Where's a good place to buy a laptop motherboard?

I know laptop motherboards aren't sold because they aren't standard but let me explain my problem:

I bought a sony VPCEC with one hard drive and I'd like to add in a second. Sony removed the SATA adapter for the second hard drive since I didn't order it. I'd like to order a motherboard from one of the laptops that still has the SATA adapter so that I can add it in.

OR

If anyone has a suggestion for maybe attached a SATA adapter (I believe that's what I need) I'd be happy to listen.

 

Would you mind a refurbished board? Almost all motherboards are like that these days. Get an external if you want additional hard drive space, may not be worth all the hassle. PLUS the motherboard you receive may not be tattoo'd right so using a manufacturer OS disc to install may not activate with a new motherboard.

 

I'd expect a refurbished board naturally. I wouldn't be looking for hard drive space, I'd be looking to add a SSD to my laptop. I'm pretty upset to learn that I can't do that =\

I don't understand that "tattoo" bit, isn't your operating system installed from the hard drive? And if I buy a motherboard from another EC vaio it should be compatible with mine I would think, but obviously I'm asking a quesiotn so I don't know =p

I feel that getting a SSD is basically the best thing I can do for my computer as far as upgrades go =\ The hard drive is definitely the bottleneck.

 

Basically big box manufacturers tattoo BIOS on the motherboard, like Dell (as an example)

Now say you get a nasty virus and you have to reformat your laptop. Using a Dell branded disc, you can reinstall the OS without activating Windows. It senses there is a Dell motherboard and activates with GVL, say in case your Windows COA is rubbed off your laptop's base. Now we have had issues at my work where boards are not tattoo'd properly. It's really not a big deal.

In your case, I wouldn't risk swapping in a refurbished board just for a 2nd hard drive. Get a decent sized SSD 60GB+ and just have an external HDD for your data.

 

Yeah... maybe I'll do something like that. I feel that the difference between 5400 and 7200 seems really really minimal and what attracts me to SSDs besides the speed is the fact that it uses barely any power and doesn't heat up at all.

I'm hoping that SSD hybrids pick up speed so I can get one of those but there's no way I'm going to use them now since they're so new. And hopefully SSDs go down as well.

 

Incidentally, I suppose the only place to buy a processor like the i7 620m is refurbbed on ebay or something?

 

It's sometimes possible to buy them from manufacturers and resellers; you used to be able to buy Core 2 CPUs from HP, for example. Not sure if you still can. You can also try the Marketplace here on NBR. CPUs come up there fairly often.

Also, a notebook motherboard tends to be quite pricey ($100-$300), unless you can find a broken notebook that someone is selling for parts... and then you can't be sure that the motherboard isn't broken.

 

Thanks for the input. I think I'll just have to deal and stick with what I've got =p