PC-Playstation 2 Hybrid

[justblair]

Ok the tea didn't do me any good the other night. But I look through my albums to see what I had. Here are some photos of the mobo, cpu cooler mods.

You can see in the pictures that there has been quite a few mods made to the mobo and also the TT big typhoon cooler. I didn't take pictures as I went along, so this is just a finished result. The mods are.

Mobo.

Cut up 2 pII anodised heatsinks. The bits were used to add cooling to.

Green one

The southbridge of the mobo
The power regulator for the graphics card

For the southbridge I had to trim a chunk out of it to allow the graphics card clearance. By happy coincidence the chunk that was trimmed was the right size and shape to sit on the power regulator without fouling the card.

Blue one.

The power regulation section of the mobo
The power regulation for the memory
Any other chips that were hot to the touch.

This got really cut up. I shaped it initially to fit on the mobos power regulation mosfets that control vcore etc. There were 5 (i think) mosfets to cool, but the snag was that they had caps sitting between them. I trimmed the cpu cooler to fit around the caps. It actually is 2 pieces of alu, but lined up to look like one.

The remaining pieces were used to cool any other mosfets or hot chips that I could find on the board.

All the alu sections were attached using double sided thermal tape. This I would say is an extreme mod to do, I know that overclockers have got some extra mhz by cooling the mosfets. In my case though i was out to ensure that passive operation wasn't going to cause instability in the system.

The northbridge needed a bit more...

For this I took an evercool pure copper 6cm heatsink and trimmed it down to clear the CPU cooler. I attached it by using self tapping screws (and plastic washers to spread the tension and insulate) throught the 2 origional mounting holes. It replaced a whiny little fan that was standard in on the Abit NF7 mobo.

I dont know how much of this modification stabalized the system. I do recall that the vcore fluctuations were more stable when viewed on speedfan, but as the system was stable before, I cant say for certain that this more stable vcore made much difference. However this whole setting up phase was done in free air, so perhaps I avoided some problems later.

The Typhoon is another story. I used a tt 8cm copper core from a volcano cooler. Shaped its base, removed the bracket system from the base of the typhoon and attached it to the base. The fins were bent to make it fit. I also bent out the heatpipes, and the alu fins to allow as much fresh air in as possible.

Overall I am not happy with the aesthetics of this, though the mod certainly is a practical one. In free air in my passive config It reduced the idle from 49c to 40c and reduced the load temp from 53.5c down to 48c.

When you are working passive systems any sort of drop in temperature is difficult to achieve. The system runs at most of the time below 40% cpu useage when running MCE. So this made a big difference to the temps. At the time I was running the processor at 1100mhz. This mod gave me another 100 mhz of clock speed whilst the sytem remained stable.

************************************************** ********

Just to show the process, here is a step by step of my second attempt.

I did this mod a second time, this time with lessons learned. This is the worklog for the second typhoon. You can see how much better I got this second time round This one sits in my desk pc, but I may redo the one for the passive pc if I can find a donor heatsink. I got a better result, the mounting system is much neater and I think the airflow is better.

To begin with I started with a standard Athlon XPx2 Cooler. This cost me nothing as it came supplied with a processor being used elsewhere in the house.

Here as you can see it is disassembled and ready for modding.

The fan and the bracket are heading for the parts bin.

Next I marked up the base of the donor ready to be shaped. This will start to make sense when you see the Typhoon ad the donor combined. The section on the base marked pipe needs to be removed, This is to clear the heatpipes on the Typhoon when the donor is placed on top of the Typhoon's collecting plate.

You can see in this picture I have started to drill a line out to remove the pipe section.

I used a jigsaw to cut away more of the base. This was far quicker than drilling. I used the fins on the other side as a guide. You can see on the other side the desired result.

You can see through the glare on this picture the heatpipe section cut and drilled. Ready now to pop it out. More drilling is required to do this.... .

Here you can see I drilled down from the side, near the fins (Sorry the camera doesn't like closeups). Then I used a set of precision files to join the drill holes. Eventually a nugget of Alu fell out and I had clearance for the typhoon pipes.

