Building a laptop. How easy?

[Tech Geek Deluxe]

There are great deals out there if you have coupons.

I bought my notebook in July 07 ... and you still cannot get it as cheap as I got it then.

What I did ... is I upgraded it to a 7200rpm "blade server" Hard Drive.
I formatted it and did a fresh install without all the crap that dell loads their PC's with.

I also dropped in 4GB DDR2 6400 OCZ Ram ... even though it will only see 3.25 Gigs and maxes out at 667 Mhz ... it was 20% faster ram and 20% faster HD than stock. Plus it chooses the faster latencies of the OCZ ram.

OCZ 4GB (2 x 2GB)

[theburan]

I believe zipzoomfly has a thing where you can order what sounded like a whitebook + a processor and all the other stuff that you would need, and they'd ship you the parts so you could put them together... ahh, here we go. Build It Yourself at ZipZoomfly at ZipZoomfly

Is an option, although getting a cheap laptop on sale somewhere will probably be a better option.

[azianai]

op is not in the US, so all these links we give them is worthless =P

[oldman_gamer]

Originally Posted by azianai

op is not in the US, so all these links we give them is worthless =P

Not really....If he/she has a friend here ,could really get a good deal.

[Stormcrow]

But sending it across the Atlantic will rake in some nice tariffs, they don't let you get off the VAT hook that easily.

[Capper]

Much like desktop PCs, notebooks components can easily be upgraded, some upgrades are cheap, some not so much, but you may be surprised at the effect these simple to perform upgrades can have on your notebook's performance.

While most will say "duh", some will say "huh".....this article is for that latter group. Before you think you need to drop $750-2000 on a new notebook, check out these quick and easy tips to extend the life of your current notebook.

Extending The Life Of Your Notebook

[Stormcrow]

Hey! Where can I get one of those spiffy ID cards?

[Capper]

you usually get your ID cards after you are off double secret probation and qualify for benefits

[Stormcrow]

Ah hell, I bet I'm still on regular secret probation. I blame RAID.

[unknown555525]

There are only 3 good reasons to build a barebones notebook really.

First off, ONLY barebones notebooks will ever have upgradable video cards if they support MXM. I bought my notebook as a barebones with an 8700m GT card, since then the 8800m GTX came out and is about %120 faster, if I want, I can buy one for $800 and upgrade it myself, where as something like a Dell, or even alienware will NEVER be upgradable.

Parts ARE cheaper if you buy them yourself , most of the time. Why get a notebook with smaller ram or a smaller hard drive that you aren't going to use?

Barebones notebooks are extremely easy to upgrade parts such as the RAM, hard drives, CPU, CD drives, mini PCI cards etc. Notebooks from companies like Dell, HP, Acer, toshiba and so on, are locked down so badly that you will have to remove the LCD panel, then open the notebook until every single piece is removed, then take the motherboard out of the notebook casing just to remove parts like the CPU. Barebones notebook have all parts openly available on the bottom of the notebook and easy to upgrade without removing much of anything.