T20's second life (*PICS*)

[A_senki]

Greetings for all Thinkpadder

So, I would like to show you my T20's second life:

A few months ago, my T20's LCD died. I did not like to repair it, because it has a lot of other problems, but it is an another story...

I have a looked round for a NAS solution for a long while. I could not do other than building a 1U PC, using good working parts. I completed the task in one week.

What make is it?

Mainly it is working like a NAS, plus:
-to collect weather data
-to control our home's appliances (heating, cooling, sprinkler system, etc.)
-and what my family wants...

Hardware:
Based on T20-2647: PIII-800, 384MB RAM, Combo 10/100
Hard disks: 1*160GB PATA, 1*320GB SATA (with USB->SATA converter)
Original 1 USB extended to 4 with USB HUB
Additional 5V/1,5A PSU for USB HUB
OneWire (DS9490R) adapter
RS-232->RS-485 converter
Original CMOS battery replaced with a comfortable socket
Added some heatsinks and fans, preventing thermal problems

Software:
OS: Windows XP Prof. SP3, minimalized with nLite (only ~0,8GB w/o Program Files!!!)
Apps:
Apache, PHP, FileZilla, MySQL, NOD and some own developed apps.

Pictures:








Conclusion:
I totally agree, there are a lot of rack style server on the market. Power consumption of these servers is very high, and their price are expensive.

[eunix]

Hey, thanks for the Idea! My T20/21 (I upgraded the MB a few years ago from 800Mhz to 1Ghz) came back from an extended loan to a friend and it booted one time. I also had a Gateway to come back and the screen was flaking on me so instead of tossing them into the unusable stack of old laptops, I can breathe new life back into them as a 1U rackable system without worrying about trying to replace the screen.

Excellent! Maybe I will do the same for some older desktops that I have and fill the old cases with some dual core micro ATX MBs!

Reuse Baby!

Eunix

[AlexDBall]

Hi all,

I know that i'm bringing an old post up but i would like to congratulate A_senki for this great transformation!
I was wondering though, did you make the case yourself, or did you modify an existing case?

i've got an R30 pretending to be my home firewall but it needs a new case and something like this looks ideal