Notebook Upgrades: Hacking your Dell/Compaq/Toshiba

David Steele writes "Ever wondered what you could do to prolong the life of your notebook? Or upgrade it to meet today's standards? Or maybe you want to turn your mid-range notebook into a high-end model? Hardware Analysis has an article up that takes a a closer look at the available options."

Comments

Difficult

[bonzoesc]

The hardest part of working on a notebook is putting it back together when you're done. It's like 3D Tetris with $200 pieces.

The second hardest part is running your website off it when it's slashdotted. :)

Re:Difficult

[Rick the Red]

The hardest part of working on a notebook is putting it back together when you're done. It's like 3D Tetris with $200 pieces.

Yeah, but thank God there isn't someone handing you a new piece every 2 seconds!

Re:Difficult

[sharkey]

Yeah, but thank God there isn't someone handing you a new piece every 2 seconds!

Perhaps they should. We could have a blind-folded laptop rebuilding contest like the carb-building contest on the Dukes of Hazzard. The winner would get five positive moderations on /. as a reward.

Re:Difficult

[bonzoesc]

Don't worry - I won't. I would only end up using it as a desktop, and my desktop is better for what I do.

Re:Difficult

[Jimmy_B]

"The hardest part of working on a notebook is putting it back together when you're done. It's like 3D Tetris with $200 pieces." --bonzoesc

"Yeah, but thank God there isn't someone handing you a new piece every 2 seconds!" --Rick the Red

Personally, I don't think I'd mind someone handing me a $200 piece every 2 seconds.

Re:Difficult

[vanza]

The hardest part of working on a notebook is putting it back together when you're done.

And the best part is, after hours of restless work and when you finally say "It's done!", you look at the table and see you have some spare parts that were not there before...

Re:Difficult

[bonzoesc]

I replaced the battery in my wristwatch, and I had it all together and re-sealed when I noticed the tiny 1 mm spring on the table. I opened it up, found the place it went, and put it back in. While re-seating the seal, I accidentally pushed the spring down, and it disappearred off into the sunset... My watch has been mute ever since.

Re:Difficult

[jallen02]

You have to be jealous, he has one of the biggest portable penis extensions you can buy!

Jeremy

Re:Difficult

[(void*)]

You would mind, if you had to drop the one you are holding ...

Re:Difficult

[dattaway]

You too can make one of these tiny springs (I launched a few of these springs myself.) Strip off a few inches of insulation from one of the conductors of a IDE hard drive cable and grab one strand. Take a pin off your grandma's sewing pin cushion. With the pin in one hand, wrap tightly a new spring. The annealed copper spring should provide enough tension for your quartz noise transducer.

Extra points for repairing broken pins off tiny IC's.

Lack of laptop need?

[weslocke]

I've thought about upgrading my old laptop, but why? Personally I used to live out of a Compaq Armada (P133, etc)... then I got my first Palm Pilot. Ever since I believe I've actually lugged my old laptop out once or twice, and then only to offload pictures from my digital camera while on trips.

I can see where there would be definite needs for an honest-to-god laptop, but it really seems that the days of the old notebook have come and gone when you consider the sheer handyness of the alternatives like Palm and PocketPC.

Re:Lack of laptop need?

[Malc]

I have a need for a laptop. I work from home, and have very flexible hours and work arrangements. I often like to take off and work from the family cottage out on the shores of Lake Huron, or take a long weekend in another city. The laptop makes this possible as I can lug virtual desktop power with me in a fraction the size and weight. On about 5 occasions in the last couple of years we've driven from a home in SW Ontario to Ottawa or Montreal for the weekend, and I've got an almost complete day of work in in the car (thanks to my student wife who offered to drive!) Other times, I've left the home office earlier and finished the day on the way to Toronto. It works for me ;)

Re:Lack of laptop need?

[scumdamn]

There's really a need for laptops when you consider the flexibility. I have both a desktop for gaming and a portable that I actually use all the time.

A portable with wireless can be used in bed, on the couch, in the pool, on the chais lounge, while you're pooping, while you're cooking, at a desk, and sitting on the porch swing out front. How can you beat that?

Re:Lack of laptop need?

[Heem]

(thanks to my student wife who offered to
drive!)

Student wife eh? is that simaler to Student Teacher, Student Driver etc? if so, how do I send mine to wife class? :-P

Re:Lack of laptop need?

[Mr. Foogle]

Why? I was pondering this today.

I have a 4 year old Toshiba Tecra on my desk. Next to is a 4 month old Dell Inspiron 8000. The Dell is what I need - roomy hard drive, fast processor, yadda yadda. But I *like* my Toshiba.

The Dell feels cheap, which is a rotten thing to say about a 3k laptop. The lid doesn't move up n down smoothly. The catch doesn't feel solid. Typical Dell, in other words.

My Tecra's lid still hinges up and down nicely, after 4 years. The catch makes a satisfying 'click' when closed and opened. It's a damned nice solid piece of work. If I could upgrade it, I'd toss the Dell to someone in our office who needs it ....

tiBook personalizations...

[torpor]

Dunno about upgrading it (well, a tiBook with 1gig of RAM and OS X is pretty much as sweet a platform for my work as I'll ever need), but I've been designing a new cover for the screenlid that protects things a bit better.

I'm going to coat the entire outside surfaces of my tiBook with the same material that's used in industrial-strength warehouse floors - gripping material - basically, rubberized grit.

