Want to build a "Millenium Falcon" type notebook with ASUS ..

Alright, this is my first post, but most of the articles I've been searching online seem to point me towards these forums, so I decided to just join and ask you guys straight up:

"What's the best way to build my own ASUS laptop?"

Now as I'm a newbie, I'll tell you what I know, and exactly what I'm after.

1. I chose ASUS because a lot of the hardware I have around my home PC comes from these guys, and the more I've read, the more I've come to understand that - plain and simple - ASUS builds quality products. I also like the fact that they chose their name based on the last four letters of "pegasus" and went with ASUS in order to get more exposure in alphabetical searches. But whatever ..

2. I've never built my own laptop, but my brother and I built my current desktop (standard budget gaming computer) and I really wanted to see if I could do the same thing with a laptop.

3. Before you read too much into THAT, I do understand that for the most part, one doesn't BUILD their own laptop so much as replace weaker parts with stronger parts. To this end, I've learned that, depending on the performance level I'm looking for, I need to pre-select a laptop model with a decent to excellent graphics card (as they're all but impossible to replace) as well as a CPU series that allows for fitting higher end processors into the same slots.

4. I don't need this laptop to game. I need this laptop to tinker upon. That means that I'd like to find something fairly mainstream, 15.6", optical drive easy to replace, decent cooling (not mandatory but as I pick up my parts I expect increasingly necessary) and something that supports either Intel i5 or Intel i7 processors (I'd like it to be multiple processors, but understand this drives the price of the machine up).

5. Yes, I understand that cracking open the laptop casing and removing its internals voids the warranty. Let's just pretend I'm independently wealthy and don't really care about that.

So. My questions to you guys are:

Can any particular machine move from a particular CPU line to another (ie AMD to Intel, Intel i3 to Intel i7)?

and

What sort of ASUS notebook do you recommend me starting out with?

Thanks in advance ~ Maro

 

Not to point you to another place... but ifixit might interest you.

There's a breakdown of many different laptops with great pictures, guides, and "repairability" ratings. It mentions things that can, or cannot be replaced.

Here's the section for ASUS laptops: Asus Laptop - iFixit

Good luck

Edit: Turns out they really don't have very many ASUS guides.

 

Thank you for the website, though. I've never been there before, and it looks like it has a lot of general advice for this type of project, and some tools to boot! But yeah, it's not really suggesting what type of laptop I should get started out with.

 

I recommend the ASUS G55.

 

That was one of the laptops I looked at early on in this process. It is a great laptop. If I could find one at my store (Best Buy) then I'd consider it. Even so, don't those things start out around 1100-1300$ a pop? I need to pay in installments, and don't presently have the full amount to drop on that machine, which is a side factor in wanting to start small, and wind up moderately big. I'm looking at the R500A right now. Thoughts?