How come there aren't many build guides/tutorials to building LAPTOPS?

[Joey Kapish]

How come there aren't many build guides to building LAPTOP'S? I wanted to do my own build but I'm looking to build a LAPTOP rather than a DESKTOP. I want something I can take with me on the go. I understand that some laptops might have the GPU'S soldered onto the motherboard with the CPU'S but isn't there a service out there where you can order and customize which parts to solder (like for instance a 1070 max Q with a Intel mobile H processor) for a motherboard and then build on top of it? 

 

That would be real cool if we (as PC enthusiasts) can start building LAPTOPS instead of desktop workstations. I already have 3 desktops but I want to build a gaming LAPTOP for myself.

[userzero]

Laptop casing and motherboards are designed around each other. That's all you need to know.

 

Think about how many thousands of things you could fix inside a PC case.

 

You can't just say you need a laptop motherboard and pick a case. It doesn't work like that. Have you seen inside a laptop...

 

End.

[Droidbot]

If you're so inclined, just get a Clevo barebones and customize the crap out of it. RJTech sells em.

 

Otherwise, get a normal laptop.

 

 

[Guest]

Massive R&D costs, custom PCBs, laptop casings, etc... It seems like a huge undertaking for 1 person. As said above, there are barebones kits, but if you aren't moving at volume it gets way too expensive to do custom laptops. Most are re-brands of Clevos.

[Mira Yurizaki]

There's not a whole lot of options available as far as parts go. And even then, laptop parts tend to be pretty expensive. Like for example, if you want a new video card (yes, there's a modular video card setup for laptops), the prices are basically the same as video cards were for desktops during the cryptocurrency craze all the time

[Drak3]

1 minute ago, M.Yurizaki said:

the prices are basically the same as video cards were for desktops during the cryptocurrency craze all the time

Where you finding these cheap MXMs?

 

12 minutes ago, Jason Greene said:

How come there aren't many build guides to building LAPTOP'S?

You can't build a laptop ground up eith premade parts. Ground up builds require you to fab/get stuff fabbed to adapt desktop parts/miniPCs.

 

The other option is to buy a bare bones laptop, but guides on upgrading RAM, and storage is enough for most laptop specific stuff. Maybe a guide on MXM cards would be helpful, but you're options limited. Same for CPUs, option limited.

[Joey Kapish]

Wow, up until this post I didn't realize how much of a MONOPOLY the mobile PC consumer market is. I just realized that you can't buy mobile cpu chips separately because they are (for the most part) soldered on to the motherboard. 

 

So then my question is why doesn't Intel or AMD open up their mobile motherboards to sell to consumers for business? Wouldn't that bring in more money for AMD and Intel? My other question is wouldn't selling custom mobile motherboards (kind of like the scenario of selling regular motherboards) be a better option than choosing to be stuck with whatever choice you buy with a brand name laptop? Like for instance wouldn't it be better for Intel to sell custom mobile motherboards (like a 8750H processor with a GTX 1070 soldered on) to us the consumers? That to me seems more logical then if other businesses  (like LAPTOP cases, and laptop fans or laptop heatpipes) could monetize off of that? I don't get it, someone please enlighten me?

 

I know how to weld, so I figure I could go to some company that sells soldered mobile motherboards and buy whatever option I choose to have put together and then weld a LAPTOP case around it.

 

My other question is (not sure why people missed it in my first post) are there companies out there that sells soldered motherboard CPU'S with GPU'S of the options you want? I want to know how does Asus or Acer or MSI get to choose which parts to solder together and sell to their consumers? How does that process work? Do they have exclusive contracts with Intel or something?

[Dissitesuxba11s]

11 minutes ago, Jason Greene said:

Wow, up until this post I didn't realize how much of a MONOPOLY the mobile PC consumer market is.

I think you are using the word monopoly wrong.

11 minutes ago, Jason Greene said:

So then my question is why doesn't Intel or AMD open up their mobile motherboards to sell to consumers for business?

The mobile form factor has no specific standard unlike desktop (i.e. ATX, mini ITX, etc) so it would be a big cluster of incompatibility and everything else would have to be custom made to fit the motherboard.

16 minutes ago, Jason Greene said:

Like for instance wouldn't it be better for Intel to sell custom mobile motherboards (like a 8750H processor with a GTX 1070 soldered on) to us the consumers?

No, because a consumer will most likely only buy one but selling it to laptop manufacturers will yield them large profits for bulk sales.

18 minutes ago, Jason Greene said:

I know how to weld, so I figure I could go to some company that sells soldered mobile motherboards and buy whatever option I choose to have put together and then weld a LAPTOP case around it.

Since you know how to weld, you also know how much material is needed to create those welds. With the amount of material needed to form the case and weld it, you might as well consider a mini ITX build. Also, cooling will be your biggest issue.