That way, it'll be a *lot* better protected than the existing metal exterior, which is sexy at first, but over time rapidly deteriorates as life goes by... if you're getting a tiBook, get used to having to keep it clean. It loves grime.

I'll probably customize the logo too, while I'm at it. As much as I love Apple, I hate being a walking billboard for them, so I'm going to cut a smaller logo template as part of my modification, and use the LCD-backlight shining through the Apple logo as a light source for my own design - maybe with coloring, too, we'll see how things progress.

If anyone's done anything like this already, followup with details. I'd love to know of others that are wililng to modify their tiBooks in kind ...

Re:tiBook personalizations...

[X-Dopple]

I'd like to know how you can rubberize your laptop like that. My cousin recently dropped my dad's laptop three feet and it survived the fall. Well, the notebook itself did, anyway, the hard drive's head was knocked out of alignment as evidenced by the loud clicking noise when the laptop is turned on.

The notebook in question was a ThinkPad 600X that felt delicate to begin with. Now that my dad's getting another laptop, are there any rugged models that can survive a 1 meter plunge?

Re:tiBook personalizations...

[torpor]

You can buy the rubberized grit in large rolls at your local Home Depot. Cut a single piece to size, remove adhesive, stick it on.

Or, you can get it in spray-cans - takes a lot more work to prep the case for application, but it'll be a nicer job.

Re:tiBook personalizations...

[yesthatguy]

Panasonic's Toughbooks claim (and look) to be pretty tough. I'm not sure if they're worth the expense for your dad though. There are a few less-rugged options that I've heard of, but I don't have the links handy. Check /.'s archive, I think there's something recently about them.

Re:tiBook personalizations...

[Jaysyn]

1.) Remove Electronics
2.) Add thick coat off Rhino liner (what they use for rubberized truck beds)
3.) Allow to dry
4.) Replace electronics

You now have a shockproof badass TiBook

Jaysyn

Re:tiBook personalizations...

[firewort]

I second the -replace the drive- advice.

If the 600x itself survived (and thinkpads are built to be pretty damn solid, I'm using a 385xd) just buy a new drive and put it in. On the Thinkpad, it's easy.

The Money Game

[N8F8]

The link is already slashdotted of course.

I currently have an Inspiron 8000. I know the motherboard is simply an intel motherboard with a small form factor. I'd sure love to upgrade the video since so many new video cards supporting good 3D gaming are out. The only thing that would stop me is the 3 year Dell warranty and the lack of OEM notebook video cards for sale. Why aren't the video card manufacturers selling these on the open market? A year from now I'd sersiosly consider taking the risk. By then a faster CPU and video card may outweigh the risks of voiding the warranty.

Re:The Money Game

[mnassri]

From what I've read on the Dell forums (I have the I8k too), you CAN upgrade from an ATI to NVidia GeForce Go, by replacing the video card in the socket. Several people have reported successfully upgrading, although it does void your warranty. I believe the video chip is for sale, in the refurbished sales category, if I remember correctly.

-Maher-

Re:The Money Game

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get the NVidia GeForce2Go video card and replace it in the socket but there are numerous problems concerning power since the Nvidia card uses a little more juice than the ATI cards.

Re:The Money Game

[jchristopher]

Disregarding the warranty, your Inspiron 8000 is pin compatible with a GeForce2Go chip. You can buy them from Dell spare parts, although they will not do the installation nor support you afterwards. The option is there, though. The CPU's are socketed too.

Re:The Money Game

[N8F8]

Thanks. Does the CPU use a special package, or the standard one?

Re:The Money Game

[jchristopher]

It uses a CPU specifically designed for laptops. It is, however, a standard, and thus also replaceable. I believe the architecture is called MMC-2.

Re:The Money Game

[equalize]

You really think that when Dell comes to take a look at your computer they are going to say, "Oh, you upgraded your Video Card, we're not going to fix your motherboard problem."

Naw, Dell talks a lot of trash about voiding the warranty but when it comes down to it, the service repairmen don't care what you've done to it... They get paid to replace the part and move on to the next job. We frequently have Dell technicians fix the Latitude notebooks we have, and even when they notice something fishy they seem to just laugh it off.

On a related note, when putting a laptop back together never listen to your coworkers tell you that you can't put a GIG of memory inside the notebook. Sometimes having those SIMMs floating around in the case is not good for the life of the equipment.

The virtue of Powerbooks

[Xunker]

Here is where one of the vitures of Mac PowerBooks comes through -- Upgradeability.

The examples abound: before I retired it, my old 1400CS had been upgraded from it's stock 117mhz 603e CPU to a 366 G3, and G4 upgrades are nearly availble for the 'Wallstreet' Line, that debued with 233 mhz 7400 CPUs.

The upgradeability is probably not due to the hardware as much as the scope; there are a million-and-one difference makes of x86 notebooks, while Apple is the only real manufacturer of mobile PowerPC hardware, so hardware developers spend a lot more time on one specific model, developing upgrades. If memory serves, this began with the PB 520 in 1993 which started out with a 25mhz 68040 and can be taken all the way up to a 183mhz 604e.

Of course, Powerbooks can't run Windows Natively, and some people still don't think that the MacOS is a *real* OS, even though the only two OS options you have for a Powerbook are MacOS and Linux.
.

