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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."
The second hardest part is running your website off it when it's slashdotted. :)
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
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
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-
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.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
OpenBSD, NetBSD, Linux, mkLinux, MacOS, MacOS X.
Plenty of options, even for snobs ;-)
--Matthew
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.
(thanks to my student wife who offered to
:-P
drive!)
Student wife eh? is that simaler to Student Teacher, Student Driver etc? if so, how do I send mine to wife class?
Don't Tread on Me
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.
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.