I recently started a project of converting a Powerbook to a media center that would stay attached to my entertainment center (will use CenterStage as interface).
So my question is, what are the bare bones essential parts of the Powerbook that I would need to have a rumming system? I'm scrounging parts and buying from Ebay.
Currently I have from a 12" Powerbook:
* 1.33ghz logic board DVI
* DC to DC board
* Inner Frame (with fan)
* Heat Sink
Now the obvious parts needed would be ram, hard drive, and DC In Board. Don't need the battery and the modem nore the speakers. Don't need a display but a touch screen would be nice.;)
Probably should put in a superdrive.But what can I exclude and still have a working system?
Any and all help/info is appreciated!
Jim
Hi Jim,
I am not familiar w/ centerstage, but it looks like it is a front-end for a video/movie viewing program? That logic board definitely would make a very capable video machine, but that would (obviously) neccesitate a display/TV of some sort...
Anyway, provided I have what centerstage does right, here's my thoughts on what you'd need:
* logic board w/ RAM, DC in & power brick
* harddrive (unless you want to network boot it)
(an external firewire one would work--you can install onto it from another mac to simplify things)
* if you want, a DVD player (again an external firewire one would work nicely if you want to tuck the logic board,etc. somewhere out of site)
* the various cable(s?) for connecting the internal harddrive & DVD if you go that route (I think it is just 1 cable..)
* and however you want to connect it to a display (either s-video or DVI or not or whatever)
* audio cables, and/or the multi-channel boxes centerstage lists on their site--I almost bought the m-audio sonica, but wound up getting a surround sound speaker set that seems to do a decent job decoding for me.
* network cable / airport card if you want to connect it to a network (mm, divx files from file-server)
I have had good luck with ATI's Remote Wonder on my headless cube (tho iTunes is a source of annoyance.) and have also have good luck with the GyroMouse & keyboard (and actually, I had a logitech wireless keyboard installed before, so the volume keys on the gyro keyboard work as a result of that)
other thoughts.. airflow over the logicboard--possibly not a big deal, but I imagine that the fans were designed to move air through the case & over all parts of the logicboard (not just the heatsinks), and with the logicboard naked, other parts of it will possibly get hotter than they should--a larger fan blowing over everything might be good..also might cut down on high pitched whine--ISTR those 12" PB fans were loud.. though you might wait & see--they tend not to come on until the temp. gets really hot..
anyway, sounds like a good project--the 12" PB have all the connectors on one side & the DVD player on the other, which makes for convinent connections & dvd accessibility.
Jonathan