20 minutes ago, Jason Greene said:

My other question is (not sure why people missed it in my first post) are there companies out there that sells soldered motherboard CPU'S with GPU'S of the options you want? I want to know how does Asus or Acer or MSI get to choose which parts to solder together and sell to their consumers? How does that process work? Do they have exclusive contracts with Intel or something?

The OEMs of these boards sell to laptop manufacturers large quantities of boards, all custom made to the laptop design. Selling them individually is not profitable to them. You might as well buy a used laptop and repurpose the motherboard.

[lewdicrous]

27 minutes ago, Jason Greene said:

Wow, up until this post I didn't realize how much of a MONOPOLY the mobile PC consumer market is.

Really dude...

[Joey Kapish]

2 hours ago, Dissitesuxba11s said:

The OEMs of these boards sell to laptop manufacturers large quantities of boards, all custom made to the laptop design. Selling them individually is not profitable to them. You might as well buy a used laptop and repurpose the motherboard.

But that's my main question, who are these "OEM'S" that sell directly to these manufacturers? Can you give me an example of one? I Googled myself but I'm not sure if I'm searching using the correct terminology.

 

About the "it wouldn't be profitable to sell to consumers" comment, my reply to that is your wrong. Selling optional (or at least customizable) versions of mobile motherboards would be profitable because someone (LIKE ME) wants to build my own mobile workstation. It might not seem profitable to you right now because LAPTOPS (as far as motherboards go) are not as customizable as DESKTOPS right now, and then on top of that there are no set universal standards (as far as LAPTOP cases). If "OEM" vendors took mobile motherboards more seriously, there would be a set of standards for custom LAPTOP builds. There are already custom variants of Nvidia's graphics cards(MSI, ASUS, ZOTAC) so I don't see why the custom mobile motherboards scenario for consumers (LIKE ME) would be any different. 

 

 

[Majinhoju]

29 minutes ago, Jason Greene said:

About the "it wouldn't be profitable to sell to consumers" comment, my reply to that is your wrong. Selling optional (or at least customizable) versions of mobile motherboards would be profitable because someone (LIKE ME) wants to build my own mobile workstation.

 

 

If you're the only person out there interested in doing this, then no, there isn't much profit to be made by them.  

[Dissitesuxba11s]

8 minutes ago, Jason Greene said:

But that's my main question, who are these "OEM'S" that sell directly to these manufacturers? Can you give me an example of one? I Googled myself but I'm not sure if I'm searching using the correct terminology.

Off the top of my head, Foxconn and Biostar. Most manufacturers subcontract to Asian manufacturers but label them under their own brand, like HP or Dell.

 

11 minutes ago, Jason Greene said:

About the "it wouldn't be profitable to sell to consumers" comment, my reply to that is your wrong. Selling optional (or at least customizable) versions of mobile motherboards would be profitable because someone (LIKE ME) wants to build my own mobile workstation. It might not seem profitable to you right now because LAPTOPS (as far as motherboards go) are not as customizable as DESKTOPS right now, and then on top of that there are no set universal standards (as far as LAPTOP cases). If "OEM" vendors took mobile motherboards more seriously, there would be a set of standards for custom LAPTOP builds. There are already custom variants of Nvidia's graphics cards(MSI, ASUS, ZOTAC) so I don't see why the custom mobile motherboards scenario for consumers (LIKE ME) would be any different.

There is a reason why DIY laptops are not a thing. Somebody a lot smarter than me did the cost analysis on it and deemed that we are still not in the age of custom laptops. I for one would love to build my own mobile workstation without having to resort to a mini ITX build, but unfortunately the technology still doesn't exist. Custom motherboards aside, you would also have to worry about properly cooling the parts in such a small form factor, which is still an issue today, and providing power to it via thin ribbon cables or direct connection to the motherboard.

 

You can however buy your own laptop motherboard on Newegg with an included CPU, so maybe start there and see where that takes you. Note that you will be paying a good amount for maybe even a two generation old CPU. Other than that, the closest we have to a "custom" laptop is a configured one you can buy through Sager or previously mentioned, Clevo, or even considering a barebones one.

 

[Yoinkerman]

Eh it takes time and money to develop boards you can't just solder chips on and call it a day

[Crunchy Dragon]

You can get custom laptops, but it's just not worth it most of the time.

[asus killer]

6 hours ago, Jason Greene said:

like for instance a 1070 max Q with a Intel mobile H processor

that can get a little toasty even for the best and most expensive builds, i don't see how a DYI project can be very successful 

[Joey Kapish]

Hmmmm.... It sounds to me like DIY LAPTOP BUILDS overall is just not POPULAR rather than expensive. At least that's what I gathered from your responses. I look at building a laptop like building and assembling a smartphone. Anyone can go to China and source cell phone parts(camera's/motherboard/screen) and make their own phone and put their own brand on them. Every component(whether modular or not) that you see in a smartphone can easily be bought and assembled, and I'm not sure if you guys are aware but there is a HUGE MARKET for smartphones (especially the BLACK MARKET). 

