By isendev.
Posted on 2012/08/23 19:25.
Some weeks ago, a Hewlett-Packard Pavilion tx2500 series convertible notebook assigned for retirement came to my hands with a flickering video problem. After digging the Internet for a while, I found this PC suffers a commonly known CPU/GPU overheating problem because poorly applied thermal solutions.
This notebook can be easily fixed using a cheap copper shim and good thermal paste. There is a rather large (1mm.~) gap between GPU and heatsink filled from factory with an adhesive thermal pad. This pad diminish over time and GPU overheats very quickly. Replacing it with a copper shim solves the problem.
After spending some precious time putting all back together, the Pavilion tx2500 is on the road again running Windows 8 Release Preview without any hiccups.
By isendev.
Posted on 2012/07/26 18:10.
I've been working in a case for my new cMoy build using a Hammond 70009 diecast aluminum enclosure. This is an IP54 compliant box with dimensions of 92 x 92 x 38 millimeters. To install all the in/out connectors, holes were drilled around the case using a drill press.
After that, the paint process started: Two acid primer coats and 600 grit wet sanding were required to prepare the surface.
After deeply cleaning the parts to remove all the sanding dust, acrylic paint and clear coats were applied to obtain a sleek glossy finish.
Finally, I installed four through-hole rubber pads on the bottom cover to prevent the enclosure from sliding off the table. Now, It's ready to house the cMoy PCB and its stuff (cables, connectors and switches).
By isendev.
Posted on 2012/03/27 01:52.
Now I'm working on a second revision of my custom CMoy build, but before posting more details about it, I want to recap some information of my original build from April 2010.
But first of all... What's a CMoy?
Taken from the Wikipedia:
A CMoy is a pocket headphone amplifier originally designed by Chu Moy on the headwize.com Headphone Resource Site and public discussion Forums. The headphone amplifier is designed around single or dual-channel op-amps such as Burr-Brown's OPA2134 or OPA2132PA, however, a wide variety of op-amps have been successfully implemented. The amplifier's design is quite simple. It consists of only a few components, can be assembled on a small section of protoboard, has a lower parts cost than other headphone amplifiers, and can run for many hours on a single 9 volt battery.I was searching for a simple electronic schematic to test the tone-transfer method for etching printed circuit boards at home, and this small headphone amplifier was a good point to start. I found tons of information about it at headwize.com and diyaudio.com community forums but, without a doubt, the best resource was Tangensoft's website. There you can find the most complete guide to design and build your own CMoy.
And here is my original Eagle PCB layout. It's easy to see the main modification done to the basic CMoy design: I used a rail splitter IC instead of a resistor bridge to obtain the required voltage levels for running the op-amp.
This is the full component list used in my build:
- Power section:
After some testing, a few changes were done to the board:
By isendev.
Posted on 2012/02/12 11:02.
I keep working (slowly) on my LEX Light CV860A. Now, I've cleaned the aluminium heatshink and replaced the stock CPU cooler fan with a new "ultra quiet" Noiseblocker XM-1 fan (40mm. diameter / 11dBA.). Here are some photos of the process: