Radical Motherboard Upgrade

dreamwriter

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 22, 2018
Messages
264
I'm looking for a motherboard/modder expert who might help with a radical upgrade for an HP HDX 9300. This is one of a kind 20.1 inch screen laptop, with a fully adjustable display that can be moved close or far from you, and angled any way one wishers. It's really a portable desktop.

Originally the intention was to upgrade the anemic Nvidia 8800 GTS to a Quadro 3700M, which was partly successful. A motherboard upgrade to anything fairly recent, even an ultra portable motherboard with a decent GPU, would breathe new life into this one of a kind machine.

I'm in California.

Thanks!
 
Lots of nibbles, but no bites. Surely there are some motherboard geniuses and expert modders on this august forum.
 
Probably not worth the effort or cost. Most likely porting over a new laptop into the case and adaptnig the lead from the screen if needed, hoping the KB is modualr, would be the most practical.
 
Yeah, outside of "duct tape an MSI GS65 to the thing" - I can't help ya. Interesting project though - pics would be cool to see!
 
I think it's totally worth such an effort. It's interesting that people are willing to work on myopia inducing 12 inch laptops, at the same time that phone screens are getting bigger. Having a portable 20 inch screen is amazing. Here's a youtube of it. It's gorgeous in person...probablt the most unique laptop ever made, with an ergpnpmic, fully articulating screen.

 
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The Acer's a great option if you feel like spending $9000.00, in which case you could also call a psychiatrist.

I paid $3000 for my Dragon, and modders can pick them up for well under $600 now.

Plus the Dragon has a fully articulating screen.
 
The Acer's a great option if you feel like spending $9000.00, in which case you could also call a psychiatrist.

I paid $3000 for my Dragon, and modders can pick them up for well under $600 now.

Plus the Dragon has a fully articulating screen.
didnt you already have a thread about this where people politely explained why you cant/shoulnt do this? you dont even have any idea how much this would cost yet insist this is possible.
and like I said before I have actually been hands on inside several of these, you dont need to keep trying to convince me/us that its some kind of unicorn....
 
What are you? The forum police? I've already spoken with someone with extensive experience with this laptop who says it is possible, but he cannot undertake it at this time.

Moreover, different people on the same forums disagree on subjects all the time, and even more so on different forums. I find the attempt to stifle discussion about something chilling and unwarranted.
 
What are you? The forum police? I've already spoken with someone with extensive experience with this laptop who says it is possible, but he cannot undertake it at this time.

Moreover, different people on the same forums disagree on subjects all the time, and even more so on different forums. I find the attempt to stifle discussion about something chilling and unwarranted.
boo frickity hoo. my point is you dont need two threads for the same thing because you didn't like what was said in the first. chilling and unwarranted ha! its called the truth.
 
It certainly seems like there would be a lot of room in that machine to mod in another laptop board, but don't they sometimes use specific connectors for monitors/ keyboard and mice? those things might make it a challenge. Not to mention new heat sinks and heat pipes to support the newer hardware.

Sounds like a tough project, good luck.
 
The screen is old enough that it will be LVDS, which will pose problems - nothing post-Haswell has LVDS on the motherboard. You will also need to, at a minimum, decode the keyboard and trackpad with custom hardware (laptops usually put the keyboard controller on the motherboard).
If there is sufficient Z-height in the chassis, your best bet would be to lay out a custom COM-express carrier with a power circuit that interfaces with the charger/stock battery, a keyboard decoder, and the appropriate connectors for the hardware you want to use. I am not sure it will be any cheaper than the Acer beast considering the engineering effort involved - at standard consulting rates it would probably cost a solid $10K to design and validate the carrier, not to mention the mechanical integration. It might be feasible if the community pooled their money, or better yet, someone in the community knew out to lay out boards and had an interest in physically huge laptops.
The other problem is that there is insufficient supply to build an open source project out of. The Dragon is a unique machine, and regardless of its usefulness is arguably worth restoring - however, the whole proposition is somewhat dampened by the fact that there are so few of them available. For example, I have some COMe modules and know how to lay out boards, and might toy with the idea of building a carrier if I found a Dragon in the trash, but seems rather unwise to go spend $600-900 on an obscure laptop from 2007 and several thousand dollars worth of engineering time (not to mention $2-3K on components, boards, and a MXM GPU) to bring it up to modern standards when I could just buy the Acer for <$10K and have something that worked out of the box.
 
