.. you need to check that first...
Maybe you've already been down this road, but I thought I'd remind you that there's a wealth of parts for older notebooks on eBay. You might get lucky and stumble across a cheap used battery charger or power adapter. Good luck!!
Depends on how old it is I think. If it less than about 120MHz its not going to be able to play mp3s even in DOS mode. And if it is as old as you make it sounds, chances are it doesnt have a cd-rom or sound card either. Rather than add all these things into that laptop, easier to mod a mini-ITX or similar system to sit in your boot with a screen on your dash. With this you could also have wireless 802.11g networking so that you could transfer music from your home pc to your car pc without discs or anything, when you are parked outside the house.
