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Serious Laptop Mods

J

jodathmorr

Weaksauce
Joined
Jul 2, 2004
Messages
74
Hi guys. I am the proud owner of an IBM Thinkpad T42p and I can't vocalize how great it has been to me. Before I switched to a laptop I was an avid computer modder and one of the few things that kept me from switching was knowing that I could no longer customize my machine.

Well, after a few months of ownership and a little nerve building up I've decided to plan and attempt my first modification on this system. While the laptop has a great built-in wireless card, the range is a little disapointing to me. Therefore I'm going to add a MC-card female pigtail jack so I can easily connect an antenna to my system w/o taking up a PCMCIA slot. The mod should be realitivly easy, but I'm trying to figure out some other mods I can do to my laptop at some point.

By "mod" I don't mean something goofy like painting my chassis or adding LEDs and glow tape, I'm trying to do some functional modifications which will add alot of uniqueness and and give me a reason to open up and cut up my laptop.

Ideas I've had in the past are things such as relettering the keyboard with glow in the dark paint, adding an extra fan, or even possibly paint a small logo on the lid, but I'm trying to figure out some other mods that don't consist of just painting my system.

I will document the mod for the wireless antenna jack, but I'm wondering if you guys can help me come up with some really great mods for this laptop. Any and all ideas are welcomed. Thanks!
 
I'm reconsidering putting in a small character lcd display, but i need a very thin one with a small 1 line display that dosn't waste too much space. Anyone have any advice? I only know of Crystalfontz.com.
 
if you are familiar with taking a laptop apart, then almost any big electronics supplier is going to have a parallel port lcd character display for about 10 bucks depending on the size. then if you are possesing of the 1337 soldering skillz, run the wires to the unused parallel spot that should be on the motherboard somewhere but is usually unused. it will only be the solder points since there isn't a port on most laptops. then from there, find one of the simple programs that have been written to control character lcd's

http://guides.pimprig.com/modding/diy_lcd_install_and_mod.php

that link is a guide over and pimprig, which you could easily adapt to your situation.
 
This Thinkpad, like most Thinkpads, has a parallel port on the back of it. Does that mean that my computer will have another unused parallel port somewhere on the motherboard or does that mean that my computer is already using that one unused parallel port? I'd really like to put the LCD in but I don't want to have any wires sticking out either to plug the LCD into a USB port or parallel port.
 
that would've been my suggestion, a small lcd readout mounted near the keyboard somewhere would be tits! i have no input whatsoever on the specifics of the procedure though.
 
Hey,
I've been thinkin' bout moddin' my Twinhead R15B too, and my warranty period is almost over now. Well I've got some rough ideas on how I might do it i.e. a paint job, changing the CPU fan to a quieter one...
But I think the coolest idea I have is to have sort of a lighted design on the LCD cover, just like the Mac Powerbook...If i'm not mistaken the Apple logo on the Powerbook is either lit by the LCD's backlight, or by a separate EL module...anyone ripped apart a Powerbook before?
 
owenowen said:
Got it in one.
Click to expand...

Hmm...really? Thanks for the reply...i've been googlin' all day lookin' at Powerbook disassembly guides and so far no one has really ripped open the LCD panel yet...
 
yeah i had to replace my lcd recently, thats how i know, snapped up a bargain of ebay for 50 dollars. its been hooked up to a monitor for years cause when it was damaged they quoted me $2400 for a new one! For any one wanting to change the colour of their apple all you need is a bit of thin coloured plastic, cause thats all there is inside there, a bit of thin white plastic! the actual apple is clear on the case. I dont suppose anyones got an ice ibook keyboard for sale do they?????

owen.
 
Something I've always wanted seen done: Cut out a rectangle in the casing behind the LCD (replace it with, say, acrylic) and allow ambient light to provide the backlight. Granted, this isn't so simple, since the panel is constructed something like this:

Code: 
-----------------------------LCD Panel-------------------------
CCFL--------------------Diffuser-------------------------------
--------------------Something opaque---------------------------
------------------------casing---------------------------------
You would have to figure out a way to get the light from the back through to the diffuser, but imagine the extended battery life from not having to power the LCD backlight!
 
Hehe those are some nice pictures on the Inspiron thread. I tend to stray away from visual mods, especially for this Thinkpad, because I sort of like the bleak and simplistic look of the thing. For a Dell though I could see why you might want to jazz it up :D.

As for this LCD mod, I was wondering if someone could link me to the thinest or smallest character display (or even graphical I suppose) out there. I have about an inch of space between the keyboard and the LCD to play with, so something thats going to take up a lot of room (atleast on the exterior) isn't going to work.
 
I'll be adding a jack for connecting an external antenna to the mini-pci wi-fi card sometime.

Meanwhile, I just finished a USB port mod that essentially moves one USB port to a more conventient location on the chassis of my 600m. It's most likely not very realistic on other notebooks as they don't have space but you can use the basic principle behind this mod to mound a usb device (bluetooth/thumb drive) internally:

http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=92207
 
nice mod on the USB port - since my dell comes with the clip on top cover i am considering modding that to become a "window" with some lights or something, but again it is more a metter of drawing enough power from the system to power 2x 12' and 2x 4' cathodes.
 
mich43L said:
I'll be adding a jack for connecting an external antenna to the mini-pci wi-fi card sometime.

Meanwhile, I just finished a USB port mod that essentially moves one USB port to a more conventient location on the chassis of my 600m. It's most likely not very realistic on other notebooks as they don't have space but you can use the basic principle behind this mod to mound a usb device (bluetooth/thumb drive) internally:

http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=92207
Click to expand...

In case you're interested, the D600 (apparrently) shares it's frame with the D800, which DOES have some kind of USB/Power thing there. Probably just snap a different shell on for the two different models.

 
Nice mod, very professional looking.

I want to start this wifi mod ASAP, but I can't seem to find a diagram of this wifi card anywhere. Its an Intel A/B/G 802.11 Wifi Mini-PCI card. IBM's website dosn't give me much more information than that unfortunatly :(. Anyone know where I might be able to find a diagram of the card or maybe even tell me where I'd end up soldering an antenna out pigtail?
 
i'm modding my dell inspiron 5000....i'm going to put one of those little lcd read outs on it....i'm also going to put a window on it....

|-----------(maybe lcd?)------------|
|------:):)----|___|--------- :):)----|
|________ |_|_| __________|

like my cheesy artwork...well anyway you can see where the touchpad is...yeah thats the thing in the middle....i'm going to put windows where the smiley faces are...they'll be about 2" by 2"...justlittle things...i was also considering putting a media card reader in it...i'll have to fool around with my laptop and see what i can do...
 
uzor said:
In case you're interested, the D600 (apparrently) shares it's frame with the D800, which DOES have some kind of USB/Power thing there. Probably just snap a different shell on for the two different models.

Click to expand...
The D600 and D800 are completely different notebooks. They have no common parts in the casing or chassis...they don't even use the same battery.

fan1.jpg
D600 with palmrest removed
systemboard.jpg
D800 with palmrest removed.
 
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