Add Everything To Your EeePC


[C.K.] passed along this impressive writeup on modding an eeePC for just about everything you can think to add. This one’s got two four port USB hubs, internal GPS, bluetooth, 56k modem, FM audio transmitter, 4gb USB flash drive and a 801.11a/b/g/n card with a spare antenna for full 802.11n support. The wiring job looks excellent – very clean and well done. The only thing missing is a touchscreen.

30 thoughts on “Add Everything To Your EeePC

  1. it’s awesome, but i’m surprised there’s no detriment to the USB functionality or GPS with that sort of wiring–looks neat, but definitely not controlled impedance and not electrically sound with higher-speed signals. The only reason I’m emphasizing this is that I recently tried to extend the USB connector for an internal flash reader I got with some simple braided wiring, and it just refused to work until I redid it with some real USB cabling. The distance of these connections in the laptop is shorter, and the spacing is just right, I guess.

  2. Is there any way to actually access the site posted? The google cache nor it work- they usually just time out.

    Now I am actually considering an Eee PC, especially with the touchscreen+other mods.

  3. The USB signals are differential so there isn’t really any trouble with cross talk between the pairs. the real thing you have to watch out for with USB is external EMI or RFI. Since the entire case of the laptop acts like a shield, it cuts most of the interference down to negligible levels.

    The layout is incredibly neat. Very methodical. Very Clean. Makes me want one.

  4. It will be fine if someone makes a torrent of this which is linked off a thinner version of the front page. It certainly counts as a ‘heavy page’ as it is.

    It’s ridiculous to say his USB wiring is inadequate; USB is meant to be less-sensitive since it’s a serial port, for heavenssake. Get finicky in the case of InfiniBand (PCIe) connectors but worry more (on the case) about the antenna fields (the only thing missing in this writeup is per-antenna situation performance evaluations. Maybe USB airbags, SpaceORB joystick input….)

    The laptop itself seems tolerable to use if one made several big virtual displays of it. The (mere 500:1 if I’m perceiving it right) contrast ratio kind of kills it as a pdf reader or other overliteral replacement for a ton of proper print.

  5. Very nice, I’m getting one of these very soon, and you have just done many of the things I was thinking of. Ever since I see the tear downs that show the extra usb port I was thinking “You could add any Small USB device to the inside” and you have done an excellent job.

  6. wellsfrago is wrong. Wrong. The 2G surf is an identical motherboard, but without the cover to change the ram, if you are taking the cover off anyway, then just change the RAM while you are in there.

    I really liked the Eeepc, I can’t get behind it at $300 though. I wanted the $200-$250/60 model to hack a Geforce 6200 into for TV/HDTV/multimonitor outputs, to turn it into a portable media player. (PCIe x1 is perfect, I already have the 6200 card modified to x1, just a few differential pairs and some power and we are good to go)

  7. I like the idea for the switch to turn the devices on or off but what about making a software controller? Nothing complex, just over serial and it could be mounted where the current switch is in the expansion bay.
    Excellent tutorial and one of the best ive seen. I hope to get an eepc soon to start hacking…

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