Official Studio XPS 13 & 16 MODIFICATION thread!

Bear in mind that those ideas that I put up were just brainstorms *thought showers*, the practicalities of it might pprohibit them but in theory they should all work.

As for changing the colours of the lights, you will have to take off the palm rest which basically involves taking apart the whole computer.

here's the link to the service section of for SXPS 1640 http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/sxl16/en/sm/index.htm

and for the SXPS 1340 http://support.euro.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/sxl13/en/sm/index.htm

I guess that if all you want to mod is the keyboard then you could just pull the individual keys off. I've never done it on this keyboard though so I don't know whether it will damage it or not, most kkeyboards are fin though if you pull off the keys (they just pop back on again), if you do try though don't force it if it's not going to go. In my opinion though, only doing the keyboard would look a bit odd as the touch panel and trackpad would all still be white.

Do you think there would be any way to do the hinges as well? Of course, this would have the downside if not being able to tell when they flash orange from low battery but lets face it, does anyone even notice/use that seeing as windows normally spams us with low battery popups well before it?

 

ur right about it looking a lil weird but I have a nice idea. modding only w, a, s, d keys (those are common first shooter navigation keys) So if I make them a different color it will look sorta like a gaming laptop... thanx for the service manual, but tell me more about the gell skins or where i can get them how it hows, thats the only confusing part to me

 

You should be able to get them at an art/photography/theatrical place as they use them in those situations. They're mainly used for lights so if you want to be making a rainbow effect then expect to pay a lot as it doesn't come in key sized pieces lol.

If you hit the lackpot and manage to get a sample book with all the different colours in it then a rainbow keyboard would difinitely get you on to the wall of fame here. Then we can tell all the Alienware M17x owners to get lost as they probably had quite a lot of money added to their system to get it (even if it isn't an option it still gets pu into the price) yet we would have paid next to nothing

I just checked online and you can get them here http://www.terralec.co.uk/stage_lig.../212_0c.html?gclid=CKHtwLaqtZ0CFYNu4wodVCGnlA

I must say that I'm very tempted to have orange WASD keys, I'm just worried that I'll damage my keyboard. Does anyone know if you can just pop off the keys on the SXPS series keyboard?

 

Im going to try googling how to pop off the keyboard... I also want just one color ond the wasd keys not a whole rainbow lol
thanx again, ill get back to this post as soon as I find a tutorial on how to pop off the keys, since that would be a lot easier than taking off the motherboard just to get to the keypad

 

found this: http://www.wikihow.com/Pop-a-Key-Back-Onto-a-Dell-Laptop-Keyboard

theres still some risk in it however.

 

Ok, all is well, they do just pop off (I took the screw-it-and-lets-see-what-happens approach)

Edit: aww dayum, the little clip bits partly cover the letter

 

u just tried it?

 

It didn't come out as well as I'd hoped

 

awsome! after 50+ something posts someone actually did the first unique mod! Great job,, i see it has some white lights glowing through, its no big deal still looks great but why is the white light coming through? also did u use that link that i posted to put the keys back on? was it hard? high risk low risk? Because I really want to do the same thing.. My plans are for xps13 mods:
1.buy a small metal bit for the drill, so i can drill more vent slots on the air vent.
2.do the same thing with wasd keys!
3. buy good off to take off dell's logo and studio xps logo..
4. maybe later if I get bored do some art work with paint markers on the lid

Again, Great work!

 

The reason why there is a little corner showing through is because one of the clips on the back is on the corner if the letter. You can't cover it with film because otherwise the key wont stick back on.

As for getting the keys off, lift up the bottom of the key and jam a ruler or something under it (it helps to press down the buttons next to it to give you some more room) this is so that when you pull up on the key it isn't pulling from one direction on the scissor joint... that's not the best way to describe it but you should understand what I mean when you see the mechanism. Then get your nail under the top and quickly pull it. If all goes well you should hear a satisfying snap and the key should pop off nicely.

Putting it back on is fairily easy too, all you have to do is seat the bottom of the key, lay it flat and then press down untill the clips engage.

One possible solution to the white corner issue is to put some sort of die over the clips (preferably water based, or one which will dissolve in some other basic solvent)

 

what about painting the letter from the bottom of the key with permanent marker?

