Asus Eee PC trace hunting

posted Nov 20th 2007 10:14pm by Will O'Brien
filed under: laptops hacks

There isn’t anything hacked into it yet, but [tnkgrl] spent some time hunting around her Eee PC for some handy hackable extras. I’d been ignoring them, but now I want one. Oh yes, I do. Hit the writeup for details, but [tnkgrl] identified some semi un-used USB connections, an accessible 5v supply and a spare mini-pcie slot that seems to disable the SSD when it’s in use. The currently unusable mini-pci slot is actually pretty intriguing.

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Comments [16]

Reader Comments

Man, i really need to get one of these… then just figure out how to mod so the evdo card will work….

oh, yeah, first post–WOOT!!!

Posted at 10:23 am on Nov 21st, 2007 by M1st3rG0n3

Yeah these little things are pretty handy, we got a couple at work for testing. Interested in possible hacks :D

Posted at 10:38 am on Nov 21st, 2007 by pcgfx805

I think I need one of these two. I’m wondering how well it would work if I soldered a USB connection to one of those unused ports then added a WD Passport for a real live HDD. Oh the possiblilites………..

Posted at 10:44 am on Nov 21st, 2007 by Johnny B. Goode

I was just thinking of adding BT to one of the unused USB ports

Posted at 11:15 am on Nov 21st, 2007 by boardboy

I am so tempted to get one of these things and case mod it with a wider keyboard, move the trackpad up to the side of the display, and add a serious battery pack that could run it at least 12 hours. That would make it about the same width and weight as a normal laptop, still considerably shorter (especially nice when the dude in front of you on the airplane reclines his seat), and most of all give it enough battery life not to be a constant nuisance.

Posted at 12:53 pm on Nov 21st, 2007 by localroger

We’re purchasing these for every student at my school next year. I have two evaluation units and they are wonderful to play with. I’m currently working on a custom OS image to try and make them more “school” ready.

Posted at 1:38 pm on Nov 21st, 2007 by andrew

Oh great! It’s the I-Opener all over again!

Fine then, I’ll get one too!

Posted at 3:57 pm on Nov 21st, 2007 by The Steven

mine is coming on monday, I can’t wait!

Posted at 6:11 pm on Nov 21st, 2007 by fucter

I got one a few days ago. Neat laptop, a bit constrained in resolution, but not horrible.

Once I make sure I don’t need the warranty (I’ve already ran into an issue, so I might actually need it), I’ll start modding mine.

The hacks and modding section of the EEEUser forums has a fair number of hardware mods, including an internal HD mod:
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewforum.php?id=12

Posted at 6:35 pm on Nov 21st, 2007 by tom61

Do you think this could be turned into an automotive GPS??

Posted at 7:05 pm on Nov 21st, 2007 by Frank

Man the asus are really nice the company I work for is becoming a reseller of these little guys they are so simple they restore back to oem in less then 10 sec. and they boot up in 21 sec

Posted at 12:34 pm on Nov 23rd, 2007 by Josh

1. Man, i really need to get one of these… then just figure out how to mod so the evdo card will work….

oh, yeah, first post–WOOT!!!

All you have to do is set up a new dial up conntion and the phone number is #777
your user name is 555-555-5555@vzw.com
and the password is vzw
and youll are set

Posted at 12:36 pm on Nov 23rd, 2007 by Josh

Nice work!

I also would love to get my hands on one of these.

Posted at 1:56 pm on Nov 23rd, 2007 by strider_mt2k

It seems to me that there is probably enough room in the case for a small BT adaptor plugged into a usb lead and the other end soldered to the pins on the back of one of the usb sockets. Am I missing something or would this work?

Posted at 7:19 pm on Nov 29th, 2007 by Steve

Regarding my comment above, I appreciate that if the BT adaptor was drawing current from the usb socket it would mean twice as much current was being drawn if something external was also plugged into the socket, but how does this differ from an unpowered usb hub?

I have an unpowered hub on my laptop using two devices and it can support up to 4 devices. The other end is plugged into a usb socket. There are no problems with this.

Posted at 7:50 pm on Nov 29th, 2007 by Steve

OK I just realised that it would cause signal conflicts. Silly me!

Posted at 8:52 pm on Nov 29th, 2007 by Steve