Thinkpads Forum

The system board of my T60 developed a strange problem recently and had to be replaced. Every time I tried to start it while the power adapter was connected, it would go dead and I would have to pull the cord and battery. If I plugged it in after starting from battery, it would work just fine. I used to power it on like that for some time but it got irritating so I got a replacement.

Unlike the old board which had a GMA 950, the new one has ATI graphics so I had to get another cooler too. Got a good deal on both from a local seller.

What I was left with was an almost working board that I didn't want to just throw away. I also had a 512MB RAM stick and a T2300 CPU left from previous upgrades plus a PATA HDD, an UltraBay adapter and an old keyboard missing some keys.

This and a free afternoon resulted in this:


It's running Ubuntu Server and hangs (using a LAN cable) on my router. The power up problem remains but it's running 24/7 so it's a non-issue. It was running when the picture was taken, you can see the fan spinning. The keyboard is disconnected as it's needed to power it on only.

The server is great, stable, quiet, cool, power efficient, runs some very useful services available from both local network and the Internet and lets me improve my Linux skills. I'm proud.

Still looking for some better case though

So, what do you think?


Specs:
ThinkPad T60 board with GMA950 (from 1952-VLJ)
CPU: Core Duo T2300 1.6GHz
RAM: 512MB DDR2
HDD: Samsung 160GB, 5400rpm, PATA

Very cool use of a mostly functional motherboard.

Maybe Fry's or RadioShack has a project case that you can put that into.

I love it when people keep good technology in use.

Thanks.

It works great. I got an OEM power adapter and mounted it in the same box. I've also soldered a Lithium battery I found laying around so it doesn't forget BIOS settings anymore if I ever have to turn it off.

This project was a great idea.

yak, that is very cool! What do you use the server for?

Marin85 wrote:yak, that is very cool! What do you use the server for?

Well, the primary reason is kind of a long story but here it goes. I'm using the network of my University and normally I'm limited to transferring 700MB per 24h. Excluded from that are connections inside the University network. They also have a VPN service (with the endpoint inside the network) which is intended to be used when connecting to the Internet from outside, to gain a University IP address. As I found out, if you use it from inside the network, it allows you to bypass the 700MB limit (because in that case you are essentially only connecting to the VPN endpoint which, as a server inside the University network, is excluded from the limit).


Therefore, the primary job of the server is to connect to the VPN endpoint and share the resulting connection with clients on the local network (using a wireless router). I'm doing some mobile development so there are always at least a couple phones using the wireless connection. Everything goes through the VPN.

The VPN also gives you a real IP address which makes the server visible from the Internet. It's a dynamic IP but I have a hostname on dyndns.com which a nifty script updates every time the VPN connection is established.

Of course the server also hosts a number of services including ssh and apache. I also connect my 1TB external USB drive to it when I leave home for a longer time so I can get to my data from anywhere (using scp).

I learned quite a lot about networking and linux while building this.

i did a similar thing with my R40 back in the day..

managed to fry it with a sudden voltage spike from the data line..

But your pic brought back the memories from school .. GREAT WORK!!

Looks great, what kinda stuff does it run and also how could I do this with my T21 as it would be a fun project but I hav no clue what to do!