Showing posts with label Hack. Show all posts

Take a cordless drill to your Mobile PC

The Drill!
(so my SMA adapter fits in!)

Today was a bit of fun and again I wanted to make sure you were all a part of it. If there is one device I have a lot of experience with that is the Samsung Q1U; and if there are three things I really like upgrading on this machine they are as follows: 

  1. Upgrade the RAM to 2GB (it's DDR2 SO-Dimm, 667MHz)

  2. Install a mini PCI-express 3G modem (for HSDPA and GPS function)

  3. Replace the spinning IDE drive with a SSD drive instead!
Given I was uprgading all three in one machine I thought I'd share a photo or two. I know one of the most popular videos I did was "How to upgrade your Samsung Q1U to 2GB RAM" so I imagine this blog post will entice many DIY geeks out there. 

Installing the RAM is easy and the SSD a piece of cake too (just watch the orientation of the pins on the ribbon cable and be very gentle with the latches holding the ribbon cables in place). The SSD I used is GMonster 1.8" ZIF drive with built-in 64MB SDRAM by PhotoFast! It is super fast and one I recommend highly. The Modem I am using lately is the Huawei EM770W (but often I use the Sierra Wireless MC8790 too). The Huawei is the same one found in most Viliv S5 and X70 and has voice support (!!!), quad band 3G and GPS.

One important and still relatively unknown step is how to get best connectivity out of a newly installed modem (especially a hacked up version like this). I had to go through many antenna, and many setups to get this right but I can report that this way works well! All you need is a U.FL to SMA adapter (U.FL = little dicky bit which connects to modem main) and (SMA = the gold threaded part which the antenna screws onto). You'll soon learn however that the SMA part does not fit into most holes on a computer...that's where the Power Drill comes into play!!!

The external antenna I choose is a high band passive antenna which supports Quad Band and is absolutely the trick! Sticks out a little but man is it worth it when you get full strength most anywhere a phone does! 

 

U.FL to SMA adapter and external 3G antenna



RAM upgraded, 128GB SSD drive and Huawei EM770W modem



Doing this stuff makes me realise how "un-fun" the iPad will be. With all its finished bits there is nothing left for us to explore or expand on! Well done Apple.

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clean rugged geek hack

Thought I’d share with you some geek fun (read: hack) I had today! When looking inside the guts of some Getac rugged Tablets today I thought it might be interesting to post some photos. Given these are expensive machines and not something many of you will have at home, I thought it might be fun giving you a sneak look inside.


These two photos showcase the insides of the TabletKiosk G840XT (like the Getac E100). The top photo shows two very nicely placed mini-PCI express slots, i.e. the one on the left houses the Wi-Fi chip and the one on the right houses 3G.


The second photo shows the same motherboard but when the factory does NOT ship 3G they decide not to supply the second mini-PCI express slot which is allocated to the 3G card, and replaces it with the PCMCIA slot. OUCH!

The dilemma is the bloke that bought the one with no 3G now wants 3G inside! So being the geek I am I decided to peel open the two machines and see what the chance would be; as you can see however the physicality’s make it impossible. Or do they?
What I decided was to rip out the Wi-Fi, install the 3G, flash the BIOS (to wake the mini-PCI express slot) and then take a power drill and drill the case (much to the dislike of the manufacturer I’m sure) and attach an external antenna to the unit!. Turns out after all is said and done we’re getting 3x the signal strength the factory gets from 3G and a unit which connects every time. Would I recommend this? Not unless you’re a trained professional and have money to burn! If you tick both boxes…go crazy! 

External antenna I drilled and mounted in place

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