For many, building and upgrading a desktop PC has long become a hobby or even a kind of religion. And here it doesn’t matter at all whether you go the traditional way, assembling a system based on a case, power supply, and other components, or take a mini-PC as a basis. In any case, the computer will be individually selected and configured to suit your needs.
What is a DIY laptop?
For many, self-assembly of the system unit has become something more than a financial benefit to build your own laptop. An individual approach allows you to achieve not only uniqueness but also, more importantly, focus on the details that are important to you.
In such a computer, everything is selected and configured based on your individual preferences, ideas, tasks, and specifics. If everything is quite clear with the system unit, then what about the laptop? Is it possible to assemble a laptop by yourself? Undoubtedly, the main difference between a laptop and a PC is its more compact size, the presence of built-in related devices, such as a display, keyboard, mouse trackpad, and other accessories. The components that make up the basis of any computer remain unchanged regardless of size and form factor.
Why cannot you just buy a powerful laptop?
You decided to buy a productive laptop, but you look at the prices and you are sad: power and portability at the same time are expensive. In this article, we will tell you how to assemble a portable laptop from standard desktop components with your own hands, as well as what are the advantages of this approach.
Selection of components:
- The possibility of a complete upgrade of all components.
- Using desktop components.
- Support for standard components (motherboards, matrices).
The concept of a DIY (Do It Yourself) laptop is broadly the same as a mini PC. That is, you buy a case with a factory-installed motherboard and power supply. Then choose the processor, memory, graphics card, hard drive, and optical drive to your liking. The same is true for a DIY laptop. First, you need to pick up a barebone base. It automatically determines which platform (AMD or Intel) we get, as well as what components we can install.
RAM is selected based on the supported standard, frequency, and number of GB by the processor. For example, support for DDR3 or 4 up to 16GB is declared. Therefore, we can install no more than 16GB. Laptops, like most portable devices, use reduced SODIMM memory strips. Their manufacturer is practically irrelevant, so it’s worth choosing based on cost. You should not take the most expensive or, on the contrary, the cheapest modules, it is better to take something in between.
Existing barebones support up to two hard drives and up to two optical drives. In addition, some barebones allow you to install your own graphics card. One of these models is the Clevo N9860. Unlike mini PCs, when choosing a laptop barebone, the user should consider the size, resolution, and quality of the display. As you can imagine, the display is an integral part of the barebone.