Re:The virtue of Powerbooks

[Matthew Weigel]

OpenBSD, NetBSD, Linux, mkLinux, MacOS, MacOS X.

Plenty of options, even for snobs ;-)

Re:The virtue of Powerbooks

[jchristopher]

The parent post is not "informative". On the contrary, probably 75% of Apple notebook CPUs CANNOT be upgraded. Only those specific examples cited can be. There is also no G4 upgrade coming for Wallstreet, despite what the original poster says.

None of the 1x0 series is upgradeable, neither is any of the Duo series, neither is the 3400, 5300, or original G3.

And yes, I'm aware that most wintel notebooks are not upgradeable either. But upgradeable CPUs is not a reason to buy apple - which models have been upgradeable appears to be entirely based on luck, since Apple certainly won't tell you ahead of time.

Re:The virtue of Powerbooks

[saintlupus]

no it wont.. beos will only run on pre g3 type ppc chips..

Actually, it won't run on Powerbooks at all. Desktop Macs and clones only.

--saint

Re:The virtue of Powerbooks

[4444444]

neither is any of the Duo series

sorry the duo 280 series with the 68030 procesors is upgradable to a 100Mhz PPC

Re:The virtue of Powerbooks

[tonywong]

Of course, certain series of powerbooks wind up at dead ends. You can't expect a powerbook from 1991 to be able to take a processor from 2001. The party's over at some point for each chassis type, some sooner than others.

While you can say that none of the 1x0 powerbooks are upgradable to PPC, you can logic board swap and screen swap most of them up to the 180c as an end point. Thus a 25 MHz 030 passive matrix PB140 could be moved up to a 33MHz active colour PB180c.

The duo series is even more upgradable. All of them allowed you to swap in a 100MHz 603e logic board. That's quite a jump from a 25MHz 030. The 2300c can even take scsi or ide HDs.

The 190 (33MHz 040) could be logic board swapped for a 5300 series logic board (100 or 117MHz 603e).

The 3400 series could be logic board swap from a 180, 200, or 240 MHz 603e to an original powerbook G3 (250MHz 750).

The original poster also cited a possible forthcoming G4 upgrade for wallstreet and lombard, but those are only rumours without direct confirmation. They can, however, be upgraded to faster G3s currently.

Only the most recent of the powerbooks don't have an upgrade path at introduction of the new 'chassis' type.

Perhaps they will have an upgrade path at a later date, but Apple never says their computers are upgradable ever since they got sued for advertising that the LC/performa series could be upgraded to PowerPC (and priced it so sky high and delivered it late that people got massively pissed).

The most potentially upgradable powerbook is the much lamented 5x0 series. I think they came out in '95 or so, and featured two swappable bays, a CPU and RAM on a daughtercard, and on-board 10Mb ethernet (AUI). The only thing it missed was a big enough cavity for CD-ROM drives. In fact, the daughtercard could theoretically take G3 and G4 chips and more RAM than any of its closer descendants (no specified maximum other than physical size), but no upgrades are ever going to be made again as the connector (or controller?) for the daughtercards has been retired.

A highly upgradable laptop

[cluening]

The most easily upgradable laptop I have ever run across is a friend's CTX EzBook somethingerother that had a desktop - yes, desktop - pentium processor in it. Just pop that little thing out and stick a new one in and boom: an instantly upgraded laptop. Of course, it ran hot as could be and sucked batteries like nothing else, but I imagine it was cheap to produce!

Re:Most the video "cards" are intergrated

[Teferi]

On my inspiron 8k, the video chip and stuff seem to be on a socketed card.

Re:Most the video "cards" are intergrated

[Teferi]

Heh, it's not just that...my old laptop, a model N30W from the now defunct Fountain Technologies, had a socketed card too.
Dell sold those as the Inspiron 5000e, fwiw.

Vaio 505VE Upgrading

[Black Art]

I reciently upgraded my Vaio 505VE laptop. It was not the most easy thing in the world, but possible.

Here are the things you need to know about:

If you have fried the laptop power supply cord and need a replacement, Targus makes a laptop power supply replacement. The web page at http://www.targus.com/ does *not* list the plug end you will need for the 505VE. (It is weird and non-standard.) The plug number you will need to order is number 62. It costs as much as Sony's charger, but has much more use since you can use it with all sorts of other devices.

Memory replacement:

Kingston makes a memory module for the 505VE that is much less than what Sony charges. They also have a lifetime waranty. Buy the 64 meg module. Two 32 meg modules do not equal one 64 meg module. Each is actually two weird chip-like things. If you get the 32 meg set hoping to just get another 32 meg later, you will find that does not work and you will have wasted your money. You can only expand the 505VE to 128 megs.

To open the 505VE, turn the laptop over and remove the screws with an arrow AND a dot next to them. Make sure you do not lose the screws. (A saki cup or other small cup is helpful.) Turn over the lattop and carefully remove the keyboard. It should slide up and out. Remove the screws under the metal plate on the left. The modules plug in under that plate. Carefully put everything back together and it should work.

Replacing the hard drive:

You can upgrade the hard drive. (Sony's web page says you cannot.) Good luck finding one that is bigger though. the 505VE uses a Toshiba 8.45mm laptop drive. It is the thinnest laptop drive made, other than the IBM microdrive. (Which is REALLY tiny.) I have heard that you can use a 9.5mm, but I have never tried it. Toshiba has an 8.1 gig drive that size. The specs are only listed on their Japanese web pages, not on the American. The only company I could find that had one was Atlantic ComputerTech in Brooklyn NY. (I am not certain of the model number. it is in my laptop.)