Next I had to produce a way of mounting the two heatsinks to each other and to the motherboard. The Typhoon normally uses a H plate to mount to the Mobo. In my previous mod I had retained this mechanism as you can see in this picture..

This time I didn't want to cut a slot, I decided that the best way forward was to shape the donor heatsink so that it became part of the mounting mechism. I removed the fins at each end of the heatsink to create a flat surface that replaced the uprights of the H shaped mount. (Kinda hard to explain, the phots make it clearer)

I drilled holes for the bolts through these flat sections and filed clean the cuts. A bit of sandpaper was used to clean away as much tool marks as possible.

Next I had to prepare the typhoon. On the heat plate, there is a copper cover that holds in the heatpipes and also provides a guide for the H bracket. This had to be removed.

First there are 4 Jewelers screws that come out easily with a precision screwdriver. Next the Bracket has to be prised off as it is bonded also. To do this takes guts. I first prised open a gap between the bracket and the plate below. Then out comes a chisel. Holding it flat against the plate I gave it a gentle tap. The glue released and hey presto I have a cooler minus bracket. Sorry i have no photo, Both hands were occupied with the heatsink and chisel. If I had a third hand it would have been wiping the sweat off my brow!!

Fortunately the glue holds the heatpipes in place.

Next I applied as much TIM as I could find in my spares bin. The picture above was taken about half way through. I used about 5g of the stuff. I glued in a couple of strips to the open ends of the pipe grooves so I could hold more TIM.

Now it was time to join the donor and the Typhoon.

The fit was good. All that had to be done now was to bolt the modded typhoon onto the mobo. The bolts hold the whole assembly together.

Attached the fan to the mobo fan header then fitted. You can see also the inline resister that I added to slow the fan down. The results were as follows..

Initially I tested the cooler outside of the case. This yeilded the following...

The processor is an Athlon 3000XP it throws out 90w plus of heat at full load

Before...Idle 34c Load 39c

After...Idle 31c Load 36c

The results were a little marginal, around a 3c drop (6f) both under load and idle. I was a bit disapointed. However when the mobo was fitted back into the case the work became a lot more worthwhile...

Before

47c idle 59c+ load

After

37c idle 47c load

Massive success when the cooler was tested in its intended destination. The PSU fan is in close proximity and it would appear that

a: The PSU is drawing air through the donor,

b: This design is more useful in higher temps.

************************************************** *********

Now to clarify a point before it is questioned.

My camera does some weird stuff in closeup shots. The first modded pictures appear to show a huge bend on the mobo. In real life their is a very small amount of distortion (caused by the Northbridge heatsink), the camera makes it look like a massive bend.

[justblair]

Well this weekend I did not have much time to get much works done, been out protesting... Next weekend is looking pretty limited for time as well. By the time I got back I was pretty knackered... lots of time on my feet.

I did put in a few hours on the software side, and I got good news and bad news.

Good news was that using Samurize I managed to put together a pretty decent looking status screen for the psone screen. It will no doubt evolve in time, but for a first attempt I am pleased.

This is a screenshot if it displaying when a recoded tv show is running. Notice the temperature meters on the left hand side.

And here it is playing some block rockin beats. The temperature meters get replaced with album art.

I have to say thankyou to Uziq accross at the Samurize forums. He adapted a plugin for me so that I could speed the meters up beyond their origional design. This now works very well, so when I press a button on my remote control I get almost instantaneous feedback from the status screen. I left my camera at work, so I cant show you it on the screen, but it looks dam good.

To make the config I had to do some searching to get images that give that Windows MCE theme.

Now for the bad news.....

The processor is an undervolted 2100XP Through all of my months of testing, I have had it running sweet at around 60% processor useage at its busiest (recording tv and playing back at the same time.)

However now with all of the meters running on Samurize, my proc useage has leapt. Playing music back i am getting 100% useage all the time. I have to make some decisions.

a) Do I scrap the status screen and continue the project to my origional spec? Reluctant to do this, the screen looks so sweet, I would be loathed to loose it.

b) Do I bung a fan on the processor and speed it back up to its stock mhz? I was set on the system being fanless... This is a last resort!

c) Do I continue my search for status software that is lighter on the resources (I have a trial for dashboard, an aussie product that is designed specifically for MCE), then strip out what I can from the operating system? The operating sytem will be stripped down anyway just to be more power efficient and to keep the temps down. I experimented with this before, I know I can lop off at least 20% of the processor useage this way.

d) Do I upgrade the processor? I have a 3000XP in my bedroom machine that never gets used to its full potential.

