Compiling two laptops into one..

(Pictures coming shortly..)

After today's crisis' were (mostly) solved, I needed some "de-stress" time.

I decided to investigate the possibility of combining the best parts of two old laptops here into one unit.

The laptops? A Dell Inspiron 8600, and a Latitude D800. Not anything fancy.. each has 1gb ram, 1.6ghz proc, 30gb in one 40gb in other, but the biggest difference is GPU/Video.

Inspiron 8600 has a Radeon 9600, and the Latitude D800 has a Geforce 4200. The difference in graphics power is pretty noticeable when using the machines. Here's the funny part.. the D800 has a killer high-res LCD on it, while the 8600 is the basic LCD. Why put a power gpu with a crap display? I didnt build this one, so I cant say what they were thinking.

8600

D800

So it occurs to me, "why not swap the GPU's?"

Now hold on a second.. before you all start raving about how you cant, it just so happens you CAN. These two laptops are almost identical inside, including the fact that both GPU's were optional on both laptops. Opening them up reveals, YES they are in fact upgradeable (swappable).

I pulled the 9600 first, and dropped it into the D800. Marvelous! LCD looks killer! Too bad the rest of the unit looks like garbage.. and it's not only ugly, it's much thicker/heavier than the Inspiron.

Further inspection reveals that the Inspiron also has 2mb L2 Cache, whereas the D800 only 1mb. So, I decided to swap the LCD from the Latitude into the Inspiron.

The disassembly of the units couldnt be easier. At the top of the keyboard (nearest the LCD), there is a slot on the left side. Get a fingernail in there (or a screwdrive) and pry it up gently. Lay the LCD back until it's flat on the desk/table/workbench, then lift up on the trim piece that you pried up. A couple clicks later, it will release. On the end of the right hand side, there is a ribbon cable that connects to the motherboard. Carefully unplug this, and set the whole piece aside.

Next, remove the 2 screws holding the keyboard in, and unplug the ribbon cable at the bottom (near the touchpad) carefully. Set this aside also.

Now, close the lid, and flip it over. Remove the 2 screws labelled with the letter "D" (for display). Turn the laptop right side up, carefully open the screen, and right where the power button used to be, there is a ribbon cable to connect the LCD to the GPU. Unplug that carefully, and the LCD will lift straight up and away from the rest of the laptop.

The disassembly is the same (EXACTLY, right down to the screw locations) for both laptops, so I wont bother repeating it again.

Quick plug in to test. The LCD from the D800 works PERFECTLY with no config at all. Plug it in and it works. :D

So why not just attach the LCD and be done with it? The screen bezel is WAAAAY different.. much thicker too.

Next up is the disassembly of the LCD. There are little rubber pieces across the top (4), and two at the bottom, plus the 2 obvious screw covers in the center on the bottom of the LCD. Gently pry them all up, and undo the screws.

Next, starting at the bottom of the LCD, gently pry the plastic apart with a small flat screwdriver. Start the bottom, because you ARE going to damage it a bit when you pry it up, and it's the least visible place. Gently undo the clips all the way around, and lift off the front bezel.

Next, remove the screws on the sides of the LCD, and the one holding the ground wire to the casing. Lift the LCD straight up and out. Repeat EXACTLY on the other monitor. :D

Here's the 2 LCD's for comparison..

Swap LCD's, and reverse removal instructions. (Test it before you put it all back together.. trust me.)

This is the before picture of the swap..

And here is after the swap. The difference in the screens is PHENOMENAL. I dont use that word lightly , as it's hard to spell.

*bump* Pics Added Above!!!!!

Awesome! Too bad you can't use both CPU's for 2x speed. ;D

as long as your in the same brand of notebook alot of times the cdrom is also swapable. say for example i have an acer 520 and an acer 630. even though the connector and housing for cdroms is diffrent if you remove the plastics you will find that the connector on the back is simply a plate that can be removed and replaced with the plate from another model. its a good cheap way of nabbing a dvd burner

Nice, those old Dells are common, might have to look into that.

About the optical drive swaps. Pretty much all notebooks use a standard optical drive form factor with same connectors. But most companies have proprietary cladding and connectors added on top of that, if you can strip just down to the drive you should be able to swap any of the drives.

Very cool Luke! I like the way you think!

Quick update on this project...

I increased the ram in the Inspiron 8600 to 2gb, and replaced the 40gb hdd with a 60gb.

This machine is also going to be getting a wifi upgrade asap.. I'm thinking about an 802.11a/b/g/n mini pci card, and I'm trying some (internal) antenna upgrades also.

Either way, this machine is running solid and stable, and looking better than ever. I'm also pleased to say that this is the computer I use for making the Modcasts, as you can see by the "Ideal for Podcasting!" stickers on it. :D

This is really cool. I run the Inspiron 8500 and it runs pretty good to, found internal Bluetooth and Wireless card on ebay for less then $50 to do both.