Another day, another successful mod.
I had some free time because I fried my motherboard (not because of this mod but because I was dinking around with the processor housing pins). While I waited I thought it would be a cool idea to add an external antenna to my CX2610 Gateway Tablet PC see: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r18856655-FS-For-Sale-Gateway-CX2610-Laptop-Table-
Tools I used:
Needle Nose Pliers
Soldering Iron
Hammer
Flat Head and Philips screw-driver
Creativity (varies by person)
Life would be so much easier if I had an AC power Dremel Tool. If anybody wants to donate/sell me one let me know!
What did I do?
First I removed all the housing screws from the tablet and separated the bottom plastic housing from the top housing and motherboard as well as the monitor.
I then removed the MODEM (Dial-Up not LAN) port, wiring, and chip from the motherboard and bottom case.
I cleared out the plastic on the INSIDE of the bottom case where the modem port once resided. I was VERY careful to not crack the case or remove too much plastic to weaken the case.
I then took the hard plastic (metal maybe?) bottom plastic case frame and cut the corner piece near the old modem housing to allow for the antenna.
Next I used the antenna off of a a bricked Linksys WRT54G v6 (it is a v6, nobody wants it :p )
Using a soldering iron I de-soldered the antenna from the WRT54Gv6
I mounted the WRT54G antenna mount where the old modem resided.
Using a clear (turns clear after 24hours) silicone caulk I caulked in the antenna mount, cleaned up the excess, and re-assembled the case.
Using the soldering iron I took a laptop antenna cable and soldered it to the WRT54G antenna mount. I needed the small Mini-PCI wireless card adapter on the end of the laptop antenna cable.
Once all put back together I reassembled the entire unit.
Sorry for the monitor antenna cables hanging out. I had to pack up the mess of laptop pieces because I’m going out tonight with my girlfriend (and didn’t want a mess left behind).
Thursday or Friday I get the new motherboard and post some screenshots of signal noise.
~ by johndball on September 3, 2007.
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