Built your own notebook? Is this possible?

Sorry to ask my question again if it was posted before, but I was curious if it's possible to built one's own notebook with order parts. I have never owned a notebook before, but I currently have a desktop pc, which I throughly took apart and cleaned up several times in the past years. If it's possible, where did you order the PC parts and how much did it cost to build your notebook? Future thanks for positive responses.

 

Yes, you can build your own notebook. It is called a barebone notebook. You can buy the barebone pc with just the screen, motherboard, graphics card, battery, and the notebooks shell. Then you put in a CPU, RAM, Hard Drive, Optical drive, and wireless card. Both Asus and Compal make these barebone notebooks. This thread doesn't belong in the Desktop Hardware forum.

 

Google around for `barebook` or `whitebook` chasis vendors. You can basically add stuff like CPU, RAM, harddrive, DVD, wireless to your liking but that`s about it.

 

Yeah, you can't really build up from the casing, not like the desktop segment. Your choices in CPU will be limited to what chipset the notebook uses too.

 

For barebones, you should check out:
- www.rjtech.com
- www.istnc.com
- www.xoticpc.com

I recommend to always get with the barbones:
- the modular videocard (usually with higher-end notebooks)
- the optical drives (since not all slim optical drives have the same IC)
- the TV Tuner (since they might be specific for the certain notebook model)

I built my Clevo D900K beast back in March, saved myself $400-600 in labor and markup that Alienware and some other resellers were priced at.

 

does powernotebooks.com offer barebones laptops?

 

Probably not, you can call to ask, but I doubt it.

 

no....it seems they don't

 

Sorry to contradict you Phillip, but they do. They call them the PowerPro series or something like that and offer them with a three year warranty. Really a great deal if you ask me. I almost bought from them, but went with GenTech in the end.

 

I am looking at getting a notebook (in about a several months) with the following specifications:

CPU: 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo should be plenty sufficient
Ram: 1 GB
HDD: 100 GB 7200 rmp
Screen: 17" widescreen
batter life: 1-2 hours
Usage: no gaming (a decent GPU/video card is a must, for instance nVidia 6000 or 7000 series) Overall, it will do a lot of encoding, software development, internet browsing, and nothing intensive that will overheat my PC. The PC will not be traveling much at lot, only for school purposes or vacation when needed.
Optical drive: dual DVD/RW. No CD/RW is required. It's great to have it, but I am planning on buying a HD or Blu-ray Disc ROM or RW when it gets cheaper.
Sound card: decent to very good sound card would be great.
Web cam: 1.3 MP is a must. finger print sensor I would also prefer due to security reasons.
network card: 801.11 a/b/g and bluetooth technology
Warranty: no warranty required. I highly doubt I will damage this notebook since it will not travel a lot and I should be able to fix it with parts I can order online if a problem where to occur.
Operation system: it would be really great if I could get a free/discount upgrade to windows vista media center or business with the purchase of the notebook.
Price: $1000-1500ish

Now that you know the type of notebook I am looking for, I am curious if it's worth buying a barebone notebook and configure it to the specifications mentioned above for a lower price than offered by retailers and businesses. I would like to save several hundred dollars if I were to customize it myself and rather spend the money on college purposes.

 

I usually check 1toppc.com

 

Hmmm GenTech (1toppc.com) seems to be having server troubles.

 

You just had to bring this up...

Now I wanna build my own notebook now, as I did with my desktop, too!

 

I had basically the same needs as you, and I decided on the Compal HEL80 as a barebones unit. If you search around here you will find a bunch of info as well as some good reviews. My plan was to trick it out with a T7200 (Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz), 1 GB of Corsair Value Select RAM, and a Hitachi 100 GB 7200 rpm HD. Unfortunatly a question I forgot to ask myself was: Glare screen or matte?? After checking out a bunch of laptops at Media markt (I live in Berlin, Germany), I decided to ditch the HEL80 because it is only being offered here in Europe with a Glare/glossy screen, which isnt my thing. I ended up doing the same thing using a slightly different barebones unit made by Inventec, using a company called Zepto.

So the short answer is yes, it is very easy to put your own notebook together and save alot. I was a complete notebook noob before I started, but a couple well spent hours browsing these forums and reading reviews and other peoples opinions etc as well as the Dummy guides gave me the knowledge I needed to do it.

After all my research, I would recommend either a Compal or an Asus barebones. A company in the States called rjtech.com offers alot of options for the do-it-yourselfer, at very good prices. At one point I was even thinking about ordering the HEL80 matte version through them and shipping it over, but it just wasnt cost effective with the shipping I would have to pay. But I would check them out. Then look on Newegg.com and see if the individual items you want are available for cheaper than rjtech is offering them (which is usually the case).

Buy the stuff, pop it in, and off you go!

Of course, an operating system is gonna have to be bought extra, but Vista sucks anyway (at least now) so you may just wanna stick with XP Pro for the time being and see how Vista develops.

Just my 10 cents...

 

well, I know the did in the past and It seems they still do.
It's just that when I went to the site yesterday, I was in a rush an kept running into a Vista advertisement so I gave up an assumed they stopped offering such things......I guess that will teach me to not assume as much in the future.

 

Thank you for the HTML and information. How much did you pay for notebook (in dollars) with specifications?

 

Reading the topic at first I thought you were planning to "build your own" using hammers and nails...

don't forget msi laptops do sell barebones too such as
http://www.msicomputer.com/NB/product_spec.asp?model=MS-1029

there are other of their series too but can't find them.