Bwang and Identitycrisis:

Thanks for your reasoned responses. Possibly, then, you can help with a lesser goal… Getting an Nvidia Quadro 3700M to fully function in the Dragon.

The comment about the LVDS cable is right on point. Attempts to upgrade the GPU were a complete failure, until one technician reasoned that it was the LVDS cable that was the impediment. He did something unsophisticated, but it worked up to a point. He reversed the cable and the Quadro 2700M and 3700M worked, but with diminished "intensity." Further investigation showed that the Dragon's 8-bit WUXGA panel was only operating at 6-bit, which would explain the suboptimal results.

I had a conversation with a technician from a major laptop manufacturer who suggested that one pair of wires within the LVDS possibly needed to be reversed, as "send" and "receive" were possibly reversed, which would result in the panel only receiving 6-bit.

If anybody had any useful ideas, or could render help in some way, I would really appreciate it. The 3700M may not seem like much in today's context, but it sure beats the 8800M GTS, and the upgrade would breathe a little more life into this unique machine.

By the way, the machines are available for less than I thought. There are a couple on eBay right now, including the more powerful 9300, for around $300.
 
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Bwang and Identitycrisis:

Thanks for your reasoned responses. Possibly, then, you can help with a lesser goal… Getting an Nvidia Quadro 3700M to fully function in the Dragon.

The comment about the LVDS cable is right on point. Attempts to upgrade the GPU were a complete failure, until one technician reasoned that it was the LVDS cable that was the impediment. He did something unsophisticated, but it worked up to a point. He reversed the cable and the Quadro 2700M and 3700M worked, but with diminished "intensity." Further investigation showed that the Dragon's 8-bit WUXGA panel was only operating at 6-bit, which would explain the suboptimal results.

I had a conversation with a technician from a major laptop manufacturer who suggested that one pair of wires within the LVDS possibly needed to be reversed, as "send" and "receive" were possibly reversed, which would result in the panel only receiving 6-bit.

If anybody had any useful ideas, or could render help in some way, I would really appreciate it. The 3700M may not seem like much in today's context, but it sure beats the 8800M GTS, and the upgrade would breathe a little more life into this unique machine.

By the way, the machines are available for less than I thought. There are a couple on eBay right now, including the more powerful 9300, for around $300.

Unfortunately I don't have a ton of suggestions to offer up, i just think the idea is interesting.

I can tell you that upgrading GPUs in laptops was never an easy, or cheap endeavor when swapping generations in the past. This is a totally different beast.

Good luck with the upgrade.
 
Without any ability to scale the costs across multiple interested parties and an inferred cost ceiling below $10k, this seems like a futile quest.

Get 50 or 80 or so people who each have these and a an extra 3000 to 6000 dollars laying around and you might have a shot. Maybe.
 
I believe I was one of the people talking about what would need to be done to make it happen, and like I said in that thread, yes, it is possible, but no, it will not be cheap and getting something new would be probably half the cost. You balk at $9,000 for the Acer, but don't seem to understand that a custom mod of your old laptop will probably cost the same or more, for something that will not be as good. You also have other options like the MSI Titan, which is 18.4" for less than half that price.

You say you have someone who said it's possible, but they don't have time, what that means is they don't really know and don't want to take on the job. Even if they could, I will assure you, that you are not going to be ok with the bill. Let me ask you, what is your actual budget for this?
 
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