 

I suppose that would work but it would be hard to get it all in the clip, it would be easier than glueing down bits of a work of art I made when I was 7 though

...Maybe, I can fix it one day if I get the right colour film again

 

but still its a great mod, i dont think it took away from the looks, I just want to try the marker because it wont have any material underneath like jell skin so if you press the keys u wont feel a difference and in time the nothing will fall apart.

 

With the film under the keys it feels exactly the same, the pressure is put on the corners of the key, the film is in the middle

Hmmm... what say first person to rainboow keyboard gets temporary king (or queen) of this thread?

 

lol if you want to be the king go ahead but i would suggest dividing the keyboard in different parts using colors, for example: letters (qwerty) one color, keypad, different, system buttons like fn keys windows key esc different color.
Im gona try this now myself... So I'll use a small metal knife to tip from the bottom part of the key, and then use my nail or another thin knife to tip from the top part and just pull? should I use force or its pretty easy? sorry for all the waste of time I just dont want to mess it up.

 

I wouldn't use anything sharp, your nails should do fine. If you slip with something metal or pointy then you can say bye bye to your keyboard

 

i tried using both of my nails to pull it off but it wouldnt give so i tried harder and the w key just got sooo loose so i just pulled hard and the whole w key came off the button and 2 other plastic pieces one is like a square and the other one is a circle.. i need your help on puttin it back since i dont know how its suppose to sit

 

The two plastic peices fit into each other like a scissor. Then you have to seat them in the hooks on the keyboard, this can be a bit fiddly but there is on'y one way round they fit (look at them carefully berfore you try, trying to jam it in the wrong way will probably break it). Then it's just a matter of putting the key back on top... assuming you didn't actually break anything.

I do very much hope that the keyboards on the SXPS13 and 16 are identical though, otherwise the way to get the keys off might be different

 

ye i put them together and back in the place. how ever i dont know if its right side up or upside down... for now im painting the w key with my systers red nail polish... lol

 

after torture with one w key I finally made it after one hour...
this is my progress so far:

Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others!

 

The W came out pretty good. Okay I have searched the forums and I have read posts that basically did not give me a definate answer but my question is... Would I be able to a) overclock my T9550 b)Fit a QX9300 processor? As far as those who say why do you want to make it hotter. Well I don't find it that hot and it sits mainly on my desk. I find that I am at 100% of the cpu way too much. who knows maybe I am missing something that I am not using the total power. The Resource Monitor says 100% maximum frequency so if anyone knows something more lol. Thanks in advance

 

I dont know the xps16 motherboard Im guessing u cannot fit qx because the slots will be a lil different, but p and t processor will work... if you find your cpu at 100% loads or 80% loads for no reason and it happens often I would suggest getting your motherboard replaced, because I had that problem with my xps13 for 1 month and dell told me most likely my motherboard is giving random signals to the cpu, so after they replaced it i've been good for 2 months and going...

 

As I understand it, putting a quad in should be possible. Whether the bios will allow it or whether it's a good idea is a different question

 

This thread shouldnt be called Studio XPS 16 modifications since there isnt really anything you can mod. Haha!
You can not even overclock the processor nor the video card of the studio xps!

 

That's as far as we know, there could be circuit mods out there

 

I doubt there are any though, I have spent already quite some hours searching for any, in 4 different languages (English,German,Chinese and Japanese).
Trust me, there are non.

 

I am unsure exactly how the BIOS would work but it is my understanding that the socket for the QX9300 and T9550 are the same (P socket). Is there anyway I could use the alienware 17's BIOS since it comes with the QX? Also I am at 100% CPU while using my AutoCAD programs and games like FEAR2, Batman A.A. and WoW.

 

Reason its called xps13 &16 mod is because if anyone is going to do cosmetic modifications the bodies are exactly the same plus if anyone wants to help each other like xps13 owners helping xps16 owners and vise versa...

