How realistic is it to assemble a laptop from improvised components?

Question

Do it yourself

The upcoming release of windows 8 and its total support from iron manufacturers are annoying me. It is understandable, because of the large number of incompatibilities, sales of peripherals will rise. But personally, I am not at all satisfied with the prospect of sitting under Secure Boot, and losing the opportunity to do my favorite hardware-system picking under some exotic OS.
On the other hand, there are many different compact boards with fairly powerful general-purpose processors, without any pre-flashed BIOS and restrictions, where you can put anything you want. There are even ready-made Raspberry Pi microcomputers, for example.
Almost everything is great, but the body wants mobility and the ability to work in nature, which requires a laptop. But there are no laptops with the desired filling: either the screen and size are good and everything is under windows, or it is something completely unsuitable for work like the Lemote PC, although with the necessary filling.
Therefore, the question arises, how realistic is it to get the necessary components for a laptop, put them together on your own and get your dream typewriter? I looked at all sorts of Chinese stores, it seems, you can buy a screen, the necessary board, the batteries are different (but there is already a question, but they are suitable for powering the screen / board / flash drive / disk, do you need to finish it). Another problem with the hull. Are there just laptop cases for sale at all? Is there any standard for board form factor? Etc. There are many questions ... In general, does anyone have a similar self-assembly experience?
Thanks in advance for your replies.

Answer 1

Already 17 years ago I was asking this question, 10 years ago I tried to implement it, but I came across the absence of some of the components ... Ordering abroad was still problematic then ...
In fact, what is a laptop?
Case, motherboard with increased integration, hard, display and input devices (keyboard-touch). BUT! Another acc and a device for recharging and controlling it!
As mentioned above, as an option, you can take an old laptop case. If the dimensions are 20 by 20 cm, you can order 3D printing (the standard RepRap print field: more is a rarity!).
Plus the first option - you do not need to draw yourself.
The advantage of the second is that you don’t have to think about how to stuff components that were not intended for that into the purchased case ...
Motherboard: Pi is brilliant. You can also pay attention to PicoITX boards. As an option, I was seriously thinking about a laptop cluster on several Pi-type boards.
Disk or SSD is not a problem now. The taste and color.
Display - MasterKIT recently released a seven-inch LCD module with 9 volts and a VGA input.
Keyboard-mouse-touch is relatively not a problem.
Acc and charger are more difficult, but if you do not mess with the ATX power format, then there are almost no problems ...

Answer 2

On all current laptops "under Windows" you can install any system, even a hackintosh, if the hardware matches. Sometimes I go to electronics stores, more and more often there are cars without a system or on a free dos. For the sake of interest, of course, you can start assembling a "dream laptop", it will even be interesting to read the process articles with photos. This, of course, will take a lot of time, not to mention the resources, which are likely to be a couple of times higher than the cost of the collected equivalent. You have to buy in bulk to get this price. Here you also need to take into account that not everything will work out the first time, and there will certainly be broken parts in the assembly process. If the iron is powerful, you need to think over the heat sink, otherwise you can burn the percent, mother, this is not a penny. On ebay, in general, you can buy a case in parts for a laptop, I don’t see a problem in this, but to shove my iron there, it doesn’t seem to me a good solution. About the possible weight of the "machine for nature" I generally keep quiet)

Answer 3

It's easier to dig into the bios of a good laptop than to make a good laptop, almost every detail of which is custom-made by manufacturers or made at their own facilities, and only in wholesale the price is reduced by an order of magnitude. True, the BIOS can also be locked for reading, so it's better to take one that has updates and open firmware.
There are also modular laptops, but they are likely to be large in size and not the fact that the bios is open.

Answer 4

With x86, you will have to suffer for a long time. It is easier to assemble with ARM, but then you need to assemble an OS for it. And get ready for a performance level of about Stump3-700MHz.
In the general case, the problem with the case can be partially solved by buying a dead laptop from your hands or at any service center in your city. The keyboard usually has a PS / 2 interface, the touch - PS / 2 or UART, so they should start almost everywhere. Everything else will have to be thrown out or significantly redone. To work with the case, you will need files, wire cutters, epoxy, polyurethane glue and a mini-drill like "Dremmel".
1) You can buy a Chinese smartbook for $70-100 and tune it.
1-1) Cons: the stuffing is moronically arranged, a large board in the middle of the case is idiotically divorced, which drastically reduces the scope for creativity: there is a lot of empty space in the case, but it is of such a format that it can be used for little. It is better to throw out the regular battery and wind it up from the cans, in general, the power scheme there is quite primitive, and it would be worthwhile to finalize it. There are no expansion options - the Chinese do not stupidly breed "unnecessary" interfaces.
2) You can (seem to) order a kit from Rhombus-Tech or only one EOMA-68 format processor board, and then start dancing from it, independently developing a “passive” motherboard. True, I personally did not find where and how they can actually be ordered. :-(
A more real and tasty option is Toradex, they sell NVidia Tegra headscarf.
2-1) Cons: A little biting price, the need to design and manufacture a board with rather thin tracks. Pros: excellent extensibility - install whatever you want.

Answer 5

I've been carrying the idea for a long time to make a clone of the project with indigogo pi-top , but it's more like a project: "Where else can I attach a raspberry pie"