Should I build a barebone laptop?

[NM130]

I am looking to possibly create a barebone laptop. This article really caught my attention the other day, and as I am looking for a cheap gaming laptop, this could really be good for me.

It comes (according to the article) with a 6600 Go, a motherboard, with support for newest Pentium M (Sonoma), a card reader, and a screen, of course.

I would need to add the processor, memory, HD, and optical drive.

The parts I have in mind are:

Pentium M 1.8 GHz - $295.99

Kingston 512 MB DDR2 PC2-3200 (x2) - $64.43 per 512 MB module (I will get 1 GB)

NEC Black IDE Slim DVD Burner Model ND-6650 - $97.99

Hard drive suggestions? Only HD I found at newegg with SATA-150 interface (supported by mobo) was 40 GB... However, I'll put it here as a placeholder (hopefully more will be available by the time I decide to build this).

Fujitsu 40 GB 5400 RPM 8 MB Cache S-ATA 150 Notebook HD - $76.50

The barebone itself costs about $680 according to the article, so I will use that as the price.

The total of the barebone, processor, memory, HD, and optical drive is:

$1279.34

Does this seem like a good price? Do you know if it is very hard to assemble? Thanks in advance.



PS. Sorry to anybody who posted before, as I accidentally only typed in the title, and I had to edit it in a rush.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Depends what you want for how much

 

[BlingBlingArsch]

hey, yea its possible to build ur own notebook but u better be ready for some trouble shooting cuz those machines will require a decent knowledge about how to use a screwdriver and maybe a high frustration tolerance if something goes wrong
another alternative probably is the MSI M635, x700, AMD Turion. But ive not seen these models and the Turion in american shops yet.
when i was googling for another MSI barebone model, the S260 (http://www.notebook-foren.de/board/attachment.php?attachmentid=96) i found a nice manual from MSI, maybe Aopen has something similar for their openbook too. this would help building alot i guess.
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/notebook/MS-1012IG.pdf
for harddrives take a look at the hitachi 7k100 and seagate momentus.

 

[psoucaco13]

I am not against building your own notebook, but it much harder than building your own desktop. You can get a pre-built laptop for a similar price and you will save all the time it takes tou to build it.

If you still prefer building one, I would also consider ASUS or MSI. Try proportable and xmeld among others.

 

[lein]

The laptop uses a s479 dothan. Where do you buy one? Most places sell only the s478

 

[BlingBlingArsch]

there is no Socket 478 Dothan, 478 is Intel Desktop Pentium 4, 479 is Pentium-m, thus the adapter from Asus.

 

[lein]

His link shows a 478 dothan. Also, Intel's website confirms both 478 and 479 dothan.

link

 

[Mingon]

I have one and its excellent, installed 2gb pc4200, 40gb sata hd, 1.6@2133 dothan and a cdrw.

Its really easy to put together and I can happily talk you through it.

As for it being harder than a desktop thats rubbish, I can build a desktop in under a hour, a laptop in under 30mins. The barebones laptops generally come without the keyboard installed this make it easier to build - the keyboard is the most fiddly to remove.

edit> as for 478/479 p-m's they are all 478 pins but the mobo has 479 so it is refered to as 479 so as to deter people from putting one into the wrong mobo

 

[lein]

So I can put a 478 in a Dell without any modding? I may finally have an answer to this puzzle. yay =). Also, why are there 2 different pin counts?

 

[Mingon]

No the pins are a different config but both have physically 478 pins imagine below is the corner of the cpu

....
... . < pentium M corner pins
.....

....
.... < Standard p4 corner pins
.....

 

[BlingBlingArsch]

btw: are there shops that have the Aopen 1559-AS in stock?

 

[Mingon]

In the UK media atlantic was were I bought mine

 

[BlingBlingArsch]

thx. Becuz iam confused regarding the screen resolution, it says XGA in the shops while it says SXGA+ in the specs, im not sure but are two versions? Not seen the SXGA+ version anywhere yet. And XGA would not be the best option for a gaming notebook. But maybe iam just wrong...

here`s a review, in french http://www.tt-hardware.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8418


lappy looks good, except for the ugly colors...silver and black, who the fukc told the notebook designers that silver and grey are the colors to go for...sigh.

 

[Mingon]

Mine is 1400x1050 which is sxga I think

 

[BlingBlingArsch]

sxga+

and u bought from a shop saying XGA? weird.
what are u experiences? any flaws?

 

[Paul Stamatiou]

http://www.coboc.com .. the newegg of barebook stuff

 

[Mingon]

all I would say is that the GPU run hotter than I would like (upto 80c), the rest is all good. I have been playing games on it and its surprisingly capable.

 

[DanStp]

If I was building a notebook right now I would go with the Asus Z71V. It has the same GPU and CPU, but has a swtich to over clock the older 100mhz bus processors. Overclockers.com has some good articles about this machine. There are also good suport boards like Notebookforums.com, and Notebookreview.com.

 

[Mingon]

The only problem with the asus is it has a slower gpu(275/500 vs 300/600) which ( i think) is not an mxm but an asus adaption.

 

[BlingBlingArsch]

bump: so did ya buy the barebone or what ?