The answer I suspect will be a mixture of c and d. I have to unlock the 3000XP processor if I am to undervolt/underclock it. I cant remember how to do this, memory sort of suggests that it can be done with a wire mod (though I prefer to use conductive ink for this kind of circuit bypassing.

But the eye candy that the screen offers I think will make the project. The design for the case I am going for is discrete hopefully, the screen should give it that air of quality.

Any other suggestions to how to beat this one will be welcomed!

[justblair]

The last two nights I have been researching IC chips for the next part of the project. I have been thinking about producing an off board thermometer attached to the IC bus. I was buying a few bits and pieces anyway for this project, so I thought I would stretch my skills a little and make a pcb. This would let me monitor the PS2 for temps... I'm planning to go passive on it as well.

Need a power regulator for the psone screen, A Lm350 voltage regulator plus caps etc will give me the 7.5v that it needs. Means I wont have a seperate power plug for the screen.

A 24lc21 eeprom to trick out the graphics card into thinking the psone screen is a monitor. Then I can remove powerstrip as part of my OS strip down. Added bonus is I wont get the flickering screen when the machine powers up.

An Alu hamond box to try make a HD enclosure. (I got some cool gel packs a while ago). I'm actually thinking about 2 of these because my 160gb NAS is full. And if the HTPC is going to be powered (S3) then it may as well become a server. I think the silentdrive enclosure isn't the best idea for my HD temps. May add some fins to them to help passive cooling.

A bundle of LEDS for the money shot at the end! Its vain but I think it will look good.

I am planning on adding a riser to one of the graphics cards so that all the cabling for the PSone screen is held internally.

I am also planning on having a pair of usb ports that will auto switch between the PS2 and the PC section. So that the two ports destined for the side of the machine will become dual purpose. Havn't found the switch that will do it, but I know its out there. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I want it to switch on one of the ps2 power rails. i.e. if the PS2 leaves standby the usb is switched to it.

On top of that lot, I intend adding a manual switch for the front of the case that will switch between (leds/screen)-(all off)-(screen only) cased on an on-on-on selector switch.

Planning on having that lot on a single pcb. which will be the sort of control centre that will link the whole project together.. Never attempted anything but the simplest of circuits before, so this is part is akin to uzbekistan joining the space race! By using headers to all the components it should be a sort of linking module for the whole project.

Going to attempt to use the toner transfer method for manufacturing the PCB.

I dont want this project to end I guess, so I keep stretching the design brief.

I have circuits penciled out for all but the USB switching, anyone can help with that I would be grateful.

[justblair]

Well after a bit of a break from the modding the modding, things are starting to move again.

Just got delivery of 2 maxim1668 thermal sensors. Boy these things are small! Hard to believe that in such a small package you get 4 remote sensing channels and 1 local sensor.

Too small for my aging digital camera. This was about the best photo I could get.On a tripod, the camera still cant focus on this little critter.

I am now thinking I may have bit off more than I can chew on this... It looks near impossible to solder 16pins in a 5mm space.

For the pcb etching I am thinking about using a photo resist method to lay the tracks. From what i have read it is the most accurate.

I am still building a shopping list for the central control pcb,

Currently it will have several functions.

Temp monitoring. Especially for the playstation, which may allow me to run it passive. It will mean I can run a switched fan to it.

Monitor control. It will house the monitor eidid, the monitor power supply and will give me something to plug the graphics card to.

Usb splitter. I intend to have the USB ports mounted on the side. I will use the central pcb though to be the routing point for the USB lines. The idea is to have the usb double up as a connection for the pc and the playstation. I was going to use it with some sort of electric switching. Now I am thinking about using a mechanical switch.

LED control. Yup I am thinking along the lines of adding this to the pcb as well.

Can anyone reccomend me a good (preferably free!) pcb design package?

