Dell Laptop into Digital Photo Frame

Step 7 The rest of the computer's guts (all of them that matter, anyway)

For my project, I used a board of 1/8" thick Masonite to mount the Motherboard and remaining hardware such as Hard Drive, RAM, and Wireless Card. Initially, I had #6 screws to come through the opposite side of the board to use as stand-offs/mounts, but those were too large and I downsized to #4. After a test-fit, I cut the screws off so they wouldn't stick out too far.

Comments

[FelixTheCat-etris]

It's funny, I have the exact same laptop and I went to Walmart and got the exact same frame. I tested my old laptop, worked, disassembled it (not the first time I have done this) and when I put back the bare necessities for a boot, I get nothing on the LCD or an external monitor. Also, it turns off after 30 seconds-1 minute. Any ideas?

[Detman101]

Um....3 hands?!? Scary... Dm

[sexyterry]

awesome instructible~! ive ripped my laptop apart and installed it similar to yours but it doesnt boot up now. wat is that white white in the 3rd pic of step 7? i dont have that.. everythign else is the same. thanks

[mythbusterma]

you know that you do need a hard drive to boot right? what you would be looking at now would be the bios trying to find a hard drive to boot from. ;)

[vorin]

the thing with the white label is the hard drive. it's essential for the computer to work. all of the software is saved on the hard drive and it certainly will not boot up without it.

[electronic boy]

not true,you could use a bootable CD korora or anything else providing you have the ram.

[vorin]

for this project, it is essential. If you wanted to see my opinion of using an optical drive as a boot source for a different project, you can read my more recent comment I posted on Oct. 6th.