building a laptop

solamisandwich

Solid State Member
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im in college. i need a laptop. i am broke. but i have built and modded severl desktops. i have been looking on ebay at them and ive been noticing many to be used as parts. i already figured out that the processor speed on laptops is much different from my fx-55 (because it uses batteries???) my question is it possible to build a laptop from differnt parts? are the parts like motherboards and such universal at all or are they 100% completely made for that model and that model only. can i sort of buy an older dell and buy a newer dell mobo and maybe the fastest processor for it and get the thing to work?(<- just an example) what im wanting is to build a rather quick (1.5Ghz-2.8Ghz) laptop in the range of lets say $500. can it be done?

i can get the processors VERY cheap on ebay.
ebay is also littered with used laptops that are broken and for parts.
i dont know much about laptops but i think i could take desktops to a profession.
just a little help please:)
 
yeah I'm pretty sure a lot of stuff is their own form factor for laptops, just the same as a desktop, lets say dell for example, they use their own form factor for things like motherboards and cases. so I highly doubt you could switch much between brands. now if you bought a couple broken laptops of the same brand, I'm sure you would be able to put them together then.
BUT.......working on a laptop is nothing like working on a desktop, you have to really know what you are doing to crack open a laptop. if I were you, I'd just look for a good, cheap laptop for sale.
 
i want to build one that i can use for gaming as well as school work. not hardcore gaming just something that i can use on flights or during my professors boring class. i dont really care if its ultra ultraportable but something i could work on between classes, in the car, other dorms, etc. i was thinking on something like an amd 64 939 3000+ an up or a good p4. i also understand that the cards are totally different from desktops.
 
Hm...well desktop processors usually use alot of power...you would want something powered by a AMD Turion or a Pentium M because those are pretty good at gaming but are very energy efficient. The motherboards in latops are completely different. They contain different slots and different shapes because not all laptops are the same size.
 
you said you were building a dell laptop. where did you start when you decided to start building. also whats the socket for pM and amd turons.
 
I'm not building a Dell... o_O

I decided to because I really want a laptop with out all the brand-name crap. No pre-loaded junk, no brand name labels, and a fast laptop for half the price.

The one I'm going to build is equivelent to a $3000 from Toshiba. What does it cost me? About $1600 :)

The Pentium M uses Socket 479 and the Turion uses Socket 754, I believe. Good luck in finding the Turion though...it's pretty much impossible to find a boxed version for retail. You can't just buy a normal motherboard for a laptop. Laptop motherboards are designed to be compact, so the insertion of things is different. The graphics accelerator is usually integrated (although nVIDIA came up with the in-genius udea of the MXM, short for Mobile PCI-Express Modules).
 
Have you seen the toshiba hd's that are close to 10,000rpm speed? It's crazy...
 
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