|
Post by inerlogic on Mar 23, 2010 6:13:22 GMT 7
i picked up an N5200B a few years back (3? 4 years?) and the first modification i made was to swap the motherboard for an N5200PRO motherboard i bought from eAegis (i believe..)
a few weeks ago the rear fan was making a god-awful racket....
i swapped it out for a blue LED fan i had in one of my desktop machines..... haven't felt the need to replace it with a new one.... so my box glows a bit more blue than usual....
planned mods:
VGA Header CPU Upgrade possibly replace DOM with disk/install opensolaris
|
|
|
Post by inerlogic on Mar 23, 2010 9:31:18 GMT 7
VGA port install Step 1: wait 'til the wife is on a business trip at least 5 states away. Step 2: cover dining room table with protective material (heavy brown packing paper) Step 3: gather essential tools, leave the drives upstairs in the office, no sense in bring them down... motherboard previously removed from N5200B, few extra sticks of ram, 256MB top and rear cover removed from N5200B Pro Foxconn VGA connectors, ebay guy had a few hundred to sell, i bought 5, he sent me 6... WIN! soldered, cooled and connected.... and she still works!!!! 1GB stick of Kingston KVR ram.... 8MB ganked by the video system..... 100MHz FSB, multiplier = 15.... may be able to push this baby a bit more than 1.5GHz probably not with the cheap ram though... no floppy connector on board, but they didn't disable floppy in the BIOS... sloppy Thecus, sloppy sloppy.... grubby grubby AAANNNNNDDDDDDD we're OFF! doesn't it look all pretty and shiny?! :) i put the screws for the ethernet daughter board back in the posts so they wouldn't wander off.... yeh, forgot to put the daughter board back on before closing the case up... so, had to open it up again, put the stupid thing back in place and re-secure the case.... knock out the knock out, and remember to put the daughter board back in place.... (see the blue LED fan peaking out behind the grill?) back running happily..... until i get a USB keyboard, or until the SL7EMs come in.... MUUAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!
|
|
|
Post by inerlogic on Mar 23, 2010 9:33:52 GMT 7
i soldered a VGA connector onto the non-pro MB... eventually i want to do something with that board.... need some spare parts though.... time to trawl ebay for some busted N5200s....
i soldered a VGA connector onto the Pro motherboard without even removing it from the case!
there was plenty of clearance... no troubles at all!
|
|
|
Post by rookie on Mar 23, 2010 18:24:36 GMT 7
I must reply on this thread: you rule for trying this and sharing details with us!! 1 karma for you Eager to see if a USB keyboard can change the bios settings. This changes things for Tankslappa
|
|
|
Post by inerlogic on Mar 25, 2010 7:42:10 GMT 7
SL7EMs came in the mail today.... only needed one, but figured i'd order 2 in case i got a DOA.... all set to start! first disconnect these two ribbon cables, they lead to the LCD and the buttons on the front panel... slide the motherboard towards the rear a bit, be careful, the backplane comes with it! once the backplane is clear of the case, you can disconnect it and slide the mobo the rest of the way out. like so... those two white springloaded clips hold the heat sink/fan to the board, gently squeeze the barbs together with a pair of needle nose pliers and pop 'em out out with the old... in with the new! you did buy some heat sink grease right? spread a little on the chip... if you're careful with those white clips... the pop right back in... i didn't like how close one of them was to the inductor near the power capacitors... so i rotated the heatsink 90 degrees and clipped it in... old CPU, new CPU... more importantly... IT STILL BOOTS!!! and the web interface SCREAMS! next mod.... higher speed memory perhaps.... see if the 2.0 can be pushed to 2.6 still waiting on some 44 pin IDE adapters and cables in the mail.... think'll double check my backup and then pull a drive and see how long a rebuild takes....
|
|
|
Post by rookie on Mar 25, 2010 16:54:24 GMT 7
So nice to see what you're doing would be even nicer to see if faster ram and bios setup changes work! Can you say if you notice any speed improvements in SMB transfer speed? On my gigabit switch it didn't do more than a little over 30mb/s (link aggregation enabled on switch & NAS).
|
|
|
Post by greybard on Mar 28, 2010 20:36:44 GMT 7
This looks like a very cool mod, I've already replaced my CPU and Memory and do see a bump in performance and can load more mods (MediaTomb is running amazingly!).
Where can I find a FoxConn VGA Connector?
I looked on EBay but nothing came up.
Just want to make sure I am bidding or buying the right part.
Thanks!
|
|
|
Post by inerlogic on Mar 30, 2010 0:29:39 GMT 7
|
|
|
Post by sworks on Apr 8, 2010 14:36:09 GMT 7
|
|
ezrem
New Member
Posts: 13
|
Post by ezrem on Apr 20, 2010 23:29:46 GMT 7
Have you tried a USB keyboard yet?
I'm very interested in doing some of these mods to my N5200.
Are you intending to replace the OS?
|
|
|
Post by inerlogic on May 3, 2010 21:55:58 GMT 7
USB mouse and keyboard work fine.... i also picked up a USB to 2 PS/2 converter so i could use my KVM switch.
my intent was to change the OS.... but now i'm not so sure.... i'd wanted to use some flavor of solaris with ZFS, but have heard bad things about running ZFS on a 32-bit system.... so now i'm not sure....
going to wait for ZFS to mature a bit more, possibly with some flavor of BSD for in kernel support....
|
|
|
Post by nibbles on Jun 26, 2010 2:43:25 GMT 7
Thanks on confirming that the SL7EM cpu working ok.
As a result, I decided to pick one up and hoping to install it this weekend.
Anyone recommend a better cooling method that the default cooling fan installed? Just figure it's probably good idea considering I will be upgrading... and may be trying to tweak a little :-)
Nibbles
|
|
|
Post by stanley on Jul 11, 2010 14:49:44 GMT 7
i picked up an N5200B a few years back (3? 4 years?) and the first modification i made was to swap the motherboard for an N5200PRO motherboard i bought from eAegis (i believe..) pls help to let me know when can buy and the cost of N5200 Pro motherboard?
|
|
ezrem
New Member
Posts: 13
|
Post by ezrem on Nov 28, 2010 4:35:45 GMT 7
Inerlogic, I'm hoping you will see this post even though the thread is old.
Do you still have the original non-pro motherboard from your N5200? Mine appears to have some kind of issues. It froze up once or twice and had to be hard powered off (RAID had to rebuild when turned back on) and now it won't boot past Self Testing...no post beep or anything.
|
|
cico
New Member
Posts: 1
|
Post by cico on Oct 14, 2011 0:32:15 GMT 7
|
|