[justblair]

Finally got a parts list made up for the electronics. Phew it aint easy sifting through online catalogues... Checking datasheets and trying to match up crimp housings to the right pins... But I did it. Got the order in to www.farnell.co.uk. They take a minimum order of £20 before VAT but do give free delivery. For the sake of anyone who wishes to copy me (assuming I get it all to work!), here is what I ordered

Part Num. Qty. Availability Line Price Description
Manuf Part No
========= ==== ============ ==========
======================================== ===============
4437421 1 In Stock 15.14 BOX, D/CST F-LID 187X119X56;
Length / He 1590DFLBK
3004752 1 In Stock 1.77 IC, REGULATOR ADJ +1.2/33V;
Voltage regu LM350T
9452729 5 In Stock 0.39 CAPACITOR, 0.1UF 63V; RoHS
Compliant:YES MCMHR63V104M4X7
9693734 5 In Stock 0.24 CAPACITOR, 1UF 50V; RoHS
Compliant:YES; ECA1HM010
770541 50 In Stock 0.60 RESISTOR, 0.25W 5% 240R;
Resistor elemen MCF 0.25W 240R
108238 3 In Stock 0.93 TRIMMER, 5K; RoHS
Compliant:YES; Resisto 3306P-001-502
9846743 10 In Stock 1.20 TRANSISTOR, NPN TO-92; RoHS
Compliant:YE 2N3904
653184 10 In Stock 0.75 CAPACITOR, 0.0022UF 50V;
Capacitance:0.0 ECQB1H222JF.
9731601 10 In Stock 3.60 HEADER, SQ PIN 0.1" 2WAY;
RoHS Compliant 22-05-7028
9731636 5 In Stock 2.90 HEADER, SQ PIN 0.1" 5WAY;
RoHS Compliant 22-05-7058
143126 10 In Stock 1.38 CRIMP HOUSING, 0.1" 2WAY;
RoHS Compliant 22-01-2025
146256 10 In Stock 1.84 CRIMP HOUSING, 0.1" 5WAY;
RoHS Compliant 22-01-2055
9773789 1 In Stock 4.02 CRIMP PIN, 22-30AWG PK100;
RoHS Complian 08-50-0032
9413359 2 In Stock 0.84 IC, SM EEPROM SERIAL, 1K;
RoHS Compliant 24LC21A-I/SNG
477886 50 In Stock 0.60 RESISTOR, 0.125W 5% 47K;
Resistor elemen MCF 0.125W 47K
8577358 10 In Stock 3.40 LED, 5MM 40X100DEG BLUE;
Colour, LED:Blu HLMP-HB55-FJ000
891198 1 In Stock 3.08 PEN ULTRASOLVE 12ML;
Volume:12ml ULS12P
425310 1 In Stock 0.93 SWITCH, 3 POLE 4 POS; RoHS
Compliant:NO; CK1026.
422411 1 In Stock 0.93 SWITCH, 4 POLE 3 POS; RoHS
Compliant:NO; CK1027.
662458 2 In Stock 3.00 KNOB ALUMINIUM SPUN 18MM;
Depth, externa 18S-2D
489864 50 In Stock 1.10 RESISTOR, 0.5W 5% 200R;
Resistor element MCF 0.5W 200R

Shipping : £0.00
Tax : £8.51
Total : £57.15

As you can see I broke the £20 minimum order by a good long shot. I am off to maplins tomorrow to get a pcb manufacture starter kit.

Got a mixture of dread and excitement going on. The electronics involved in this stage is going to be quite a challenge for me. Especially surface mounting that Maxim 1668 temperature controller and building a PCB. I have attempted nothing like this before.

Still looking for tips on PCB design software and PCB manufacture if any veterens are out there? I am thinking about building two seperate PCB. One for the temperature sensor and one for the psone screen power regulator and signal adaptor.

Any helpfull comments most graciously recieved!

[justblair]

Update.

Recieved my order from Farnell. Well I got it Tuesday, but the hammond box they sent me closely resembled a 5 way surge protector. A phone call sorted it out, and my hammond box arrived today. I will forgive them that one easily, sorting out the problem was a joy, The lady that answered the phone could not be more helpful.

