Crazy Japanese NEC "LCD monitor" PC

[Byrd]

Hi,

I was driving for work today and saw what I thought was a 15" LCD face down on the side of the road, which are always handy to give to friends, so I did a U-turn to pick it up.

Got it in the car and wondered why it had a relatively broad base - that's because it's a complete PC! It's missing the bottom CD tray so it basically looks like a basic 15" monitor to the unitiated. Quite a cool and interesting find in my mind, and could be a perfect kitchen/torrent download/iTunes serving PC if it works!

I'm yet to power it up as it needs a 12V power brick - something to look for during daylight tomorrow, but the specs are:

- Pentium III 1Ghz

- 815e chipset

- 256MB RAM (So-DIMMs)

- 30GB HD

- 2 x PCMCIA cardbus slots

- 15" 1024 x 768 LCD *and* VGA output

- Along with a couple of USB ports, network, etc.

... so it's basically an NEC notebook shoved in the base of a monitor, made to look as stealthy as possible!

A pic, but obviously not mine:



... there is little online about it, unless you're Japanese.

JB

 

[Byrd]

Another nice thought: I wonder if it has a touchscreen ... I'll post up proper pics of it if any interest.

JB

 

[joshc]

How come you can easily pickup stuff off the side of the road like that? I never see anything like that over here! :-/ Anyway, very nice find. Looks like one of those AIO systems they use in schools. What OS are you thinking of using?

 

[Christopher]

All I ever see is used cigarette butts and hubcaps.

 

[Gil]

I never see any computer stuff being thrown out. just the ocassional PC CRT monitorm and no one wants those. :-/

 

[Byrd]

I have to admit, it was a very random find - and it wasn't a council's hard rubbish week either. I suppose after years of hard rubbishing you get an eye for these things; but 80% of the time when you turn around in the car it's usually a styrofoam box!

Going to look for a power brick for it now. I don't know of the actual power ratings of it (since the underside base is missing, and Japanese sites don't help much), but can only assume 12V and a few amps will be a good place to start.

JB

 

[Patrickool93]

...but 80% of the time when you turn around in the car it's usually a styrofoam box!

I can't tell you how many times that's happened...

It seems like in an interesting find, I hope it works for you!

 

[Bunsen]

If you don't look, you don't find

Pretty cool score there Byrd.

 

[bluekatt]

does it actually work ?

reminds me of the clevo lcd pc i found for 50 bucks it also looked like a lcd screen with a rather large base

turned out to be ap 4 2400 mhz with a 120 gig hd and in stil perfect working order

shoveld it off to my mother where its now being used to play shanghai

 

[Byrd]

I was able to find a Toshiba power brick in my box of adapters - 15V 3A, and it fired right up. Everything - including Windows XP and the BIOS - was in Japanese, however by fluke I was able to switch the BIOS to English.

The 15" LCD's backlighting is shot - or rather, the inverter. It's not repairable, nor would I be able to find a suitable replacement. And it's not touchscreen, so I stripped the screen right off; the external VGA port is thankfully there and there is nothing important in terms of cables etc. when the screen is removed. Will post pics of how tiny it is later! It'll make for a sweet mod.

JB

 

[bluekatt]

that explains why they threw it away

but at least its working and modular

the clevo was all in one if the screen was shot that would have been it