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Hardware

Home-Built Laptops? 19

Posted by jamie from the ah-just-put-handles-on-it dept.
dpro writes "Just looking around on the web didn't reveal too much, so I thought I'd ask you people if any of you have experience building your own laptop computers. I see that it's not going to be cheaper but all the stuff that's out there either lacks features, has features I don't need or there's simply no open source driver for some of them (and the companies aren't exactly helpful in writing one yourself). So what do you people think? Can anyone point me in the right direction?" My motto is "Can't someone else do it?", but the idea appeals to me; is the market for laptop hardware sufficiently commoditized? Or do you have to build your own case with a rasp and file?
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Home-Built Laptops? More

Home-Built Laptops?

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  • Small PC/104 MB (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Look at PC/104 [controlled.com] as the standard for small motherboards. Some boards are four inches square. There also are credit-card-sized boards, many of which plug into sockets on PC/104 holders (the PC/104 card becomes a mounting point for the numerous interface connectors).

    Unfortunately, no plastics manufacturer has spotted the need for a PC/104 laptop case. Need a base with mounting points for a widely-available small power supply, a common battery style (C-cell sized cylinders, if nothing else). The rest of the machine could have several locations for PC/104 card mounting -- metal brackets to fit PC/104 holes can deal with CD and hard drive mountings.

    It might also be possible to have a PC board with two side-by-side PC/104 sockets to allow use of two adjacent cards. At least one bay should offer PCMCIA slot capability -- as PCMCIA is electrically similar to IDE, either a card or cable can connect that bay (or bays, if someone wants a system with more card slots) to the rest.

    The back would have the usual connectors. The top with the keyboard/mouse openings would use mountings for common mechanisms (being a separate part, varieties of tops would all fit the same bases). The lid should have mounting points for some common LCD panels -- or one mounting point and metal brackets to fit various panels (metal brackets are easy to have locally made if you need a custom one due to a special video need). Bezels to fit various screen sizes. Sure would be nice to have a cable channel that would allow simple flat cables through the hinge.

    Personally, I'd also like to also be able to mount the screen where the keyboard usually goes, so I can make a tablet computer when appropriate. The keyboard connector on the back would offer keyboard capability when needed.

  • With the exception of PCMCIA cards, SODIMM memory modules, and 2.5" hard drives, laptop parts arent commoditized - they aren't even standardized, really (CD/DVD drives are essentially the same form factor, but laptop manufacturers add their own unique connector and bezel). The rest of the parts are all specially designed for every different laptop. Very few laptop manufacturers have compatible parts (one exception is Dell and the now-defunct Quantex, who OEM'd the entire laptop from another manufacturer), which is why you can't walk into a PC shop, grab a bunch os standard laptop parts, and put them together.

    If you're looking for a Linux laptop, Dell [dell.com] and QLITech [qlitech.net] (who took over from TuxTops; and they OEM the same system Dell sells as the 5000e as their Emperor).

  • I found that company shortly after posting. Of course, they don't sell to consumers - just manufacturers.
  • Dell, Quantex, Milwaukee PC and Sager all have at one point or another OEM'd their laptops (Dell insprion 5000 series) from Compal of taiwan. The only non-compatible piece between them is dell's power supply, which has it's own proprietary connector (go figure) I have the milwaukee PC Nomad 1500 and it's great. You can even order it with a magnesium case :) (www.compal.com.tw is the homepage)
  • Finaly, laptops are a different business model than PCs. People don't upgrade laptops and they don't buy cheap ones, which is the main two reasons why you can buy the parts.
    I will have to agree with you on this, however I have to disagree too. I agree that people do not upgrade their laptop machines often (if at all). The problem that I see with this statement is that manufactuers do not make laptops easily upgradable. The last machine that I have seen that I could plug a new processor in was a 486 25/SX. Maybe there were a few that poped up later, but most modern machines cannot have many of their core componnents swapped. Laptop memory has always been proprietary, and as a result, 3X more expensive than consumer RAM. Yeah, sure you may be able to put a new hard disc in; most of those have been standardized on size. A CDROM maybe.
    I realize the problems that standardization would cause to the laptop market. Creativity would stiffle, form factor would probably increace, etc. That's why I don't necessairly think it's a good idea. Being able to upgrade processors and having the ability to cram some regular DIMMS, however, would be priceless.
    Sorry about the formatting, slashcode seems to be on the fritz this morning.
  • This SO-DIMM sounds good, I'm glad that it finally has been done. It's nonsense to have it otherwise, as it does save tonnes of money for the manufactuers, especially on the custom fabrication of those boards; not to mention the headaches for consumers. Thanks for the enlightenment,as it's been a while since I have opened a brand-new laptop :D
  • The last machine that I have seen that I could plug a new processor in was a 486 25/SX. Maybe there were a few that poped up later, but most modern machines cannot have many of their core componnents swapped.

    Except for the later Celerons (500+ MHz) and the LV versions of the PII and PIII, all of the Intel mobile chips have been swapable. The IMM-1, IMM-2 and IMM/100 MHz come on a board thats relatively easy to pop in and out.

  • The last machine that I have seen that I could plug a new processor in was a 486 25/SX. Maybe there were a few that poped up later, but most modern machines cannot have many of their core componnents swapped.