 

 

[Christophe Corazza]

You can build anything you want to, if you have

a. The technical ability\knowledge; and

b. access to the correct tools.

 

So, can you? Yes.

Can you build what people think of as a 'laptop'? Not really.

 

There are barebone laptops that you can assemble yourself, though those always come with limited choices in terms of hardware and tend to be more expensive than the pre-made alternatives. Bbut in a majority of cases, there's simply no universal standards between laptop manufacturers aside from RAM & HDD/SSD. For example, a motherboard on an Asus isn't going to have the screws and ports align perfectly with a Toshiba casing, if it fits at all. There is simply no standard spec like ATX for desktops.

 

[Yoinkerman]

Laptops aren't socs that's not how it works

[Majinhoju]

I think another challenge would be getting case, motherboard, lcd etc.. manufacturers to create parts based off a specific standard that would allow consumers to piece parts together like a desktop. 

 

We've had to replace the odd laptop part at work and we've always had to buy a the part specific to that model laptop.  Each laptop has it's own unigue style of screw alignments, fan locations etc...

 

[Joey Kapish]

I still don't understand how building a DIY LAPTOP for one consumer is much more costly than buying a pre-built brand-named laptop? A Samsung Galaxy S9 sells for almost $800 but the parts to assemble and create it comes up to the max $300. Can someone please elaborate further why the scenario for a DIY LAPTOP would be different? I read you guys response but I'm just not understanding. Someone please bring me up to speed? I don't understand the economics or how you guys have come to such conclusion? Maybe I'm missing something?

 

I remember a while back there was a kickstarter for the famous MODULAR phone where all of the phone's accessories were MODULAR and it never caught on or got much traction because (I assume) the term MODULAR was too broad I'm that sense. In a DIY laptop build an OEM manafacture should be able to create a universal standardized modular mobile motherboard where you can build laptop mobile workstation around modular parts(like mobile cases, heat-pipes). I don't understand why so many have come to the conclusion that it is not economic friendly when gaming laptops are biggest sellers.

[WkdPaul]

@Jason Greene To summarize with one word : demand.

 

 

Custom PC building is a very small part of the market, the majority of the PC and laptop buyers are companies (big and small), and they rarely are going to bother with custom PCs.

 

And it gets even smaller market shares with "custom" laptops (or barebones). As others have mentioned, laptops have no standards (like the ATX standard). So if a company wanted to sell parts for custom built laptops, they would have to create (and impose to all other players) a new standards, if you look at the rise and fall of the BTX standard, you'll understand that a new standard isn't an easy thing to create and "impose".

 

While there are some standards (like MXM GPU) there's none for the motherboard format (like ATX), and so because every laptop motherboards out there are different, the connector placement (both internal and external) vary widely and so making a "standard" laptop body is impossible.

 

Because of the compact nature of laptops, one small change can sometimes means that a complete re-engineering of the motherboard is needed. And because the motherboards and frames are highly different (sometime even between variants of the same models), making a real DIY custom laptop is not something that's really possible (at least for now).

 

 

So right now the closest thing we have to building yourself a laptop are barebones, like these ;

https://rjtech.com/shop/index.php

https://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Description=barebone laptop kit&Submit=ENE

Edited July 6, 2018 by wkdpaul

[Arika]

14 hours ago, Jason Greene said:

I don't understand the economics or how you guys have come to such conclusion? Maybe I'm missing something?

because if it was

1. profitable
2. made sense
3. had a market for it

then it would already exist.

 

the work that goes into creating laptops is not a matter of picking parts and slapping it together like you do for a PC, there's so many more factors that need to be taken into consideration. so will it happen? maybe one day many years down the line or there might be a small niche kickstarter for something, but it will never be mass market. Gaming laptops are already a niche market as they are and not many people would want to try and build their own. hell even the majority of gamers don't build their own PCs from scratch, they buy a prebuilt and do no further upgrades or might get a new GPU in a generation or two.

[LogicalDrm]

18 hours ago, Jason Greene said:

Hmmmm.... It sounds to me like DIY LAPTOP BUILDS overall is just not POPULAR rather than expensive. At least that's what I gathered from your responses. I look at building a laptop like building and assembling a smartphone. Anyone can go to China and source cell phone parts(camera's/motherboard/screen) and make their own phone and put their own brand on them. Every component(whether modular or not) that you see in a smartphone can easily be bought and assembled, and I'm not sure if you guys are aware but there is a HUGE MARKET for smartphones (especially the BLACK MARKET).

