Voodoo Idol Upgrade / Make Over?

Well as some of you know a while back I got a Aopen 915 in good shape all works. Later on through the same guy I got two more but was told the fans were making noise, but came will all everything like the hard drive adapter needed. I had to work over a week and have been wanting to upgrade one and put it into service. I was planning on 2.0 or 2.1 Pentium M. and maybe a repaint. I have been going through ebay and have seen some newer models. MP945 and see that they have dual cores. Do any of you know if this motherboard would fit into the older chassis as I would like to keep the original look? If not I may go ahead and get one and see how it is fits. Looks like a drop in from just pictures.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/AOpen-miniPC-MP945-X-Black-w-CPU-RAM-DUO-CORE-1-66GHZ-CPU-512MB-RAM-/390449105463?pt=US_Computer_Cases&hash=item5ae8948a37

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aopen-MP945-VX-MiniPC-Barebone-DUO-CORE-GOOD-MOTHERBOARD-/390446792659?pt=US_Computer_Cases&hash=item5ae8713fd3

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-2-Aopen-MP945-VX-MiniPC-Barebone-DUO-CORE-GOOD-MOTHERBOARD-M945xF0A-/390450739605?pt=Desktop_PCs&hash=item5ae8ad7995

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1965

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2062

Best reviews with pictures I can find, may go ahead and pick up one tonight and see if it can make it here before I leave Friday.

I believe the internals are a different layout. Might be able to fit the shell on the newer base.

Well got one ordered, we will soon see. Hope it works. Think a dual core Idol with slightly improved graphics would rock.

Well suppose to be on a plane headed to work tonight but as it would have it I had a wisdom tooth pulled when I first got in and it has got infected. Taking meds now before I go back to work now on the 17th to clear that up as I and the bosses on the rig doubt there is a good place in Saudi to get the right stuff if I need it. Anyway, ON TO THE GOOD STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


The dual core stripper pc came in today. This is one of the easiest swaps I have ever done. Part for part, ide and dvd drive board, even all plug-ins work with out alteration. Even the plastic cage for the air-flow is the same just use the factory dual core fan. It is a little bigger than the single core fan and may work as a upgrade if you went to a larger single core 2.0,2.1,2.2 Pentium M. The only thing I see I may need to change out is the speaker looks the same but the dual core machine has 8 ohm the original has 4 ohm. Pictures below, testing it out right now on Supergamer Linux.

Just use the whole bottom half that snaps right in and plug and play, use the whole top, dvd drive and card connector from the original Idol or Aopen 915. Video memory now can be a shared 224 MB.

I will pretend that there is no game pad in that last picture!

Did they pull just the one, or all four? Hope you are feeling better!

That was the first game pad I bought a few years ago, the kids still use it. I got where I like the keyboard and mouse better, but when I got it for Resident Evil 4 even the mouse fix didn't seem to work too well so it was no play or use the game pad.

A few months back 3 days before I left work I had right wisdom tooth split in half. Got it pulled when I got home no problems. Well I got the left one pulled this time as to prevent a future occurrence. It just didn't go as planned.


Going to load something up on it today and try it out Supergamer live dvd booted fine and ubuntu live cd booted fine. Now to decide if I want 7 or XP on it then dual boot it with linux.

Nice

It also looks like a the Aopen MP965 will work as well. Just have to use those forward facing usb ports internally. Still researching this one. I have one more Idol to upgrade. I will leave one of the three I have original. I just got rid of my kids old Pentium 4 machine they were using for a dvd player and using the leftover parts to put them a Aopen mini with a Pentium M 2.0 in it's place. Saves a ton of space where that full desktop was at. The desktop and old 17" "bulk" monitor found a good home to a younger child that didn't have a pc but wanted one.

Any update... I had my wisdom tooths pulled out 3days prior going to Iraq., and when I got in country my jaw was swollen. I went to see the doc and I had a dry socket. I I think that's what they called it, worse two weeks while there.

On the tooth or the Idol? lol.


On the dual core Idol I am waiting on few parts to pop up. Been doing some research and it seems I am missing a part. The SATA daughterboard. The Ide board plugs in and works for the dvd drive, but something would go wrong when installing to the hard drive. I was thinking the hard drive was bad as it was an old one I had lying around. It may be the hard drive. Just haven't had time to get back to it yet. I missed out on them on ebay and have been looking for more to pop up. Also deciding on what core 2 duo I should upgrade too.


IDE CARD I HAVE
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Aopen-daughter-board-Mini-PC-48-8eix0-00b-IDE-CARD-/190341480967?pt=US_Computer_Disk_Controllers_RAID_Cards&hash=item2c513c8207

SATA CARD I NEED
http://www.pcstats.com/articleimages/200701/aopenMP945VX_i3.jpg
http://www.pcstats.com/articleimages/200701/aopenMP945VX_i2.jpg
It seems to be stripped out on most models. I may have to get a mini usb and just boot from it for right now.



I am looking for a semi-complete Aopen 965 for the motherboard. It will have core 2 duo, 4gb ram, 965 chipset and intel x3100 graphics.

Few more shots of it, SATA CARD.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41W3tqa4LzL._SL250_.jpg

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/Aopen-daughter-board-Mini-PC-48-8EIXO-O2A0-SATA-CARD-/190343210702

This is intresting as hell.

AOpen MP57-D





Look familiar?

Takes i3,i5 or i7

http://www.thebookpc.com/product_info.php/products_id/482

MP55 Intel i model

MP57 Intel i model

MP45 (looks like the step up from the 965 (X3100), it has 4500 intel graphics)

Dry sockets are supposed to suck. I've had my wisdom teeth pulled, but I was fortunate enough to have had it done without incident.

Same here. You hear horror stories all the time, but mine could not have gone any smoother. Eve just had hers out last year, and she had some issues.

The worst issue I faced was a severe craving for a steak and a nice crusty and chewy bun the night of. I settled for scrambled egg on toast. In that case the dentist was right, and I should have stuck to having soup. I think it took me about three days before I could chew normally again, and up to two weeks before I felt comfortable really biting down.

Back from HLO school and looking for what core 2 duo I want to drop off into the upgraded "Idol". I had been hunting for the correct SATA daughter card and though a mistake I have two of them. I ordered two of the IDE daughter cards for cheap a while back. When I got them they were in pink bubble wrap and I never opened them. Just put them into the drawer for later. Well right before I headed off to school I was going though the drawer and seen them and noticed they had a sticker on them that said SATA. Well I opened them up and sure enough I was wrongly sent the SATA daughter boards. My search is over for now. I still need about two more but this is enough to move ahead.

HLO school, please explain.

I ordered some 2.5" enclosures from newegg a couple months back on sale. When I received them they were IDE connection, I didn't read the fine print.

HLO, Helicopter Landing Officer.

Well, my guess of Hooker Location Officer was wrong.

That would be correct in Dubai, if you are ever there I will give you the full list of the "good" clubs, lol.

Mr Blur.

The graphics mod you want is "optifine" for minecraft

http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/249637-145-optifine-hd-d3-fps-boost-hd-textures-aa-af-and-much-more/

http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1395030-allocate-more-memory-for-minecraft/

ADOR wrote:Mr Blur.

The graphics mod you want is "optifine" for minecraft

http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/249637-145-optifine-hd-d3-fps-boost-hd-textures-aa-af-and-much-more/

http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1395030-allocate-more-memory-for-minecraft/

Thanks I will have my son make those changes this weekend and see the changes helps out.