Building a Laptop

[Kryten]

Nothing overly interesting, nor a plea for help, but thought some folks might like to see how I spend pretty much most of my days. Which of course, I love

Been collecting parts from scrap for a Dell Latitude D820/Precision M65 recently, and have just collected the very final bit. I had previously put it together roughly, sans screws & not mounted right, just to get Vista Ultimate installed and running.

Half an hour of building, and it's all up and running, well chuffed. First widescreen system I've ever owned!

Pics to follow.

 

[Kryten]

Motherboard mounted properly in case bottom with Processor (Core 2 Duo), RAM, Bluetooth dongle and cooling installed. HDD is also in.
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Lid on.
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Screen in!
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Screwed together and turned on - seems to work!
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Booted Windows - job done!
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Pleased with it performance-wise and looks - only a 15.4" screen but the picture is so sharp and the resolution so high it seems bigger than it really is. Pics are fairly pants in quality - taken on a Sony K800i phone with a filthy lens!

So far, it's a Core 2 Duo 2.33ghz processor, 2gb DDR2 5300 ram, 15.4" UWXGA screen with 1920x1200 resolution on an nVidia Quadro NVS120 graphics onboard, BlueRay optical reader/DVDRW (seperate units unfortunatley for the time being), built in Wireless and Bluetooth, a little remote control thingy that fits in the side.

 

[Noc0de]

Nice... Care to fix my Dell Dimension 8200 that won't switch on anymore?

 

[Kryten]

Heh, in what way "won't turn on" ?

i.e. any flashing lights/strobing from the LEDs? (Caps/num/scroll lock etc)
Just no power whatsoever?
Most common fault on those (as with many other systems) is the power jack working it's way loose due to lots of plugging in from the power jack.

Similar problem that some women have

 

[Noc0de]

Both batteries have full charge, tried with and without batteries in and with and without AC lead in.

Press power button and nothing. No power, no lights, no noises.

My gf was using it 6 months ago and I got a call at work to say it wouldn't switch on. She didn't do anything to it (that I know!)...

I'm thinking the psu or the board which receives the signal from the button being depressed and signals the psu to start is knackered, or something.

It's not a biggy, but always nice to have a spare lappy.

 

[throdgrain]

Whilst on the subject of laptops, I won one at work yesterday, a Toshiba PSL48E. Its only got a gig of ram and Id like to add another, anyone have any ideas where to get laptop bits? Its not the same as a PC is it?

 

[inactionman]

Probably takes standard laptop memory (SO-DIMM), depends if it's DDR or DDR2. One thing to bear in mind is that it's rare to see one with empty banks (manufacturers normally use 2x small rather than 1x large).

 

[throdgrain]

It would be DDR2 I expect.

 

[Noc0de]

It would be DDR2 I expect.

Yeah, looks like it to me - spec link.

Crucial's website is always good.

The RAM is dirt cheap anyway, £32 for 2GB DDR2 PC2-5300 is a bargin tbh.

When I bought 1GB for my lappy a few years back it was more like £70.

 

[Noc0de]

Nice... Care to fix my Dell Dimension 8200 that won't switch on anymore?

Sorry, it's not a Dimension - it's an Inspiron... What was I thinking? :-/

 

[ford prefect]

I attempted to build a laptop some yers ago. It took a lot of swearing and a couple of solder burns, but I finally got it working. Sadly it's never been particularly cheap to build laptops for most of us, which is a shame, so I wouldn't do it agian. Lot more satisfying than building a tower though

 

[Clown]

I upgraded my Vaio yesterday. Fitting the RAM and the HD was a doddle. There are two removeable panels on the back. Three screws releases the panel to reach the RAM. Two screws undoes the one to get at the HD.I had no ribbons or anything to contend with, just slide the old one out and slide the new one in.

The only thing is that I forgot to burn my XPlite disk.

Guh.

 

[Kryten]

Doh!

Yeah, with RAM prices like they are, now is the time to do it. Crucial is good for getting a rough idea but never, ever trust them 100% to get the specifications right, because more often than not that only applies to their own brand (Micron) and identically specified modules from other manufacturers may not work.

Either way, DDR2 is DDR2 and it's very rare for a new laptop to reject different makes.
Hynix, Infineon, Micron (Crucial) are the big brands in Laptop ram. Avoid kingston and kingmax as usual.

NoC0de - Sounds odd - it could certainly be anything, if it's refusing to power up even with a full battery and no mains then it's definately something reasonably serious.
If you're able, the first course of action that's normally worth a go is to strip it right back, removing everything including the RAM, processor, cooling, TFT etc, then try and fire it up. Even without all of the above it will give some form of life in the way of an LED flashing at you. That would eliminate problems with the motherboard, then you can re-add hardware and keep trying to turn on with each peice re-added.
Also worth brushing the board over with a pure horse-bristle brush (not nylon) - it's suprising the effect certain types of shit getting into a laptop can have, and it's not uncommon - theres lots of holes in a laptop for stuff to get in.
I've had a couple where someone had inserted a kitkat wrapper in through one of the vents :/

 

[Yaka]

wots the total cost kryt?

 

[Kryten]

To me, absolutely nothing - this entire machine was built from parts that were scrapped off by Dell.
This is not withstanding that half of it is brand spanking new. Dell engineers often find it easier to replace something than to check the existing for working order, and are mostly far too thick to even understand faults in the first place.

The basic D820 started life at £780 exc VAT though, according to Dell - as this stands, new it'd have been nearer £1300 due to the built in 3G WAN connection ability, 1920x1200 TFT. nVidia Quadro 256mb graphics and whatnot. I might change the wristpad out for one with a biometric touchpad at some point, but that's not really a big deal, it'd only be there to look a bit different

This isn't the sort of thing you could do by buying parts from ebay though - many people charge silly monies for separate parts - for example, shopping around for the plastic door that fits over the memory slot on the bottom - its about 1.5" by 3 inches with a vent in. Couple of quids worth of plastic and time - and the average price quoted was circa £30 + VAT. £200 for the motherboard on it's own, another £140 for the processor, £200 for the screen, £50 for the keyboard, £30 for the palmrest, £80 for the hdd, £50 for DVDRW, £100 for the blueray - thats £880 already and that's forgetting stuff like ram, bluetooth, speakers, cables, wireless & 3g cards, pcmcia & pc card express slots etc :/

Best way to do it, although risky, is buying the "For Spares" lots from Ebay - you can often pick up something this sort of spec for around £100, and typically has no ram or hard drive, and probably a naff screen.

This goes to show why the second hand laptop market has fallen off something rotten - start pricing those "rebuilt" machines up and most sane people will think "well hang on, £300 buys me a new dual core unit from PC World". Not as good spec, but it's new and guaranteed. Makes me very lucky to be working with these spares all day long, really.