Guide to building a whitebox laptop?

[mrboni]

Hi, how hard is it to install the various components (cpu/hd/ram etc.) into a whitebox chassis? (I'm looking at the Asus models in particular). Does anyone know of a site with reasonably detailed instructions of all that is involved, or is it easy to figure out for someone with experience of building desktops?

Thanks

 

[ShellGuy]

It should work about the same all you really need to do it remember where you get all the screws from. And keep in mind that you shouldn't have to FORCE anything. It should all fit together nicely.

Will

 

[mrboni]

Good, thanks; I feel a little more confident about that now. Generally, is the motherboard accessed by somehow removing the keyboard or is it from underneath? Also, am I likely to get documentation with the chassis telling me how to do this?

thanks again


Will

 

[mrboni]

Ahhh, sorry, another question. Do trackpads (I think thats what they're called) require unique drivers or are they just standard pointing devices as it were?

 

[ShellGuy]

Yes you are right. They are accessed under the keyboard and prob removin the bezle around it as well. As i have never done one i can't tell you if they will ship with exploded views or what. And as for ur other question it should be auto detected as PS2 i think but not real sure...


Will

 

[RyanM]

What are some reliable vendors to buy these laptop whitebook systems from? And does anyone know of any good AMD Athlon XP models, or are they pretty much all Intel-based currently?

 

[KevinH]

www.rjtech.com . They don't explicityly advertise it but they sell whitebook systems. You'll have to call them. Neweggg also sells some refurb Aopen for VERY cheap. Finally, www.proportable.com specializes in asus book. Call these guys as over in notebook forms, they reportedly have excellent service, warranties, etc.


Mr.Boni - Private message a user named Naruto. He's built his own system based on the Aopen I believe. Also head over to www.talknotebooks.com . There's a few members over there that slapped together their own system as well.

 

[mrboni]

Nice one KevinH, you're a star. I will follow up these links.... thanks again.

 

[Garster]

I purchased one of the Newegg Aopen 1557 notebooks, it was new in box, Looked like it was returned or maybe had a problem and was repaired and sold as refurbished. I had to rma the keyboard to Aopen because it came with a French/Canadian version, also has the 9600 64mb Radeon not the 9700 128mb that the new 1557's are equipped with. Still is a very good deal, but you will need a Centrino cpu, optical drive, harddrive, PC2700 memory and the wireless mini pci card to finish the laptop. There are no instructions on putting it together but was quite easy to assemble all the parts.

I've had it up and running for about 2 months now and it performs well, battery life is 4 to 5 hours

 

[meksta]

Not a guide...not even that detailed....but talks about the ASUS whitebox

http://legitreviews.com/reviews/whitebox1/index.html