New upgraded MoBo for CF-29?

I know that this idea has been floated by me before and possibly others but I have to wonder what the cost and difficulty would be to commission a upgraded motherboard for the vast number of perfectly good CF-29s there are are out there?

The tough and expensive case and screen are usually in pretty good shape and there seems to be little shortage of working keyboards. It would make sense to retread these machines with a faster working processor, capabilities for a a new SATA HDD and more RAM.

I understand the issue of heat, but most of the more modern processors run with less heat and the case volume and heatsink is pretty close to that of a CF-30.

I know that this would be a grand undertaking and I am wondering what a Chinese OEM manufacturers would need to make volume wise to make it cost effective, 500, 1000, 10,000?

There are a ton of governmental agencies using these that might be in the market for a upgrade, vs a replacement, not to mention cooperate users.

Anyway, just floating the idea, feel free to shoot it down, or steal it.

 

I thought about this thing time ago: it's needed a mainboard with the same layout of the panasonic one...maybe proprietary connector are required too (keyboard,optical,hd??)
What about searching photos of notebook mainboards on google to find someone similar to the panasonic one?
I'd love to upgrade cf28 with a modern processor like atom and a non intel video card...

 

Its a grand idea, i like it. definately possible, not sure what the costs would be to make a custom motherboard. Some of the members that custom their own GPS boards may have a better idea. I think it might be expensive though, the i5/7 processors are not cheap and can't see board chipset being cheap either.

 

I do agree with deregter on the cable connectors. It would be nice to do. Personally I wouldn't have to have I5 or I7. Good dual core intel or amd would be good. I would just hope for much better graphics on a project like this.

I was going to swap a T5 motherboard into a CF-18 case a while back before the CF-19 Mk1 started dropping in price. Laying everything out I could of made it work with a few cable extensions. The main problem was the keyboard, ends was different.

 

I'd totally be up for it. My CF-29 is in excellent condition and i wouldn't mind some more juice in it.

Assuming the price isn't unreasonable.

 

Interesting idea... I'll be curious to see what you find out.

 

I say try and mod a business rugged or a non rugged series to fit. You get a faster cpu and a lot of toughbook parts would be compatible.

 

I think that might be the easiest(?) way to do it. Don't know if the fan issue would factor much as say a cf-74 type MB shoe horned into the cf-29. Just a thought..Driller

 

The fan issue is why I went with the T5 motherboard on my little experiment. The T5 is still fanless, just the keyboard issue that held me back.

One think I have been wanting to check into since I got it is modding a Alienware M11x into a 29 body. Light up keyboard, if you go with the R1 core 2 duo 1.3 that can be overclocked to a 1.7 just by turning it on in the bios. Dual graphics manually swapped 4500 intel and 335gt. Using 1.3 cpu mode and 335 can play every game I have thrown at it so far on high. It does have a fan but this model R1 runs much cooler. 40 to 45 DEG just regular programs and runs around 60's when gaming. Neat little power house. Here on NBR a modder expanded the heat sink and the temps dropped even more.

They swapped to the i3/5/7 cpu on the R2 and a few people had over heat issues.

I think the screen on this model takes a different style plug in so you would have to have a different screen. I have been trying to get stuff cleared out at the house before I did more research on this mod.

 

I think it's kind of suprising that the idea hasn't occured to panasonic themselves.

Seems like a gold mine. You save time on research and development because you already did most of the work when you designed the original unit.

You do a buy back program for old machines giving the people who turn them in a credit towards a new machine. Refurbish the good shells and toss or sell the rest for parts. You then engineer a new mobo that would work in the old shell toss in an efficient chipset so you can maintain the fan free ops and you resell them. From a business perspective it seems simple cost effective and just smart. From an environmental perspective a lot of recycling commences. For PR sake they could refer to it as the "Green laptop" intiative.

Everyone wins...the peasants rejoice...good times are had by all.