    Except for the later Celerons (500+ MHz) and the LV versions of the PII and PIII, all of the Intel mobile chips have been swapable. The IMM-1, IMM-2 and IMM/100 MHz come on a board thats relatively easy to pop in and out.

  • Relatively sure, yes. Why?
  • But if you're going to do this you will need ram - Dell (dell.com) has sodimms for cheap - go to the site, click through "home use", then go software and accessories and search for kingston valueram sodimm cl2.
    Though they might be jacking up prices soon.

    Pricewatch.com would also be good - but some of the merchants charge an arm an a leg to ship (yeah, 2 sodimms are 6 pounds).

    Sodimms pc100
    128 mb is 45$
    64 is 23.

    I have a shotgun, a shovel and 30 acres behind the barn.

  • I don't agree, laptops fulfill a special role which is providing small and light computing power which demands a highly innovative, creative and holistic approach to every element of the laptop which precludes standardisation except for the minimal degree required for software and peripheral compatibility. Standardising a motherboard for instance would basically mean making each laptop the same size and shape.
  • Check out Case Depot [casedepot.com] Their "portables" section has regular ATX cases with LCD's attached. Some are even upgradable
  • Previously, I posted about making your own motherboard for making your own note book. Since then, it has occureded to me that this task could be greatly simplified by using the uCsimm.(http://www.uclinux.org/ucsimm/). If you start from that, all you need to do is make a much simpler board that contains a video display of some sort (as simple as a meg or two of ram, and what ever the LCD equivelant of a RAM-DAC is) and keyboard jack (to hook your off the self notebook keyboard to), and maybe some accessories ports (serial, parallel, whatever). Assuming you don't blow anything up, you might be able to do this project on as little as $400. Keep in mind that you are only going to get 486 level performance.

  • I can't see why they couldn't have come up with a standard for memory or even use the same standard as the desktop. I have an old laptop that uses a standard 72pin SIMM, so it's been done (the same laptop though has it's hard drive wired directly to the motherboard). I don't understand why it's not more widespread. I would think this would help the manufacturers bring their costs down.

  • SO-DIMM is the standard many laptops currently use for memory. The only factor is how tall they are, as the standard has 4 sizes, and some sizes may not fit in your particular laptop. But the standard has been out for a while, and odds are, the shiny new laptops at the store that you have your eye on use it.

    Hell, even the Mac laptops use it, so they did a decent job on the standard :-)

    Oh, just like PC DIMMs, you have PC66, and PC100 memory. I had to worry about that when I bought my extra memory for my Solo 9300, as it uses a 100 mHz bus (unherd of at the time when I got it new in Aug 99).
  • Back in my day, people used to tote the original Macs around in backpacks before there was any such thing as a "laptop" and we liked it!

    If you were half the man your father, err... your much older brother was you wouldn't need to customize a laptop - you would fit an LCD into an ATX case and customize to your hearts content.

    ....

  • Making a laptop probably isn't doable if you are hoping to snap parts together.

    However, if you wanted to really do it youself, you should be able to make a fairly nice r3k or other simple machine for yourself that would have memory, harddrive controller, and the chips to drive an LCD display on one board. Then, you can probably get the rest of the parts from surplus dealers and make the casing yourself.

    Thing is that there don't seem to be any reference designs for any decent platforms other than the G3, and G3 chips are just too complex to work with. What's needed is a chip with limited pin count so that you can get away with useing a simple circuit printing kit and soldering the sockets on by hand (you don't want to solder the chips on so that you can reuse them if the board is foobar'ed).

  • ASUS laptops (Score:3)

    by Global-Lightning ( 166494 ) on Sunday March 11, 2001 @01:23PM (#371702)
    Your best bet will be the ASUS 8400 [asus.com] series of laptops. Most laptops are custom designs that try to squeeze as much into the limited space as possible. In doing so they sacrifice the modularity that makes upgrading desktop PCs so easy.
    The 8400 is a highly modular design that lets you swap the CPU, memory, modem/LAN, hard-drive, touchpad, display, DVD/CD-ROM, and even the motherboard. You'll need the same tools used for working on a desktop and a little more skill due to some of the smaller components.

    Tom's Hardware [tomshardware.com] recently did a write-up [tomshardware.com] on this portable with many examples of customizing it.

  • The problem is... (Score:4)

    by cmowire ( 254489 ) on Saturday March 10, 2001 @02:06PM (#371703) Homepage
    Some of he parts are available, like laptop-sized CD/DVD drives, for example.

    The problem is that laptops are too much trouble to customize, for a number of reasons.

    The main one is that, in order to fit all of the pieces in a small case, everything has to fit together like a puzzle. There is no chance of this being standardized any time soon. Every model fits together in a slightly different fashion because the size requirements change.

    Next, the parts are rather fragile. Sure laptops are getting pretty durable, but they use tiny ribon cables inside and such things. You really need to know what you are doing if you want to mess with the innards of them.

    Finaly, laptops are a different business model than PCs. People don't upgrade laptops and they don't buy cheap ones, which is the main two reasons why you can buy the parts.

    I'm a total advocate of the custom PC, but even I purchase off-the-shelf laptops. It's just not even worth bothering with.

    Having said that, You might want to check out the related market of embedded computers. All of the PC/104, Single Board, etc. systems that are out there could be modified into a working laptop.

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