"Sleeper" Laptop?

[AshleyAshes]

1 minute ago, bruny06 said:

Ohhhh, sorry for not reading, I'll have a look at it now. As for the motherboard, those tend to be really expensive, I know this because when I was thinking about building my desktop PC, I wanted to reuse my i7 4700MQ, which is still not bad. If they didn't cost over 200$, it would be something I would consider as well.

Costs can be an issue.  I used eBay and it can be hit or miss, so some people are selling them for $200, other times someone sells SETS OF FOUR for $100 because they recycled dozens of them and they gotta go.  In my case I paid $86 USD including cost of shipping to Canada.
 

Keep in mind, this allowed me to recycle an i7 2630qm CPU, it's 2x8GB of memory, two 2.5" drives, wifi adaptor plus a CX600v2 PSU I had kicking around.  So the 'cost' of the iTX case and the used motherboard was largely offset.

[H0R53]

18 hours ago, bruny06 said:

there's a chance I can't just slap any mobile PCI-E graphics card, can I

Yes, there are quite a few PCI-M GPUs like these:

https://www.amazon.com/Original-Elitebook-Workstation-Graphics-Replacement/dp/B01I7Z2ESU/

https://www.amazon.com/Ultrabay-Removable-Graphics-IdeaPad-Laptops/dp/B00JBFYET8/

https://www.amazon.com/HD6770-DDR5-MXM-30-Laptop-216-0810001/dp/B00I4A8DCK/

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Alienware-Nvidia-Laptop-Graphic/dp/B071FVGN2Z/

https://www.amazon.com/HD6770-DDR5-MXM-30-Laptop-216-0810001/dp/B00I4A8DCK/

https://www.amazon.com/Nvidia-Quadro-K3000M-Mobile-N14E-Q1-A2/dp/B015DC6PSK/

 

You just need to find one that's compatible with your laptop

[Bruno_A]

1 minute ago, AshleyAshes said:

Costs can be an issue.  I used eBay and it can be hit or miss, so some people are selling them for $200, other times someone sells SETS OF FOUR for $100 because they recycled dozens of them and they gotta go.  In my case I paid $86 USD including cost of shipping to Canada.
 

Keep in mind, this allowed me to recycle an i7 2630qm CPU, it's 2x8GB of memory, two 2.5" drives, wifi adaptor plus a CX600v2 PSU I had kicking around.  So the 'cost' of the iTX case and the used motherboard was largely offset.

Yeah, these boards are definitely an issue for me, due to the price, however, I wouldn't be able to get much money for my laptop with an i7 4700MQ, 8GB of RAM, no HDD, a missing key and a little crack on the plastic housing by the right side of the keyboard and no Windows, by the way. So that could be an option for me, an ITX build. Also, I was having a look at your post, and it looks great, good project. It would be a shame to let such a nice laptop, even today, collecting dust. I'll finish reading your post now, I'm liking it so far.  

[Bruno_A]

5 minutes ago, H0R53 said:

Yes, there are quite a few PCI-M GPUs like these:

https://www.amazon.com/Original-Elitebook-Workstation-Graphics-Replacement/dp/B01I7Z2ESU/

https://www.amazon.com/Ultrabay-Removable-Graphics-IdeaPad-Laptops/dp/B00JBFYET8/

https://www.amazon.com/HD6770-DDR5-MXM-30-Laptop-216-0810001/dp/B00I4A8DCK/

https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Alienware-Nvidia-Laptop-Graphic/dp/B071FVGN2Z/

https://www.amazon.com/HD6770-DDR5-MXM-30-Laptop-216-0810001/dp/B00I4A8DCK/

https://www.amazon.com/Nvidia-Quadro-K3000M-Mobile-N14E-Q1-A2/dp/B015DC6PSK/

 

You just need to find one that's compatible with your laptop

Well, thanks, but those wouldn't fit. The GPU on my laptop looks like this.

[sicily428]

5 hours ago, bruny06 said:

Well, thanks, but those wouldn't fit. The GPU on my laptop looks like this.

that is a mxm gpu with a not-standard dimension

 

here more infos about mxm gpus and a list of mxm gpu resellers

MXM GPU Resellers in the world

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/mxm-gpu-resellers-in-the-world.804197/