[Aperape]

I am wanting to completely make my laptop. I have all the parts I need minus the one important one. I am looking for a plain empty laptop shell, I guess you could call it that. I have looked everywhere online and all I can find are carrying cases and sleeves. Does anyone know where I can find just the shell to house my components and complete the laptop? Please get back to me with any answers or even a lead on where to look.



Ape

[crazy4laptops]

what brand is the mainboard you have? (is it a laptop board?)

[Aperape]

Yeah, it is a laptop board,all my parts are for laptops. I just cant seem to find a laptop case or shell what ever you want to call it. I am just thinking i should buy an old laptop tear the case off and just put my stuff in ithat cases. but I was hoping to be able to find a kic ass cases like you can buy for desktops.

[crazy4laptops]

i dont think there are any legal consequences ;-) for making a homebrew laptop case mod... (customized how you want it)

[mphenterprises]

Hi Aperape and welcome to the PCWorld Communities. :D




You can definitely build your own laptop; however, I must tell you upfront, there are not many "kick ass" laptop cases out there. Frankly, I would be surprised if such a breed exists. The barebone case you will find will be bulky, nowhere near the sleek designs of modern laptops. If you were to find some modern style cases, the price would be at or above what you would pay for a retail laptop.

Here is a site I used as a reference when I took a stab at building a custom laptop:

http://www.tomshardw...-dream-notebook,1026.html

The end of this article references a site called coboc.com which had many choices of the bulky, old fashions style laptop case I mentioned previously. However, it appears this site is gone.I did a quick search and found http://www.directron...bbarebone.html. I cannot guarantee the quality or selection of cases this site has but it is worth a shot.

To be frank, the custom laptop that I built was comparable in all aspects with a retail laptop, including price. The bottom line is that custom laptops have not caught on as custom desktops have. One can build a custom desktop computer that is comparable to a retail desktop computer for half the price, if not more of a price difference. That is just not the case with custom laptops.

[JimH443]

mphenterprises said:

One can build a custom desktop computer that is comparable to a retail desktop computer for half the price, if not more of a price difference. That is just not the case with custom laptops.

At one time it was true that the average person could save 50% or more building their own computer from scratch (using all new parts - nothing scavanged from other machines), but this hasn't been true for a long time. This is why I got out of the business. Building all new, you'll be lucky to save more than 15% unless you have connections at major parts distributors.

[SnyperTodd]

Ape, I haven't see too many plain, empty shells like you're looking for. If you're comfortable with eBay, you may be able to find one on there. Otherwise, I have seen a couple pop up on Craigslist now and then. But still nothing really except old-style bulky ones. Most people who build their own laptops start with barebones systems, and then, like mph said, the prices are pretty close to buying an equivalent retail laptop.



JimH- I agree with your statement if you are looking at the under $600 price range. But I've built $700 systems that you couldn't touch at a retail outlet for less than $1000-1200. And the higher up you go in price range, the bigger the price gap is. You could spend $3000 on a nice Tri- or Quad-SLI or CrossfireX Core i7 system that would cost ~$6,000-7,000 as a Dell XPS or HP Blackbird.

[JimH443]

SnyperTodd said:

JimH- I agree with your statement if you are looking at the under $600 price range. But I've built $700 systems that you couldn't touch at a retail outlet for less than $1000-1200. And the higher up you go in price range, the bigger the price gap is. You could spend $3000 on a nice Tri- or Quad-SLI or CrossfireX Core i7 system that would cost ~$6,000-7,000 as a Dell XPS or HP Blackbird.

That's the problem in a nutshell. If you're building your own system simply because you don't want to spend much money, the percentage saved is very low. All too often, it actually costs more to build a "cheap" system because Windows itself isn't cheap (except to anyone other than Dell, HP et al)

I'd venture to say that while your $700 system might go for $1000-$1200 in a retail outlet, there were probably many places (such as online) that would have sold a comparable system for $800 or so.

And yes, extremely high end systems often are cheaper to build than buy. In these cases though, the main motivation is not to save money. The fact that you can just makes building it all that much more fun.

[mphenterprises]

Hi Jim and Snyper. Without straying too far away from the original question, I think we can all agree that the act of building a custom computer (whether laptop or desktop) is more for the joy of it and not necessarily for monetary savings. True?

Aperape, I believe what we are all eluding to is the fact that while the idea of a custom laptop is nice, the application of that idea is more for hobbyists than for those looking to save money. If you are truly doing this just to save money, I would stay with retail. If you are doing this for the pride of knowing that you can build a custom laptop, I say go for it. The laptop may not be the fanciest laptop on the block but you will have the ego boosting, chest thumping knowledge of knowing that you did it....something relatively few people can say.

[Aperape]

I thank you all for your help and responces. To answer you all, it is for the joy and fun of doing it. not saving money.

[matchbox2022]

Some really light varnished wood might be your best bet since you can put all the screws and hinges and what not wherever you'd like., unless you know how to machine aluminum, wood's probably the easiest way. It's what I did when I built my laptop cooler. (I made one that was kickass and ac powered unlike the crappy usb ones out there, it pulls 2 amps of current at 12 volts dc!! :D:D)

But yes, try thin light wood and a woodwork shop, you might have to do a lot of sanding, dremeling, drilling etc, but you'll be able to put it all together.

Speaking of which, I always wondered what it would be like to make a pc out of laptop components. I'd imagine this kind of approach would be easiest as well.