Getyting the drive in your laptop requires a great deal of care and patience. You will need to remove all of the screws out of the back of the laptop. You then need to remove the keyboard and remove more screws. You then can pry the laptop housing apart at the bottom by about one inch. You need to remove a couple of screws holing the drive into place and carefully unplug it. be careful as there is a fragile cable that connects to the power switch. Once the drive is removed, you can unscrew it from the metal mounting plate and put in the new drive. Put everything back together.

Installing Linux on the 505VE:

You can only boot off the CD-ROM if you are using a Sony CD-ROM drive. (And it is more expensive than the normal drive.) After you boot off the disk, when you get a boot prompt (under Redhat it will ask if you want expert, text or graphical install), type "linux ide=0x180". This give it the non-standard i/o port location of the cd-rom drive. If you do not do this, the drive will stop working when it tries to figure out what ide devices you have.

Hopefully that will help. The 505VE is a nice laptop. Battery life sucks. Sony reams you on every part you have to buy seperatly. Other than that it has been a good laptop.

Re:Vaio 505VE Upgrading

[juuri]

Toshiba makes many drives that fit in the 505s... all the MK 8.5mm series of toshiba drives intended for portable devices will fit.

However I don't think the sony is compatible with them due to heat concerns. I put a 20gig in my 505VE and the drive died shortly. Perhaps the drive was defective? I don't know but I have gone back to a 6 gig drive in it.

Re:Vaio 505VE Upgrading

[Black Art]

The 505VE ships with a 6.5 gig drive. The only larger drive in the 8.45mm form factor seems to be the 8.1mm drive. That may change now that the Toshiba Libreto is now back in production. The 8.45mm drives were originally developed for those tiny little boxes. (In fact Keith Packard (of XFree86 fame) used to use one as his test server. Weird seeing an X server that could be crushed by the monitor displaying it.)

But now that I know the 9.5mm drive will work, I will need to get one of those. (There is never enough space...)

Re:Vaio 505VE Upgrading

[Black Art]

If you can get a look at the boot messages when it initially installs, you can sometimes determine the i/o port being used. It is not easy to figure out. (I had three people try to get it working, all three of them major open source developers and they could not do it. I was able to do it, but it took a lot of research and voodoo.)

Re:Vaio 505VE Upgrading

[Polo]

Forget CD-ROM booting.

For my old Vaio PCG-505F, I've always booted off the net (I used Redhat). I never bought the CDROM drive.

You just need a system with the redhat CD's copied to a directory. Then just put in the pcmcia boot disk and a cheap pcmcia ethernet card and point it to a machine, access is easiest through ftp or http. It's way cheaper than buying the CDROM and faster too.

After owning this sony laptop, I've always liked it. However, the sony proprietary EVERYTHING is a real pain. Special sony memory. Special sony battery. The battery died after quite a short time and I never bought another one because of the sticker shock. I like the special sony charger - It's well designed to wrap the cord around itself. But it too has special connectors and voltages. Sigh.

By the way, if you're into Windoze, you might want to check out CD Space, which lets you encode all your CD's as image files and mount them on "virtual" cd drives. Even games like red alert 2 or diablo 2.

Is it possible to scavenge the display?

[wtpooh]

I have an old Pentium Pro 200mhz laptop, which is mostly a piece of crap (battery pops out, it overheats until it freezes, etc.) Is there any way I could use its display as a second monitor, short of running X on the laptop? I'd like to be able to just install a second video card on my home machine and hook the display up to that.

Re:Is it possible to scavenge the display?

[omega9]

It's possible. We dismantled a laptop at our facility here because of (what we thought was) a dead screen. The only two leads coming from the LCD were for power and VGA. Power was easy enough to splice in, but the VGA cable was a ribbon cable, as I imagine most are. It was all a task of trial and error, figuring out which trace matched to which pin on a standard 15 pin D-shell connector.

If you're lucky, or know people, you can sometimes find white papers or tech-specs on those "pinouts". I've only done it once, but I bet there's a lot of similarity within brands or even in laptops in general. If I can find my notes from back then I'll post the process we used to attatch the ribbon to the D-shell.

Re:Is it possible to scavenge the display?

[juuri]

How exactly did you splice power in?

I have a couple of LCDs I would love to modify.

Uses for a laptop

[linuxguy]

Well, here are some of the things I use my laptop for:

1. Code perl while riding a train to downtown Portland.
2. Debug C++ apps in the coffee shop.
3. Read Slashdot while taking a dump (Thanks to 802.11 wireless networking).

I have noticed that I am more productive when I change the enviroment I work in, regularly.

Re:Most the video "cards" are intergrated

[scumdamn]

Golly, depending on the video card you have you could probably buy the GF2Go from Dell spare parts and put it in your system.

You might just need a BIOS upgrade, though.

Mac

[dasmegabyte]

I recently upgraded my PowerBook G3-500 with a 30 gb hard disk and 640 meg of ram (that's 256 meg for OSX, 256 for Classic and 128 mb for virtual PC, for the "good lord thats a lot of ram" people amongst you). It cost me around $280, which is substantially less than the $2400 a nice new g4 powerbook with loads of ram would have run me. Furthurmore, I fetched $100 for my old 12 gigger.

