james holden

Frustrated by the ugliness of plugging a USB bluetooth adaptor into my Eee PC, I decided that the best thing I could do was gut a bluetooth adapter and install it internally.

Here are my accounts of the process.

WARNING!!! If you choose to attempt the same modification to your Eee PC, I accept no liability whatsoever for anything that may occur as a result of you doing so.

At the very least, you will need:

• Experience of working with surface mount PCBs.
• A desolder pump.
• A low-wattage soldering iron with a fine tip (eg: 0.7mm).
• A good multimeter with sharp probes and an audible continuity test function.
• A magnifying work lamp.
• Lots of time and patience.
• … and of course, a healthy fear of bricking your Eee PC.

The first step was to remove the USB connector from the bluetooth adaptor. I used largest adaptor of all the ones I had laying around because I was expecting to never see the damn thing again.

Then, I removed the keyboard and the top cover from the Eee PC. I won’t go into great photographic details here, but the procedure consists of removing they keyboard by depressing three little catches above the “¬”, “F6″ and “Pause” keys, then undoing all the screws under the keyboard, followed by all the screws on the underneath of the case.

All the screws are the same size, so as long as you don’t lose any of them, it doesn’t matter about remembering where they came from.

Removing the top panel should be done with your fingernails, working from right to left, as the top panel catches around the audio sockets on the left hand side.

Removing the screen bezel is very difficult. In addition to the four screws at the top and two at the bottom, it is held tightly by plastic catches at regular intervals around the edge. Removing the screen bezel should not be done more than once or twice. The screws are hidden behind the rubber studs at the top and the decor covers at the bottom. All can easily be removed intact with a sharp knife ready to be replaced afterwards.

I attached wires to the bluetooth adapter following the USB wiring colour code of Red = 5V, Black = Ground, D+ = Green D- = White.

Moving the speaker and WiFi antenna cables aside, I mounted the bluetooth adapter to the side of the screen, holding it in place with double-sided foam sticky pads. I routed the wires down through the hinge in a short piece of sleeving to protect them.

The wires are carefully routed between the surface mount devices to avoid being trapped when the machine is reassembled.

The main board can be removed and flipped over by releasing it from the two catches at the front edge. You should cover the screen with something to prevent it from getting scratched.

The wireless card can be seen towards the right of this picture. You need to remove it in order to access the USB connections underneath. You can replace it later in order to keep the wireless connectivity. The wireless card does not use the USB connections available on its connector.

The final connections are made as follows:

• Red (5V) to the right hand pin of the voltage regulator above the mini-pcie socket.
• Black (Ground) to any spare ground point, as found using the continuity tester.
• Green (D-) to the 8th pin from the left under the wireless card connector.
• White (D+) to the 9th pin from the left under the wireless card connector.

You must make certain using your continuity tester that no shorts have been made whilst soldering the wires on, because soldering these connections is kind of like playing the piano with a sledgehammer.

Following initial successful tests, I found that the bluetooth device wasn’t detected any more. Investigations showed that the wires had become trapped between the fan duct and the underneath of the main board. I re-routed the cabling via the notch in the back of the main board for the fan connector and all was well again.