Building own laptop?

Is it even possible to build a laptop?

 

Really? I don't think it's possible. Where would you buy all the parts then? You'd better stick with buying one (for the warranty).

 

You can build a laptop however I will tell you this, you will need to have a lot of experience with metal maching soldering pcb printing and have a good knowledge of electronic engenieering.......if I were you I'd stick to the shelf or we shall see you again in a few years

 

No, you can't build your own laptop. Laptop parts are always proprietary, where as desktops use the ATX standard.

 

Well yeah, the manufacters don't really ever manufacture thier own parts, they design the part and outsource it to a foreign company. Every laptop has its own design. Those parts are never interchangeable, unlike a desktop where everything is manufactured within a set standard.

 

I think buying is your best bet... even if you do build your own, its likely to be thicker and heavier just because its generic sizes rather than precise sizes - and I don't think the money you may save would be comparable to the "loss in quality". I am sure you know you can just do upgrades by the manufacturer or even yourself.

And building a desktop is waaaaay different. Everything is very - i forgot the word :dry: - interchangeable.... and the weight/size doesn't matter as much... in a laptop, parts tend to be a lot more proprietary... just look at every major manufacturer.... they all have rather different things.... like some asus has the power jack in the middle of the side, they have different places for power buttons, headphone jacks, and all the IO stuff, they have different hinge styles, etc... at this point in time, building your own laptop is doable but, in my opinion, not worth it. You can get a lot of great deals of laptops and, if you have the patience to see it, which you do as you were ready to build one, you can see the final product from the base you purchase, and manufacturer upgrades, and then your own upgrades.

Best of luck

 

Not always true there are many computer standards that come together to produce a working machine and most of your smaller platform computers can use the same standard. Oh and the ATX "standard" is actually just a way of referencing the 20(+4) power input connector. Most laptops will follow current standards and protocols for a desktop system the only difference is the actual connectors. (kinda like the apple ipods they are just firewire and USB in a custom connector)

it means that if your are trying to build your own laptop you basically need and EE degree and a lot of free time and money. esp if you want your laptop to support current standards like IEEE1394(also know as firewire) and the USB standard (i don't know the IEEE code for it). Also those documents are a very very very long dry read. Lets put it this way...i've tried to make my own peripherals for computers. eventually i end up saying "screw this" and just go buy w/e i'm trying to make. Oh and the IEEE1394 costs close to $200 and if you want to support modern PCIe those papers cost about $600 (or at least i'm told haven't actually looked this one up).

Stick to the self means buy the complete product

if they already have motherboards then you are at a good starting point...if they have power conversion systems (120AC to 12,5,3.3DC) your in even better shape

THEY STILL ARE STANDARD!! it's just you have to know all those standards and how they decided to implement them!

---------- Post added 29th Dec 2012 at 10:18 PM ----------

if you really want to pursue it:

Analog, Embedded Processing, Semiconductor Company, Texas Instruments - TI.com

that website is chalked FULL of information about component design projects including your own motherboards

---------- Post added 29th Dec 2012 at 10:21 PM ----------

but the basic way they interface is the same....that power connector goes to a transformer which converts the voltages then to a bridge rectifier which converts AC to DC. Almost all the frontplate IO is using the USB standard on the backend.

 

There are a few companies out there which produce bare bones laptops. They have the planar, case, keyboard and display. You can drop in the hard drive, optical drive, CPU, memory, and wireless card.

I had some experience with them about 8 years ago, and frankly they were crap. Better to stick with a good quality name brand laptop.

 

Motherboard form factors such as ATX, Mini-ITX, and BTX etc. deal with a hell of a lot more than just the main power connector. The layout of all of the components and connectors are specified by the motherboard form factor. These standards don't deal with laptop motherboards, which come I'm all sorts of shapes and layouts and connector types. Everything except for the RAM, CPU are proprietary. Keyboards, trackpads, speakers, display, etc. are all different on just about every laptop.

 

Not really, power connector and mounting holes is about all that it deals with. Speakers are just d/a converters operating over a bus (probably USB if there cheep or a PCI/ISA bus) same with displays, but instead of a d/a on the other end it's a LCD.

The things are a lot more similar than you'd think. The different components and connectors of a motherboard are dependent on the standards that the connector implements(SATA, PATA, the various PCIs, ATX, ISA, E-ISA(if anyone remembers that), AC'97 the closed circuit connectors ).

if you don't believe me, next time your on a windows laptop open the device manager and check out the USB bus. you'll probably see a bunch of HID drivers that are your keyboard and mouse. And your sound card is probably on a PCI bus. displays might be on a PCI or some other form of bus.

it's the same basic standard just implemented in a different way. Motherboard manufactures can do what ever they want in between those connectors as long as the communication protocols stay the same. Same goes for laptops. Just there it's not in a nice easy to work in space.. you've got a half an inch if your lucky, so instead of those PCI connectors and modular systems they just use PCB traces and ribbon cables.

 

I don't think you are getting my point. First off, the atx form factor deals with power requirements, component layout, and dimensions of pic slots, size of motherboard, etc. the whole point I was trying to make is that while the layout on a desktop motherboard is the same across the board, a laptop motherboard is not. That's the very reason why laptop motherboards are not universal. You can't just buy any replacement laptop motherboard, it has to be the exact same one you're replacing. I'm not even going to go into the stupid point you made about HID devices in device manager (duh?) mainly because I don't feel like typing another long paragraph. I'm a network administrator for a pretty damn big factory, I've been doing this IT stuff for a long time now, and I know what I'm talking about. Not trying to be rude or anything.

 

How do you like it? Did it come with that abomination that they call Windows 8?

Rather than building my own, I find it much easier to use the configure to order features of a vendor like Dell. The only thing that I would not pay for there is memory. It's so easy to upgrade yourself, and the vendors charge you tons more than what it's worth.

My last laptop is a store-bought (I hate that, I like getting exactly what I want, but didn't this time...) Lenovo ThinkPad T430. I wish that I had not needed it that day.

I've since upgraded that machine to 16GB RAM (which was a bit of a challenge, since to get to one of the RAM slots you have to remove the keyboard, but it's not that hard) and it cost me $100. If I would have done a CTO and had Lenovo do it, they would have charged $300 or so for the exact same thing. The labor to do it was worth nowhere near $200.