Laptops get hard drives which are substantially slower than desktops and generally need more (i don't like to carry about my volumes of CDs when I'm on the road). A lot of memory allows you to avoid hyper slow virtual ram, which means less time spent opening programs (you just leave them open). OSX seems substantially more stable with > 256 meg of ram...never panics when i remove my wireless card.

How easy was it? took me an hour, all told, and I got very nice detailed directions in quicktime form from apple's knowledge base.

Dell inspirons seem very upgradable

[TheGratefulNet]

how to upgrade DELL inspiron laptops

it appears that MOST of this laptop can be upgraded. I saw an ebay ad talking about upgrading the video "card" and it had a link to the Dell site, which I listed above.

I have not tried this myself, but am very anxious to upgrade my cpu, once I can find one that is faster than what I currently have; fast enough to justify the risk of opening my laptop, that is.

Re:Dell inspirons seem very upgradable

[frknfrk]

i've had a lot of fun opening my old gateway handbook 486. from this guy's page i got all the info i needed. i've upgraded the RAM (from 8 MB to 20!), and gone from a 120 MB hard drive to a 1.7 GB to a 2.5 GB, and now to a 128 MB IDE Flash disk from Sandisk (no noise whatsoever). plenty of room for a minimal linux distribution. and a lot of fun to hack around on :) i highly suggest grabbing a handbook from ebay, probably several for sale. great little servers, and i used it as my only computer through much of college. can be used with orinoco wireless cards, too! hide the little server in the corner of the closet, makes no noise.

Upgrading Compaq Presario 1600 series

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a Compaq Presario 1685 which originally came with 380Mhz K6-2, 64MB RAM, 4.3GB Fujitsu HDD.
1) I upgraded it to 128MB after buying 64MB from http://www.crucial.com(anyone can do it)

2) Then upgraded the processor with a 450MHz K6-3+. I run it at 500Mhz with some DIP switch settings which can be found at
http://www.mgrudkin.clara.net and
http://www5.compaq.com/athome/support/msgs/1683- 16 94/index.html
Got the processor from www.axiontech.com for $54. Now it's probably available in ebay. Go to http://www.amdzone.com forum (K6 group)to see availability.

3) Recently I upgraded the HDD with a 20GB Fujitsu drive
http://www.edgemicro.com/item.asp?cartID=127AWUL F5 7&ic=FUJMHM2200AT
Any standard 9.5mm HDD will work. I got Fujitsu, because I have read reviews that it's quiter than IBM. So far it's running very good with 3 OS (WinME, XP RC2, Mandarke 7.1)
Refer http://www5.compaq.com/athome/support/msgs/1683-16 94/index.html for removal sequence

4) I tried to replace the DVD-ROM (Toshiba SD-C2202 4X, firmware 1021) with a Toshiba SD-C2202(newer firmware 1327 - got it from ebay), but failed. So running the old drives. The BIOS didn't detect the new drive at all. This drive doesn't have any jumper select or anything. The old drive runs fine in secondary master position. Don't know whether the new drive firmware (may be ide position is hardwired in firmware) is conflicting with my config.

Opening an IBM thinkpad

[bagel]

The link is slashdotted so I couldn't read the story. But here's so 2c I want to give for anyone interested in changing the harddrive for the thinkpads. (I have a i series).

To open the laptop, do not unscrew the screws from the bottom. Instead you have to lift the keyboard (and mouse buttons) out. All the goodies, including your harddrive, are hidden underneath your keyboard. Try poking around to see where the keyboard is screwed down. For me, it's underneath the "i series" panel below the keyboard. You'll need a flat head screw driver or any flat headed object to help lift the panel and the keyboard out since they are clicked into the laptop.

Good luck upgrading.

Re:Try repairing! Dead LCD...

[frknfrk]

i'm still using my gateway 2000 handbook 486 as a server. with a sandisk flash IDE drive, the whole thing makes 0 noise and serves fantastically (web/dns/mail). the 0 noise makes my wife happy, the serving makes me happy. when i upgraded from 8 MB RAM to 20 MB, i could actually use PHP :)

IBM Thinkpad NOT so difficult to upgrade

[n76lima]

About a year ago I "hot rodded" my 4 year old IBM Thinkpad which started out life as a P-133 w/16 MB RAM and 2 GB HD.

I was able to find info on IBM's web pages http://www-1.ibm.com/support/ to change the dip switches for the clock ratio and the CPU voltage. I bought a used AMD K6-233 CPU off of Ebay for $30, a 32 MB RAM upgrade from McGlen Micro http://www.mcglen.com/, and a 6 GB Fujitsu HD from a local store and upgraded it in an afternoon.

Because I was not willing to clip the pin on the CPU I am limited to 200 MHz as the dip switch settings did not support 3.5 clock multiplier, and the backplane is limited to 66 MHz. But the increase in raw CPU speed was 50%, and with the extra RAM (48 MB total) even WinDOZE 98 was able to perform acceptably well.

By adding the 6 GB HD I had room for both the WinDOZE and RH 6.1 (Cartman) and all the apps I wanted.

A full install of Office 2K and Star Office 5 allow me compatibility where ever I roam.

Now if I could just upgrade the 56K modem with "portable" DSL when I travel....

CPU, Other upgrades???