 

Have you opened laptop? Like actually done it yourself, not watched pro do it. Easy is NOT the word I would use. And I've changed few HDDs and even cooler for laptop. Compared to desktop PCs, its not easy thing. Not to get parts nor actually assemble it.

 

You seem to skip over few things. Like going to China for starters. First you need to do research. Which parts work with each other. Sure, this would be different if markets were more towards building DIY laptops. Considering current state of water cooling (really niche thing when I started with custom builds 10 years ago) or building desktops overall (been a thing maybe 15 years). We may need to wait 5-10 more years to get building your own custom laptop as mainstream. Second is finding and buying parts. The CHINA part is big here. Just going to marketplace requires that you speak Chinese or have good translator with you. Just look how hard time Linus had with just desktop. Third part isn't actually assembly. If you've done some DIY electronics in past, that should be breeze. But then its about what next. You need to configure BIOS, check that thermals are good, actually use the thing. Not to mention health risks with parts that may or may not have certificates. Plus, each part has/may have its own warranty. And if something breaks, there's no one to call for help. You need to know what part is issue and try to work with seller/manufacturer with RMA.

 

15 hours ago, Jason Greene said:

I still don't understand how building a DIY LAPTOP for one consumer is much more costly than buying a pre-built brand-named laptop? A Samsung Galaxy S9 sells for almost $800 but the parts to assemble and create it comes up to the max $300. Can someone please elaborate further why the scenario for a DIY LAPTOP would be different? I read you guys response but I'm just not understanding. Someone please bring me up to speed? I don't understand the economics or how you guys have come to such conclusion? Maybe I'm missing something?

 

When you buy laptop or phone, you buy package. If you DIY, you don't have that. I touched this in above part a bit already. $800 for a $300 phone is too much, but Samsung/Apple can get away as people go for status symbols. Thats besides the point, but its one reason for pricing. Another is brand recognition. You could basically get Chinese/Taiwanese/Korean variant for half the price. But do you have same trust in XIaomi or ZTE as you have with Samsung?

 

So lets say status symbol is worth $100 extra, brand recognition is $200. What next? Package and warranty. You buy Samsung phone, you get 1-3 years of warranty. Meaning that anything mechanical, system or other which shouldn't break in normal use gets repaired or replaced without extra cost (shipping costs not included). If you build phone part-by-part, you don't have anyone to call for help. You have manufacturer or seller of each part to contact, but do you know which part was really issue? And if you do, you still need to disassemble whole thing (worst case) to get to that part, package it and send to be repaired/replaced. Then putting phone back together. This one thing is main reason why people still buy prebuild desktops. When something breaks, you take it back to store for fixing. Its there few days and you get it back. Warranty service on phones and they even give you spare.

[veli2501]

On 7/6/2018 at 10:18 AM, Jason Greene said:

I still don't understand how building a DIY LAPTOP for one consumer is much more costly than buying a pre-built brand-named laptop? A Samsung Galaxy S9 sells for almost $800 but the parts to assemble and create it comes up to the max $300. Can someone please elaborate further why the scenario for a DIY LAPTOP would be different? I read you guys response but I'm just not understanding. Someone please bring me up to speed? I don't understand the economics or how you guys have come to such conclusion? Maybe I'm missing something?

You would be building the S9 out of parts that are specifically parts for an S9.  You can't just get any old mobile parts and throw them together and put them in an S9 case.  Yes the parts are cheaper individually but you're not just paying for parts when you buy a complete package, you're paying for assembly, marketing, brand name, warranty etc etc etc.

 

So technically you could assemble a laptop in the same way but the parts would HAVE to be the same for that brand and model, just like the S9 example you have used.  So it wouldn't really be a custom laptop it would just be that model of laptop self assembled.  Why would manufacturers do that and allow customers to cut their bottom line?

 

With regards as to why manufacturers don't create parts that are interchangeable and have a standard form factor that can be use universally so you could select custom parts of you choice.  As above: demand. In the 20 odd years I have been building PCs, you are the first person I have ever heard who wants this.  The cost of R'n'D and manufacture compared to non existent demand makes it unprofitable.

[LogicalDrm]

5 hours ago, veli2501 said:

 Why would manufacturers do that and allow customers to cut their bottom line?

 

OEMs probably wouldn't mind. Actually it might be even better for them. They could raise prices of part, even those at wholesale to Asus, Lenovo and others. For them its all the same who buyer is. Problem comes that mobile parts aren't made in spec that would be used across the board. Like its unlikely that Asus, Lenovo and say MSI are using same motherboard for some of their models. That means that compability between parts needs to be correct, and that there aren't that many parts that will work between each other. Main issues being cooling and motherboard. As GPUs, RAM and other expansion cards are already kinda interchangable. Battery is next big issue and finding casing + suitable keyboard and screen.