Reverse Teardown: ViewSonic Netbook-Style Thin Client

Overview

In this reverse teardown video, I’m building a ViewSonic VOT120 thin client back together from components. This tiny 2009-era PC resembles the netbooks of that period and features an Intel Atom 1.6GHz CPU, built-in Wi-Fi, and a surprising number of ports for such a compact device. I’m also upgrading it from the original 160GB hard drive to a 32GB SSD and installing a fresh CMOS battery.

Key Moments

• Examining the compact netbook-like motherboard design
• Identifying the Intel Atom CPU, chipset, and Intel GMA 950 graphics
• Installing a 32GB SSD to replace the 160GB hard drive
• Using electrical tape to secure SATA connections during shipment
• Installing 1GB RAM module (supports up to 2GB)
• Replacing the CMOS battery (requires removing the cooler first)
• Following proper screw tightening pattern: inside-out, zigzag
• Installing the CPU heatsink and blower assembly
• Reassembling the metal shields and standoffs
• Built-in Wi-Fi antennas in the case

Full Transcript (Edited)

Hello everybody, in this video I’m going to be doing a reverse teardown. I’ve already torn this down, and what it is is a little thin client made by ViewSonic. As you can see here, it’s a really compact unit. I’ve taken it all the way down to the motherboard because this is a unit I’m preparing for somebody else. I’m putting in a new CMOS battery, installing the memory back, and changing the 160GB hard drive with a 32GB SSD. I also have these units with a regular size 32GB SSD, but for this build I’m going to be using this little guy.

Let’s start with the motherboard. You can see here the back side has the SATA slot as well as the Wi-Fi adapter. This has built-in Wi-Fi, believe it or not, and it has eSATA as well as two USB ports here, two USB ports in the back, DVI and VGA output. It also has gigabit Ethernet, so this is essentially a little netbook with some additions like the eSATA output right here. It also has speaker out and microphone input in the front, plus a couple of buttons and some indicator lights.

Overall, a really nice compact little motherboard. This is the chipset, I believe, and this is the CPU. Let me see what it is—that’s the Intel Atom 1.6GHz with 512K of cache and a 533MHz front side bus. I don’t want to take this off, but this must be some kind of chipset—North Bridge, South Bridge. One of these has the video adapter. This must be the video card, like the chipset with the video card. It has an Intel GMA 950, I think. This must be handling all the I/O and everything on the board, and this has the video die on it, plus the SATA controller and things like that. This must have USB controllers and things like that. Maybe if I find the block diagram for this unit, I’ll put it here, but I’m not 100% sure I’ll be able to do that.

Alright, so let’s continue with the reverse teardown. I’m going to put in the SATA drive. What I like to do with these guys is I like to put a little piece of tape on the connector because I can’t screw this one on. I get a little piece of electrical tape and I put it here to kind of hold this from coming apart from any vibration or anything. It keeps it nice and neat in there, and there’s plenty of separation between this and the motherboard.

Now flipping over to this side, I can put in the memory chip. This is a 1GB module—it does support 2GB, but that’s what I’m going to do. Then I have a brand new CMOS battery right here. I’m going to put this in.

Now that I’m done here—you know what, I messed up. I actually have to take this off because before I put this on, I have to mount the heat sink on the other side. As you can see here, it’s very laptop-like. It has this copper heat sink with a blower and some fins on the side here, and this goes on like this. I want to make sure that it’s aligned and I plug this in here.

Then I flip it over, and this is why I couldn’t put that drive in yet, because I have to screw in four screws. I’m going to go ahead—I have the screws off camera here. I like to actually start from the middle out, something I learned while working on cars. Putting the screws in from the inside out, that way there’s lower risk of the metal on the other side kind of bulging out because of pressure. You don’t want it to be like that—you want the metal to seat correctly, evenly across. It’s usually a nice zigzag pattern from inside out that you want to do when you’re putting back together screws, especially in cars when there’s a mating surface. You want to make sure that it’s evenly distributed.

Obviously here it’s not a big deal—this is just a very small piece of metal—but I still do that. Sometimes subconsciously, I start here, then go there, then go here, then go there. That way as you tighten it, the metal plate on the bottom starts getting in contact outward.

That’s plugged in, the fan is spinning, there’s a new CMOS battery. As you can see here, to get to the CMOS battery you have to take off the cooler. To get to the cooler, you have to take off the hard drive. So when you’re building some of these units, it’s almost like a sandwich—taking apart a sandwich, you have to take off layers to get to the bottom layer.

Now I can go back in here and put this back in there. I’m going to get another piece of tape because the other tape is no longer any good. I’m going to get a little piece of tape. If you’re shipping something, this is a good idea you have to do on these connectors. If you cannot secure the unit like this—this does have a lot of pressure in there, but the pressure is not enough to keep it from getting jolted out—I add a little piece of electrical tape. It tends to work well with higher temperatures, and that will hold it in there from coming loose during shipment or something like that.

Here we are, here’s the little unit with the hard drive. Sometimes I like to power it up like this to make sure that it’s working correctly, and I can actually set it up like this. But in this case we’re just going to continue building it back together.

This unit comes in a little case like this and it has the antenna built into a couple of little metal pieces. I start off by mounting the connections here carefully, not to break any. It kind of clicks in there—that one clicked, and then this one clicks in on the other side. Now I can settle this up. It has some stands you can see here, can set those up in there, and I can start putting it back together.

It has four screws that hold it in. I’m going to start right here on this side, then the other side down there. One, two, then I have one on this corner. Hopefully I don’t drop it in there because it is a pain sometimes to get stuff out. I’ve got to get a better magnetic tip. Let me see if I can just use this other screwdriver which has a magnetic tip to get it started.

Here you see the unit—the motherboard—properly set in there. Now this has another shield that goes on the top here with this cutout for the fan, so it slides underneath there and it has five screws: three up here, two right here.

Another thing that I had to take off were these standoffs here for the eSATA cable. I use a socket like this to put those in and out. I just screw those back in.

Now comes the other side, this is the top part of it. You can see it has the cutout on the back for the I/O ports. This goes in here, it kind of slides in awkwardly. Two screws go in the back—the “warranty voided” screw and the other regular one on top.

I did void the warranty, unfortunately, from this 20-year-old thing. I don’t think it’s 20 years old, I think it’s more like 10 years old.

That’s it, that’s the reverse teardown of this beautiful little tiny ViewSonic netbook of sorts. It’s got an Intel Atom CPU, but it does have a nice eSATA port there. It takes a full-size SSD and it fits in the palm of your hand like this, which is really nice. I think the previous owners were using Velcro—this big piece of Velcro—to mount it on the back of a computer monitor.

Let me know what you think in the description if you’d like to see this thing tested in some way. I’m going to install Windows XP on it, and I might even consider Windows 10 versus XP just in another video to see how different operating systems perform on this thing. Maybe Linux, Windows XP—which is what this is meant to run—Windows 10. I wonder if even an early version of Mac OS would run on this. That might be interesting to try.

Let me know what you’d like for me to try on here, and maybe I’ll do it in another video. Till next time! Oh yeah, don’t forget to hit the like button and subscribe. Thank you!