[green pizza]

Most laptops allow those upgrades. I was able to do much the same on even an Apple PowerBook. Since I bought it earlier this year, I have installed 512 MB (total) ram and a 30 GB 2.5" laptop hard drive. I've even replaced the stock "UFO" power adapter with a much smaller model. And as soon as they make a model for my PBG4, I will order one of those nifty keyBORG replacement keyboards from Digitalhipps.

What I would like to see would be (easy) CPU and LCD upgrades that span generations. i.e., buy a ThinkPad today with a 1.1 GHz CPU and a 1280x1024 15" LCD. Replace the CPU in two years with a 2.2 GHz model and upgrade the LCD to a 2048x1576 15" LCD. Maybe even upgrade the video card. There's nothing sepcial about upgrading ram/drives/OS.... that's easy and should be expected, even on an Apple.

Re:Most the video "cards" are intergrated

[Teferi]

Already have one. :)
I love my inspiron8k - 900MHz P3, GF2Go with 32M RAM, 15" UXGA display (native resolution 1600x1200) 320M RAM, 20G HD, dvd drive, two batteries (almost never use floppy, heh) - only thing I plan on changing in the near future is adding some more RAM and maybe a new HD. Great machine, even has a decent keyboard.

Re:True upgradable notebooks would be nice

[Jerf]

Ship that worthless piece of crap to me, and I'll trade you a useful 133MHz Pentium. No skin off your nose, trading one piece of crap for another. I'll pay for shipping.

thinkpad 701cs

[firewort]

thinkpad 701cs
486 dx75 butterfly keyboard model
upgraded to a 133mhz amd
8mb up to 48mb
540mb ub to 2gb
windows to linux

Re:thinkpad 701cs

[firewort]

here

here

and here

These links all are by other users who installed linux on the TP701 laptops.

I wanted more "hacking"

[Qeyser]

Not to poo-poo the article, because it is a very well done artice, but I was looking for more tips on doing things that could *really* void my warranty --seriously.

It was telling us what we already know : that with a laptop you can upgrade the RAM and the hard drive -- both of those operations take about 10 minutes.

To be fair, the part about upgrading the processor was *uber* cool -- I certainly thought that one wan't able to remove a mobile PIII from its mobo. But what I would like to see is a novel cooling method for a 1GHz PIII installed into a chassis originally not meant to take that much heat. (such as mine, A dell latitude L400, which IMHO is just slighly less sexy than the venerable TiBook.)

Another thing I'd be interested to see is how to play around with the mobo and its components; with integrated everything, laptop mobo's are the most expensive part of the machine next to the TFT -- and when one component breaks, the WHOLE THING has to be replaced.

I'd like to see if there are any solutions for this particular problem -- THAT would be laptop hacking.

I know I personally have a grave fear of hacking around in my laptops innards, partly because it is a relatively expensive device, but also because I know next to nothing about how it is put together, how the components interact and how the damn thing /works/ in general (wheras I will cheerfully crack open a PC and will feel confident about violating the warranty many times over in order to figure out how it works, how to fix things, etc.)

Does anybody else share this laptop apprehension? ; ) Has anybody out there conquered their laptop's guts and become confident/skilled in do-it-yourself repairs?

-q

Re:I wanted more "hacking"

[Inthewire]

If you can remember where all the screws go you can take your box down to the major components.
Four types of screws to watch for...long thin ones that hold the screen to the base, short skinny ones that hold the plastic parts together, short wide ones that hold the keyboard and pointing device down, itty bitty ones that hold the CPU and fan together. There might be more. If so, remember what they do and keep 'em in a different pile.
Disconnect all cords, batteries, drives, etc. If it's removeable then remove it.
Pull off all visible rubber covers. You will probably find two on the front bezel of the LCD, maybe other places. Use a dental pick or needle, stab the rubber, pop 'em out. Remove all screws, making note of the function and position of each. Gently pry the shall open. Watch for hidden screws, interlocking plastic tabs, cables, etc. If something isn't releasing, stop! Rethink what you are trying to accomplish. Look for obstacles. Once you figure it out, fix it and continue.
Now that the plastic is off find, remove the keyboard and examine the laout of the components. The CPU, HDD, RAM, BIOS, CMOS battery, ports, and soundcard are all easy to identify. Determine if you have an upper board. Likely this is a multifunction board that includes the video processor. It may be upgradeable. Look at the ACTUAL manufacturer of the TFT. Note the part and serial number.
With this information you can go bargain hunting...$1000 range screens can be found for $100 and up online, happy hunting.

Re:I wanted more "hacking"

[el_nino]

Simply check the manufacturers website for information on what processors your laptop supports. If there are models with Mobile Celeron 650's and PIII 850's, they're probably not going to use different mobo's since that wouldn't be cost effective. They're probably not using different BIOSes on different models, either, and if they are it's a simple question of reflashing it.
The difference between different laptops of the same model is CPU, memory, hard drive and a HUGE markup. The rest of the components are in most cases exactly the same.

Re:I wanted more "hacking"

[Qeyser]

Wow, thanks for the advice. I take it you do this often?

-q ; )

Re:Most the video "cards" are intergrated

[Teferi]

Er...what model are you talking about?

Off Topic: Laptop sagas.

[M@T]

We recently purchased two laptops - one was Dell, the other was a Toshiba Satellite Pro...

The Toshiba power supply broke and upon getting it fixed, the Toshiba rep. told us that we had definitely voided the warranty because we had installed Win 2K over the top of Win 98.