In the meanwhile I got some overhead transparency paper for printing the PCB. Tried out Eagle PCB, got baffled more than anything, but I'll learn it.

Tonight however I made my HD silencer. Thanks to Alleycat at SPCR for sharing this gem... You guys have got to make yourself one of these things... its awesome.

So here goes... The recipe for HD silence.

1 Hard drive.
1 Cable
1 Power molex extension (mine was cut off a PII cpu cooler)
3 Gel packs (a la LIDL) 2 quid a box of 2
1 188x119x55mm Alu alloy Hammond enclosure.
some elastic.

Take the hammond box. The one I got was flanged. Go for the flanged version if only because there is something inexplicably very amusing about the word flange. The flanges also give a conveniant way to attach the elastic...More of that in a bit.

Then take 2 of the medical cooling packs and line the base of the Hammond of enclosure, folding them up the sides and back.

Next take your HD and place it in the bed of cool gel that you have made. Push it around a bit to get it settled.

Then mark around the top edge of the box where your cables will come out. File away the edge so that the cables fit and very snugly. Putting a gel pack in the box while you file greatly reduces the He Haw He Haw noise by the way. When you have a good fit, wash and dry everything.

Next place the gel packs and HD and cables back into the Hammond Box

Then add gel pack no 3 to the top...

And carefully attach the.... Flanged... Lid on the box and fit the screws. Be carefull that you dont burst the bag of Gel as you do this....

Next feed several lengths of elastic to the.... Flanges.

And use the elastic to tie the.... Flanged Hammond enclosure to the mounting brackets/points/whatever inside your case. I have knotted these in this picture, when I get to final build, I will sow the elastic into neat loops.

Then power your machine on, hoping that those bags have not burst. And start punishing your HD in a vain attempt to get it to make some noise. Mine is now silent unitil i get my ear to within 20cm of the drive. Thats in a system with no other moving parts. I am so happy I could burst!

It replaces a silentdrive enclosure, Which unsuspended was getting to 44c when recording and watching TV. I have still to test this new enclosure. Initial figures look good, but I figure that the gel will make the temperature change more gradual than before. I'll update with temps in a bit.

[justblair]

This technique I am afraid I can't claim as my own...

Alleycats Homebrew HD enclosure at SPCR

A unlikely as it may seem, the gel packs transfer enough heat (at least in the machines where it has been tried) to the Alu case to cool the drive.

I have just performed a full defrag (first on months) on the drive. It reached 44c. *Within its recommended maximum temperature of 55C*. Took over an hour to reach that temperature.

Of course i will have to monitor it closely over the next week, it has to my knowledge never been tried on a passive machine. I may add fins to the hammond box in the future to compensate for the lack of airflow... But only if I need to.

*Checked my temps this morning the system was left to idle overnight. Got 38c at the HD.*

**Edit

[justblair]

Update:

Been spending the day learning how to build pcbs. Have been using ExpressPCB. At first the whole pcb design thing seemed difficult, but now I seem to have got the knack of it.

Here is the pcb I have come up with so far. It has three functions...

Thermometer
Monitor ID
signal pass through
Power regulator.

One it holds the maxim 1668 controller. Thats on the top right, of the board in the piccie... It will be top left when I have printed it on acetate and turned it over... To the right of it the thermometers will plug in. They will be made from transistors.

Next underneath is just a pass through for the psone screens signalling. Thats the lines running left to right (or is it right to left?) accross the board.

Under that and to the left is a 24LC21 eprom chip. This is going to be programmed with the correct settings to force the matrox GPU to speak to the psone screen. Will mean I wont have powerstrip running anymore.

To the right and below of the 24LC21 is a power regulating circuit that will give the 7.5v that the psone screen requires. It's using a the LM350T regulator and is designed to hand out up to 3a so it should be OK

My mental fragility was exposed as I desperately tried to work out what pins to connect, the pcb will be reversed on one plane when it finally prints. Ended up printing someone elses maxim based circuit onto acetate. This gave me a chance to try out the toner transfer method. I used a laser copying onto injet acetate. I tried a sheet full of circuits one at a time to try out various techniques. I got the best results heating it up real hot, then running it under cold water. The accuracy was good, but I want to try photoresist as well.