OK Im finally done with my "gaming keyboard" loook

 

That really is a very bad idea, the motherboards are compleetly different and it would brick your computer. The only way we could do somthing like that is to take out the section of the bios dedicated to the CPU and replace it with the section from the alienware bios... Even then I have my doubts

As for the keyboard mod, well done I'm thinking about using nail varnish now seeing as it works so well and gets compleet coverage. Did you get the other keys off ok?

 

Well I got the w,a,s keys out well but when poping off the d key one of the microscopic edges on the sissors part twisted out a shape like for ex: T and on of its sides is not straight and in future might fall off, I was scared that I broke the d key and when trying to put it on would break the d sissors completely but somehow it went well... I like the look its not bad but I wish I my sister had blue nail polish, that would of looked awesome and would match the blue charging port.. plus thos tiny areas where you still see white coming through wouldnt be noticeable with blue color...

Ooo on the bad side my laptop smells like nail polish until it airs out

 

About the keyboard coloring, wouldn't it be possible to put a color gel on the backlighting board? This would change all the keys to, say, blue or green, including the spaces between them and all the non-keyboard buttons. Dell provides information on disassembling the keyboard here:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/sxl16/en/sm/keyboard.htm#wp1179911

I haven't tried it myself, but I may soon

On another non-modification note, is anyone having trouble cleaning out the metal grating that strattles the keyboard? It's like an ice cube tray, each individual hole fills with a particulate, making it really ugly. I've tried everything from toothbrushes to silly putty to clean it out.

P.S. Yay first post

 

I would like to see a quadcore in the xps 1340, i think soon dell will do that.

 

Another thing is that i hope dell brings out the phoenix motherboard that boots up in 10 seconds awesome!

 

Well that is true, but I dont think anyone is gonna find out what our Clock Generator is. So He will probably not update his software T_T

 

Anyone know what the plastic/metal thing is over the southbridge?



Can it be removed to place a low profile heatsink on the southbridge?

 

Does the south bridge generate that much heat? They typically don't have heat sinks on them ... it has been a while since I looked at a motherboard though too ...

 

On the 1640 many have attributed the southbridge to a warm a trackpad as that sits right over it. That area does not get much airflow on its own. It doesn't heat up enough to affect the southbridge, but the heat transfers to the trackpad/palmrest causing concern for some.

I read there is maybe a 4mm gap between the southbridge and the metal/plastic thing sitting above it. Might be able to slide a copper sheet to fit in there and fill in the area around the southbridge and up into the WWAN area (empty for most people).

 

Up load a photo of the above with the plastic (Antistatic/radio screen) so I/we can see the gold tag and board, I might be able to tell you.

 

I cropped the above from the antec gallery: http://www.anandtech.com/Gallery.aspx?id=433

My 1640 is on the way still.

 

here we go

 

Hi I Removed The Black spring membrane on the WLAN panel and FAN to improve the temp

 

Finally i take the pictures to my mobo please se the pict. to know the ics or pll for oc with SetFSB

 

More pictures

 

and the last ones

 

I circled what looks like the PLL:

 

the chip say this:

Broadcom
8CM5764NKMLG
FS0902P20
S06697 1A

see image if i'm wrong

 

Back to the guys with the keyboard thing! I seen the post and i used blue finger nail polish..works great. iv only done gaming keys wasd. As far as getting them off. i found it much less frustrating if you pull the key up from the back popping the bottom clip loose, then pull from either the left or right to prevent having to figure out how to put the clips back in :0 if you keep pulling up the two clips behind tend to come with the key. hope that makes things a little simpler

also anyone worrying that they will break the keys, as far as this goes with the studio xps 16 design which I have it is relatively easy to get on and off.

 

guys! to note one important thing!!! do not clean your laptops leather part with rubbing alcohol!! my leather part is faded and looks like SHhhhhhh... I clean my laptop pretty often with rubbing alcohol because sometimes I eat and use the laptop and it becomes a lil greasy so I wipe it down with alcohol and a napkin... now I will have to paint the leather black again good for me I got leather dye

 

I'm tempted to try to jimmy some copper plate on to the southbridge and then possibly screw it into the chasis or make it stick out into the WLAN bay to try and reduce the heat, maybe I could even bridge it on to the GPU heatsink or something. The southbridge heat is really starting to me off now while probably making me infertile at the same time

 

the last few words... hehe