Are custom-built laptops a thing?

[ExtraSlow]

You smart computer guys are constantly discussing custom builds of computer systems. It's often just as cheap to choose the parts you want and assemble them yourself, as buying something off the shelf. Heck, even if you don't like to touch the "guts" you can get places like memory express to assemble it for you for very little money. Heck, I even did this once and it wasn't beyond my very limited capability.

Does anything like this exist for Laptops? Without getting into high-end stuff I mean. For people looking for a ~$1000 laptop, is there a method of customizing it?

[Sugarphreak]

...

[ExtraSlow]

You can buy one and then swap parts out for better parts... but I don't know that it is any cheaper It's definitely not.

[Xtrema]

skinning and may be adding ram or m.2 drive is as much customization as laptop goes, if allowed.

Thanks to Apple, everybody is going thin and light which mean more and more laptops have most components soldered in.

The one SP posted are pretty good laptop for $900 but it seems to be OOS.

BTW Microsoft Store (physical store, not online) are clearing Surface Pro 5 (i5/8GB/128GB) with Type Cover for $800. Although RFD may have clear them out by now.

https://forums.redflagdeals.com/microsoft-store-surface-pro-core-i5-128gb-8gb-ram-type-cover-799-store-only-2248968/

Not bad if you are looking for something portable and doesn't hate typing on the type cover. And of course, Surface Pro is exact opposite of what you are asking for. But it is one of the hot pre boxing day deal I have seen.

EDIT: NVM, Calgary store is out.

[botox]

skinning and may be adding ram or m.2 drive is as much customization as laptop goes, if allowed.

Thanks to Apple, everybody is going thin and light which mean more and more laptops have most components soldered in.

Even RAM is soldered in now with some new HP's.

[firebane]

Even RAM is soldered in now with some new HP's.

Lots of laptops come with 1 stick soldered and allow 1 to be upgraded.

Most laptops even high end gaming don't really have upgradeable parts like a desktop.

[AndyL]

I could be wrong, but isn't this why the old dual core ibm thinkpads are still commanding an impressive resale value for a win7 era laptop...

[Xtrema]

I could be wrong, but isn't this why the old dual core ibm thinkpads are still commanding an impressive resale value for a win7 era laptop...

That may be industrial reasons for Thinkpads as lots of businesses use them. Parts could be hard to come by for old stuff, not just for upgrades, repairs as well.

If your business is stuck on software or hardware that can't get off that platform for some reason, these specific laptops end up being valuable.

[ExtraSlow]

So I'm hearing that this really isn't a thing anywhere.

[D'z Nutz]

So I'm hearing that this really isn't a thing anywhere.

Probably not. The closest thing to a custom built laptop I've ever seen was a kit that came mostly assembled, except for the CPU, memory, and storage. Everything else was already integrated into a mainboard and assembled into a laptop housing and the specs were very vanilla and middle of the road. Not particularly exciting as for as customizing went. Of course, that was like in the early 2000's, so I'm not sure if that idea got very far.

Like Xtrema said, the trend is for light and compact so everything is soldered in from the factory now.

[Mitsu3000gt]

So I'm hearing that this really isn't a thing anywhere.

Nope - unfortunately not. Laptops are a different ball game.

Cooling them is a major issue (especially when they are made so thin) and needs to be a huge part of the engineering in the overall design, and those needs change dramatically depending on what components are in it. Due to their size they pretty much need to be designed as a complete package. Ditto for battery requirements. You'll find on the thinner designs, more stuff is soldered like the SSD and RAM so there is no way to swap those out even if you wanted to.

[AndyL]

That may be industrial reasons for Thinkpads as lots of businesses use them. Parts could be hard to come by for old stuff, not just for upgrades, repairs as well.

If your business is stuck on software or hardware that can't get off that platform for some reason, these specific laptops end up being valuable.

eGrdFFwnXyU

I must be mistaken ;)

[firebane]

eGrdFFwnXyU

I must be mistaken ;)

Quote from the comments


Okay..... So I pulled the laptop back apart and put the i5 back in and both RAM slots worked again. So several things could be wrong. Something might be wrong with the CPU, the laptop's BIOS and the CPU might not be playing well together, ect... I am not really sure what I am going to do at this point, because besides the memory issue everything is working great. I keep having to edit this comment because I keep running into conflicting evidence as to whether I can use a 16GB dimm in the T430. The i7 DOES support 32GB of RAM according to the Intel spec sheet (though that might not be referring to a 2X 16gb dimm config) but I am not sure if the T430 BIOS/chipset supports 16GB dimms. Some say yes and some people say no. Any input on this would be appreciated. Update: I just upgraded the T430 to the latest BIOS and that did not change anything (which was super easy, I am not sure where I read that it would be difficult, they were wrong). The top RAM slot still does not work not matter what configuration I try.

Always swapping CPUs in a laptop IS possible but not advisable as the cooling system may not be adequate or the bios be compatible.

YMMV

[AndyL]

I just grabbed the first one I saw, I know I ran across the whole thinkpad upgrade community a while back. Some were pretty amazing builds...

[colsankey]

There's at least one or two companies that do more custom laptops than just choosing a CPU and memory option isn't there?

Maybe they didn't last, but I felt like I saw there was a good number in the 2015 era, but they seemed pretty pricy.

Found 1: https://builder.falcon-nw.com

*Missed the ~$1000 price tag, Falcons are probably going to run you closer to ~$2000 USD