EEE PC to Tablet Conversion

[vskid3]

I had an EEE PC 900HA laying around and I was bored. Now it has become a tablet project. I took it apart, flipped the screen around in the mounts, and cut a hole in the lid with my dremel. Now I just have to decide where to go with it from here.
The battery no longer works. I opened it up and the cells are within the normal range for Li-ion. I found a post about another guy who's stopped working with batteries, too, and he tried multiple batteries. I don't know if I want to risk $25 for a new battery if the problem lies with the netbook itself.
Touchscreens are about $35, which seems like too much for a batteryless tablet that I'll probably want to use a mouse with anyway. I still need some kind of mouse/keyboard, maybe one of those little wireless keyboards with a touchpad?

Here it is in all its chopped up glory. Currently running Windows 8 (which I hate).

This is how it currently looks behind the screen. The stock heatsink sucks, I'll see if I can find some small heatsinks to replace it with.

 

[samjc3]

Huh. This makes me think now, because I happen to have an EEE 701 and an extra 7" touch panel. Of course on the other hand, I see absolutely no reason to do that, but hey.

 

[vskid3]

Of course on the other hand, I see absolutely no reason to do that, but hey.

I see no reason to not do it.

A couple hours after I posted this, I decided to give the battery one last try. And it works! The battery is pretty worn, but at least I know it is still capable of using them. Now I'm really torn about the touchscreen...

 

[Kickback]

This is a good idea. Will be watching this thread.

 

[vskid3]

This project is currently in limbo until I can figure out what route I want to take with it. I'm still not sure what I want to do for input. Touchscreens are terrible for typing (at least in Windows). A keyboard/mouse combo would make typing better, but would probably be difficult to use without the computer sitting on something. Making it into a tablet would be nice, but for the price a new battery and an input device I'd be 1/4th of the way to a Nexus 7. I'm considering putting it in a book in laptop configuration, just because I've always wanted to. Anyone have any suggestions on what I should turn it into? I probably won't have any major progress for a few months until I'm back in the States.

I did make a little more progress before pausing the project. I tested the battery life. It lasts a grand total of 2 minutes. Something is messed up with the battery, it'll only charge to 74% and it dies at ~72%. One pair of cells is currently sitting at around 4v and the other is 3.4v. I'm guessing they became unbalanced at some point and the built-in balancing (if any) couldn't handle it. I'll see about charging those cells from another source to balance them and go from there.
I drilled a hole for the webcam and mic. I used the stock locations for them, just flipped them around. They're at the bottom of the screen with the way I would use it (screen flipped 180 degrees in Windows).

 

[vskid3]

Super bumpdate.

So I finally got around to using this little guy for something. Lifehacker had another "uses for old computers" article last week that included a kitchen PC. I thought that would be nifty and went to work.
I flipped the screen back around (I had be using it as a normal laptop) and figured out how to make rotate the screen 180* in lubuntu, which is running from an 8GB SD card. The hardest part was figuring out how to mount it in a way that wouldn't leave holes in the cabinet when I move. After much brainstorming, I came up with using the adhesive part of the those Command Hooks with hard drive magnets. Two magnets are stuck to the bottom of the cabinet with the adhesive (which should come off clean at moving time) and two more are inside the access panel on the bottom of the laptop. I stuck the power brick up with some velcro, it wasn't strong enough for the laptop but holds the brick just fine.
The current issue is stream lining it so its easy to view recipes on it. My plan is to use Google Drive to save and view the recipes as text documents, so they can be added or edited from another computer. For now its main duty is playing Pandora in the kitchen. Its on the slow side, not sure how much of that is the Atom and how much is the SD card. I'll be doing some work to try and speed it up, not against switching distros if anyone has any suggestions.

 

[Mako321]

Proof that the 900HA is the best netbook in existence, methinks.