The Dell guy told us we most definitely had voided the warranty on the Dell laptop because we had upgraded the RAM from 128Mb to 256Mb...

As niether modification had anything to do with their respective problems, we told both companies that they'd most definitely end up in court if we had to pay to get them fixed (both were ~2 weeks old), and the issues were resolved... but not without a lot of pain.

Re:Try repairing! Dead LCD...

[Inthewire]

Pull off the bezel and get the manufacturer's part number. Most LCDs I've seen are made by Sharp, IBM, or Fujitsu. I'm sure there are others, but the bulk of them are sourced from one of the main suppliers. ONce you get the REAL part number you can punch it into google or a similar engine...I found a replacement screen for one of mine online for $120 plus shipping...better than the $900 that Hitachi wanted.

Simplest way to extend life of notebook...

[dbirchall]

Delete Windows, install *Linux or *BSD.

I've got a '486DX4-75 (NEC Versa 2000C); my wife has a P-120 (NEC Versa 4080H). The two of them handle primary and secondary DNS for several domains (yes, we have other secondaries that are geographically and topologically distant), as well as WWW and SMTP for those domains.

Both are a minimum of 5 years old now. Both were bought secondhand. When my Windows-using friends say things like "Well, I've got this old machine that's only a PentiumII-300," I just laugh.

Re:Simplest way to extend life of notebook...

[djmurdoch]

Linux on my Libretto subnotebook is a lot slower than the original OS (Win95), because KDE uses more memory and all I've got is 32 MB. Sure, I could run it in console mode, but I like a GUI. Linux programs also seem to be less careful about making sure things fit on the little 640x480 screen.

I imagine any flavour of NT on this machine would be even worse than KDE. But Win95 works, so why change?

To add to the original discussion: replacing the hard drive on a Libretto is very easy and very worthwhile. For about $200 you can upgrade from the original 1.6GB disk to a 20GB disk. You have to watch out because the BIOS was written for 8GB max and writes the hibernation information at the 8GB limit, but disk overlays and careful partitioning solve that. Physical installation is a breeze: unscrew a cover, slip out the old drive, slip in the new one.

I got my disk upgrade from WEESCO; they were helpful and quick.

Re:Simplest way to extend life of notebook...

[Strog]

Try using Blackbox. It uses very little memory and can be prettied up pretty good if you want. I use it on all low mem computers when KDE just crawls.

Re:Simplest way to extend life of notebook...

[jawtheshark]

Strange, I have a Satellite 210CT which is technically seen a P120 with 32 Meg RAM and I run Peanut Linux with kernel 2.4.8 and on top of that WindowMaker. Easy compile/install, very sleek.
Peanut comes with KDE2 and a lot of apps....KOffice works perfectly on the machine, tough it is quite long at first load. I already did surfing sessions with Netscape 4.76 with about three browsing-windows open, a LICQ session open plus some other little tools. Works okay to me. I have been using this machine for 4 (5? years) and this was the most accountable upgrade I ever did from W95-OSR2.
Of course the 640x480 resolution might be a little on the low side, but even then with W95 things get cluttered fast too on that res. (Mine does 800x600 and sometimes I find it too small)

Re:True upgradable notebooks would be nice

[Suppafly]

i wish i ran into people that thought such hardware was worthless or near worthless in real life.. as a college student i could really use a decent laptop.. esp considering your worthless laptop is about as good as my everyday desktop computer..

Amazing..

[Ogerman]

Just today I went browsing for any info I could dig up on notebook upgrade options. This always happens. I get an idea and see it on Slashdot the same day. Freaky.

Anyways, I've got a P2-266 laptop that I really wish I could upgrade the CPU on, however all I've seen are P2-300 replacements. It's really a shame because it has everything else I could possibly want--DVD, 14.1" TFT, everything's Linux friendly, etc.. Anyone have info on any sort of hacks to install a mobile P3 or other chip?

extra parts

[Pope]

Or, as my car-building buddies used to call them, "profit!"

Vaio C1XN

[PhilHibbs]

I'm expecting delivery of a Travelstar 30GN 30GB HDD any day now, and will be fitting it to my Sony C1XN (currently 6GB).

Bigger screen, please

[RennieScum]

I love my Thinkpad. P-150, MMX, 64MB/2.1 GB, 56K and 100-BT. 800x600x16 screen, which made it IMPOSSIBLE to read the article without sidescrolling. -You- may have a 19" monitor, but I don't (not on my porch, anyway):

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I like it for doing design and programming, because I don't need a hella-fast machine for that, and it keeps me honest ;)

I'm using xfce with RH6.2, and it's completely fantastic. I get 160K/s steady on a DSL link, and for the most part it's as fast as my K62/475 Win98 box at work...but anything to do with graphics is crap. Scrolling, drawing windows is slooow. Xmms-P150 uses less cpu than Winamp-K62/475, but when I scroll a window, even one line, it sounds like a frog sat on the record needle.

I kinda want either a G4 titanium, or a Sony picturebook (the Transmeta sub-notebook), btu the first one is real pricey and the second has a slow hard drive...anyone usign these?

