Not managed to pop-rivet Antec 1200 in its entirety however it's taking shape. Shame my pop-riveter fell to bits whilst trying to remove a pop-rivet. Several attempts to put it all back together again and thankfully it's working again - what a hassle.

Trying to gather all of the Antec 1200 Full ATX Tower PC Case parts that I'd sprayed Hycote Honda Milano Red so that it can be riveted back together. Many parts gathered dust as chassis wasn't reassembled  Anyway keen on what the end result is going to be now. Cannot source any pop-rivets that are an identical colour therefore will more than likely be using standard off the shelf pop-rivets.

eBuyer Intenso 3TB External Hard Disk Drive

Wanted to crack-on with rebuilding an Antec 1200 case this-morning failing that this-afternoon however it's absolutely chucking it down with rain and I've basically no chance whatsoever of getting this done.  - Depressed.

Considering buying an Intenso 3TB External Hard Disk Drive from eBuyer as need to configure my NAS Box in some form of RAID configuration and have only one 3TB Internal Hard Disk Drive fitted. Backed up all of my Nokia Comes with Music downloads on there and really do not want them to be lost. Understand that the manufacturer's warranty is nullified removing the drive from external enclosures however buying external hard disk drives as opposed to internal hard disk drives of the same capacity seems to be more cost effective (providing there are no drive failures of course).

Great that someone's put a YouTube video together detailing how to go about removing the hard disk from one of these Intenso External Hard Drive enclosures.

Acer Aspire Idea 500 / 510 CPU upgrade

Factory image installed onto backup hard disk drive now and machine seems to be working okay. At this stage I think that it's a good idea to upgrade the CPU and RAM.

Preliminary checks:

1). Download CPU-Z and Core-Temp to take a screen-grab of the CPU 'as is'.
2). Gather together a T7200 Socket-M CPU, some Thermal Compound (such as IC Diamond for example) and some Akasa Tim-Clean.

Step 3). Save a copy of the existing BIOS and upgrade to the most current version (already covered here). The version of the upgraded BIOS as far as I'm aware should be R02-C2.

Screen-grabs (prior to CPU upgrade):

BIOS Upgrade confirmation

Operating parameters of T5500 CPU

Thankfully the CPU upgrade has been a success. Convinced that I'd tried to upgrade one of these machines previously unsuccessfully anyway screen-grabs are as follows:

Operating parameters of T7200 CPU

Step-by-step removal of T5500 CPU and fitting of T7200 CPU. 

1). Firstly ensure that the power has been unplugged from the machine you're working on however try to keep the power lead connected so that the machine is earthed. Periodically touch a bare metal part of the chassis so that any static build-up is sufficiently discharged so as to avoid damage due to static discharge - better still wear an earthed wrist-strap - these can be bought reasonably inexpensively from eBay and from Dabs.com

2). Remove all four screws that fix the CPU Heatsink & Fan to the CPU.

3). With the CPU Heatsink & Fan removed the Socket-M locking mechanism is undone (rotating the screw anti-clockwise).

4). Clean the underneath of the CPU Heatsink & Fan as thoroughly as possible using a cloth or paper-towel and Timclean. The surrounding cushioning-pad has also been removed here - Wanted to remove in its entirety as it was very difficult to remove the thermal compound without touching this as well.

 

4). Pop the T7200 CPU into the Socket-M CPU Socket (ensure it's orientated correctly), Once the CPU is in situ lock the CPU into position. Apply some Thermal Compound onto the CPU die and reattach the CPU Heatsink & Fan. 

5). Re-connect the power and boot-up your newly upgraded machine. Hopefully all is well and it boots without any issues. Failing that ensure the BIOS has been upgraded (you'll need to replace the T7200 CPU with the original in order to check this). Should your machine not boot check that there are no bent pins. With all of the latter checks having been made at a guess it's the CPU itself that is d.o.a. - In which case it'll need to be returned to where it was bought from.

Listening to MaximumPC podcast # 194 on iTunes whilst installing another factory image onto a spare hard disk drive. Plan to upgrade the T5500 1.66GHz CPU to a T7200 2.0GHz CPU. Cannot afford to buy anything larger and faster. Upgraded two Mac Mini's using these CPUs successfully therefore hope this upgrade will be a success too.

Prior to signing off and giving my Aspire iDea 500 a thorough soak-test I've flash upgraded the BIOS so that 3GB DDR2 in total can be fitted. How this was done:

Using the WinFlash utility available through the Acer support site a backup of the existing BIOS was saved via 'File' > 'Save old BIOS'. The BIOS was then flash upgraded via 'File' > 'Update BIOS'. The BIOS file itself is not in the same folder as the WinFlash utility but up one level and can be found by entering '*.bin'. Once the relevant .BIN file was selected I'd proceeded to upgrade the BIOS by clicking on 'Update' - This is normally a very nerve-wrecking experience as failed flash upgrades can result in you 'bricking' a device - basically rendering it unusable. After a BIOS flash upgrade a machine will more than likely need to be rebooted. Hopefully all is well and the BIOS has updated without any issues. Up to 3GB DDR2 can now be installed (in the form of 1 x 1GB and 1 x 2GB) and recognized by the BIOS.

All hardware drivers re-installed  Including two Hybrid Tuners. Now need to soak-test to ensure that there weren't any other issues in addition to the PSU failing (hopefully nothing powered by the PSU was the cause of it failing).

Giving the following upgrades some thought:

RAM: 1GB was installed straight from the factory from what I'm able to recall (2 x 512MB DDR2 Sodimm's). Up to 3GB can be installed in the form of 1 x 1Gb DDR2 Sodimm and 1 x 2Gb DDR2 Sodimm (understand that 4GB is not recognised by the BIOS even with the most current version of firmware installed)

CPU: A 1.66GHz T5500 Socket-M was installed straight from the factory - The largest CPU that works from what has been understood from AVForums is a T7600 (just remember that the Motherboard only accepts 667MHz CPUs). T7200 CPU's work well with these machines also by all accounts.

DVD: A Panasonic / Matsushita UJ-845-B is fitted as standard. It'd be great to replace this with a Blu-Ray Drive however this will need to be a slot loading version (PATA as opposed to SATA).

GPU: Not upgradeable on a 500 as the Motherboard doesn't have an MXM-II Slot however there have been various achievements with GPU upgrades on AVForums and upgrading to a 9500mGS for example sounds feasable.

Hard Disk: A 250GB Sata-II was originally installed (quite noisy) - Up to a 2TB Sata-II can be fitted from what's understood however an SSD is something I'm under the impression is more appealing. Less power consumption and no noise at all.

Think that's all. Hope this PSU works okay. Several of these have failed since buying from eBuyer originally.