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]

16 Responses to Asus Eee PC trace hunting

M1st3rG0n3 says:

November 21, 2007 at 10:23 am

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!!!

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pcgfx805 says:

November 21, 2007 at 10:38 am

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

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Johnny B. Goode says:

November 21, 2007 at 10:44 am

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………..

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boardboy says:

November 21, 2007 at 11:15 am

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

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localroger says:

November 21, 2007 at 12:53 pm

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.

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andrew says:

November 21, 2007 at 1:38 pm

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.

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The Steven says:

November 21, 2007 at 3:57 pm

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

Fine then, I’ll get one too!

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fucter says:

November 21, 2007 at 6:11 pm

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

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tom61 says:

November 21, 2007 at 6:35 pm

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

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Frank says:

November 21, 2007 at 7:05 pm

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

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Josh says:

November 23, 2007 at 12:34 pm

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

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Josh says:

November 23, 2007 at 12:36 pm

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

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strider_mt2k says:

November 23, 2007 at 1:56 pm

Nice work!

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

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Steve says:

November 29, 2007 at 7:19 pm

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?

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Steve says:

November 29, 2007 at 7:50 pm

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.