VAIO notebooks

[chrysalis]

Sony Vaio notebooks are really neat, especially the super-slim ones.
Newer models can receive a landing station, with a DVD/CD burner, and everything you need to make it a full featured computer.
In all Vaios, upgrading the memory is trivial, because the slot can be easily accessed by removing some screws. This operation is also documented by Sony.
And as we're talking about memory, the Memory Stick cards are also excellent to store private data like SSH keys. They can be used in any operating system, because they are seen as regular drives, FAT-formatted. Plug the card, mount it, and it works. Excellent.
But some times ago, I decided to upgrade the internal hard drive. First surprise : on the Sony web site, Sony says that this operation is impossible. Damn! Changing the hard drive, impossible? What the hell?
In fact, it's possible, but it's a very delicate operation. I did it on a PCG Z600 RE laptop. First, you have to remove all screws. Easy. Then, you have to remove the plastic protections on the left and on the right of the screen (at the extremity of the power supply) . It's hard to do without breaking them. Moreover the speakers are at the same place, and they are very fragile. So you have to remove the plastic protection with extreme care to avoid ripping the speakers.
Finally, you can remove the keyboard, to discover new screws that have to be removed. Once removed, you can lift the mainboard and.... too late! The mainboard and the base of the notebook case are linked by tiny ribbon cables. If you lift the mainboard too much, these ribbon cables are going out, and plugging them back is very difficult. So, lift the mainboard, but carefully.
The hard disk is screwed in a metallic slot. But to remove it you have to remove the screws. 4 screws, 2 easily accessible (on the front), 2 difficult to unscrew (on the back) . Use a screwdriver that attracts metal, to avoid losing screws. And have someone help you to lift the mainboard while you are unscrewing the drive.
It took me 4 hours to change the drive. So it's not impossible as sony states, but it's long and stressing.
For everything else, I enjoy this laptop a lot. BeOS, QNX, OpenBSD, Linux and Windows installs properly on it. The "jog dial" rotative button is recognized on Linux, hibernation works with all operating systems, the built-in network card is a standard EEPRO 100 chipset (so no compatibility problem), and I've no problem with the sound chip, either.

Notebook Kick-Off with ASUS L8400B

[egghat]

Under Asus Notebook Upgrading you'll find a close inspection of an Asus Notebook. How to reach the inner parts, how to upgrade them, etc. Perhaps Tom's hardware has some other notebook articles like this.

Bye egghat

New notebooks have new weight?

[dmccarty]

I doubt that this will be seen, posting so late into this thread. But with all the recent terrorist events, I heard a radio program on airline security this morning. The security analyst said that bombs have been known to be placed in laptops and was ripping apart American security by showing an example from Germany.

"In Germany," he said, "they don't just ask you to power on your laptop or wave a magic wand over it. They take it to a scale and compare it against known weights for every laptop model." Sounds impressive, but I wonder how upgrading a laptop would affect its weight, and thus, international security restrictions.

inspiron

[mattr]

Anybody have a Dell Inspiron 7.5K?

Yes, Linux is working on it, mostly, but does anyone know if there is any reason the new IBM 48GH hard drive (5400rpm, 48gigs) wouldn't work in it? Plenty of space for it, and it works in say the Inspiron 8000.

Processor compatibility?

[leperjuice]

I have a Gateway Solo 3150 with a Mobile Pentium II @ 366. That was the maximum processor speed available at the time of purchase. What I'm trying to discover is what processors are compatible with my system? (I'm not yet sure if it's the mini-cartridge or BGA package).

My question: does anyone know of some sort of guide that will allow for processor comparisons? I'd love to be able to swap out for a ultra-low voltage 600Mhz celeron, but how can I tell if the board will support it?

bigger batterys

[throwaway18]

I upgraded the batterys for my laptop. A pair of the original batterys lasted 40min-1h each depending on usage and weighed about a kilo each.
Since I allways carryed the laptop in its padded suitcase I bought three 6 volt 10 amp-hour lead-acid batterys for USD45 which fitted in a long thin compartment in the carry case.
The original batterys were 12V 3AH though they were somewhat below rated capacity after a years use.
The mains PSU is 20Volts, the laptop works fine with 11-20 volts in. The new batterys last about 7 hours. I wired the
batterys in series to give nominally 18volts so I can charge them with the original PSU.
I'm a bit of an electronics whizz but it wasn't too hard. Connections are insulated so nothing can short out and the batterys are fused for safety.
Some foam rubber keeps the batterys from bouncing around.
Added about 4 kilos to the total weight.

Power Source

[dasunt]

Since the original poster didn't elaborate, I am assuming there are a few ways of dealing with the power. First thing is, how much? To find this out, either you can play around with our friend, Mr. Multimeter, or you can hunt down the specs, or, (and I'm guessing on this one since I have never taken a laptop apart) it might be possible to see if the LCD is fed directly from the powersupply, and then check the specs on the power supply itself.

To power it, an AC adapter might have enough power to do it (I'm hesitant though, most wallwarts output a fraction on an amp, and I just checked the flatpanel display here, and it's p/s is outputting 4 amps), or, the uber-robust solution is to grab an old AT (or a modified ATX) powersupply, and either convert, or (if your lucky) be able to use the 5 and 12 volt leads to power the LCD (remember, test the power first with Mr. Multimeter). A more eligant solution involves hunting down old laptop powersupplies on Ebay and ending up with a power solution not held together by ductape and comes complete with its own cooling fan.

Oh well, just my $.02

Re:Most the video "cards" are intergrated

[scumdamn]

Order it online using your friend's service tag.