BHoSV

Estimable
Nov 17, 2014
2
0
4,510
Hello guys,

First of all, I'd like to point out that I'm very much a newbie to building stuff from components alone. Yes, I do know how to take something apart and back together, because it's just plugging in cables and tightening screws. Also, I'll try to do my best with keeping up with the technical jargon, but mostly, it wil go over my head. I mainly downplay my own intelligence here because I'm asuming you guys all know a LOT more than me. That being said, let's go over to my problem/question/plead for help.

After about a year or two of connecting my laptop to my HDTV via HDMI-cable, I've gotten a little bit tired of hunching over the laptop every single time I wanted to select something to watch. It gets even more annoying with YouYube videos and such.

Then I've had this awesome idea: take one of my unused HDD's and put it in an external HDD case to manually upload data to the HDD and plugging it into my TV via USB. But USB is relativly slow and this also means that I'd have no network connection.

So now I've had this bright idea to gut my old laptop (a Dell which gave me headaches right from the start due to cooling malfunctions). The battery is completely dead, the structure of the laptop caused to much dust to build up at the fan and essentially ruining the colling elemement indise. So now I've got a pile of components which might still work, but no surefire way of checking it out.

What I've got:
- Dell 1525 motherboard with four USB females, one HDMI females, one ethernet female, one SD/MMC - MS/Pro cardreader, an Intel Pentium (I don't even remember which type) with 2,00 GHz, and some other things I don't even recognize;
- one WD Scorpio Blue SATA 320 GB HDD @ 5400 rpm and T2 firmware (for whatever it's relevant);
- one WLAN internal component with a shitload of numbers and abbreviations that are dazzling to look at;
- two 1 GB Samsung RAM units (which I guess are DDR2's or something like that);
- one SUNON MagLev coolingfan DC5V/0,34A.

What I want to build is a device that is either connectable by cable of WiFi to my own network for data transmission and the ability to browse the internet for YouTube and such, an internal HDD and at least an HDMI exit to be able to play it all on full HD. I might have an Xbox 360 remote lying around somewhere, so I might have to buy an IR-component to make that work.
Lastly, I want it to be as small as humanly possible, so that it doesn't take up to many space. A couple of lights would be nice, but not nessecarily a priority.

I can get access to a soldering iron, but it's been a while since I last used one of those.

Thank you for putting up with reading all this so far and if you're able to help me out, I would greatly appreciate it.

This being the internet and all, I know I'm setting myself up for a lot of abuse, but I'd appreciate it if you don't. Do with that what you please.

Thanks again and I'm looking forward to your replies!
 

BHoSV

Estimable
Nov 17, 2014
2
0
4,510


Yes, I know this. My fault for not being clear on that. I want to build my own instead of spending a lot of money on it because money isn't exactly an abundancy for me. But thanks anyway!