Got a 650 watt halogen OHP sitting. Might try that to see if its any good for exposing the PCB. I will hopefully try that tomorrow.

Oh and goof of the Day, went out to buy an injet cartridge. Needed a HP56, cam home with a 26 (24 squid). I knew which one I was after (I used to manage a pc shop, so I know many printers cartridges off by heart). I just plain read it wrong on the box. I only noticed it when I ripped the box open! No refund...

If anyone out there wants to critique my PCB design I will not be in the slightest bit offended. Its my first go at one. In particular, should I be filling in the ground plane? I gave it a try, but it didn't look as pretty... Not sure that a very scientific reason not to!.

Got a couple of more traces to tidy up, then I'm off to bed.

***Edit****

Forgot, I also modded my Matrox graphics card. Removed the VGA socket from the back of it. By using a saw to cut it in half while still on the card, I now have 15 header pins on the inside of the case. Will solder wires to them, which will plug in to the VGA signal inputs on this pcb. (Fingers crossed)

[justblair]

Update...

Had a very good day today.

Tried out the photoresist technique for making PCBs. I can recomend this technique for noobs to PCB manufacture.. Its so much easier to get a good print on the board than the toner method.

Here is the setup I used. I have an OHP which uses a 650w halogen lamp. This was going to be my method of exposure. First of all I inkjeted two copies of the circuit. I also added a test bar to the top of it. This had two functions. One to let me try a test strip, to determine my exposure time. Secondly it was to ensure that the two sheets of acetate were lined up correctly.

***Edit*** I should have mentioned that I removed the Fresnell lens before begining. The Fresnell would leave dark rings on the image. I have looked round the intermwebby, but noone else seems to use OHP's for this... I may have hit onto something here, it seemed obvious to me.

This photo is me getting ready to make a test exposure. The card under was supposed to be for cutting out the light. I intended to move it every 30 seconds to expose more of the board. When I turned the OHP on however light shone throught the card. I used some very thin alu sheet instead.

The rest is pretty boring, I just followed the instructions on the beginners kit I got from Maplins.

At the end I had a nice PCB

The camers still is rubbish for the closeups. There is a little pitting on 4 of the 0.5' tracks. This was cause i smudged the negative.

in this photo you can see the less shiny area where the pitting is worst. There is a hole in fact, but by good fortune it occured on the ground plane where I had widened the track.

Tested everything first by holding it against the lamp, then by multimeter. All is well.

Now for an admission... This was my second attempt. My first had scratches on it which cut several of the tracks. The mistake I made was when I was agitiating the developer with the plastic tweezers from the kit. I thought I would hurry it along. What I learned was that the photoresist layer is very fragile. Just brushing it with the tweezers is enough to damage it...

I didn't expect to get it right the first time so hey ho.

I'm in a quandry. Do I reprint my negs, and make a third attempt, or be happy I have a working PCB and move on. I'm thinking the latter, the imperfections are really not that noticable. I think I will drill it and use it. At least then if I mess up the drilling, I still have a spare photo board to make another.

Comments as always are welcome...

[justblair]

this is so cool
i never known you could make boards like that, the only method i know is painting the tracks(with paint) on a copper plated board, after the paint has dried you dip the board in some kind of acid, and you are left with only the copper under the paint, you then remove the paint and dril the holes........ but this so... so.......

This process is very similar to what you know already. The last stage I did was to bath the board in the acid. The only difference in the photo resist method is that you use boards that have a photo sensitive film.

The bath you see in the right of the pictures is the developer. The photo resist board has a film on it, when light activates it it changes the chemical composition. The developer strips off the changed part of the film to reveal the tracks. Then you bath it s before.

It really is a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. The closest thing I have done to it in the past is black and white film developing (when I did a photography course at school.)

Normally you would use UV light to activate the film, but a halogen bulb gives off some UV. The sheer brightness of the halogen makes up for the fact that only a small part of its spectrum is UV.

Something I forgot to mention in my previous post. Prior to exposing the board I removed the Fresnell lens from the OHP. If you dont do this, I imagine you will get rings on your board.