Why not piece together your own Mecca of mobility? It isn’t as hard as you might think. In fact, the transition to Intel’s second-generation Centrino platform makes a DIY project easier than ever with new standards such as PCI Express and Serial ATA. That’s not to say you can custom-create an ultra-powerful desktop replacement with the processor and graphics card of your choice. There’s a lot of finesse involved in getting delicate electronic components properly optimized for power consumption and heat output. But with a little research, you should have no trouble handpicking the parts for your next notebook.

A Case For DIY

Why even bother playing system builder when numerous top-tier firms are more than happy to do the job for you and throw in a warranty to boot? Is a home-brewed solution any cheaper than a name-brand laptop? Will it be any faster? Will it give you a clearer pathway for upgrading later on should graphics or processor technology advance?

In the past, building a gaming PC, graphics workstation, or entry-level server was a sure way to save plenty of money. That’s more of an exception than a rule on the desktop, but notebooks are still packing sizable premiums. Take the Toshiba Qosmio G25, a multimedia powerhouse that wields a 2GHz Pentium M, 1GB of memory, a 17-inch widescreen display, NVIDIA’s GeForce Go 6600 with 128MB of RAM, twin 60GB hard drives, and a dual-layer DVD burner. Impressive in its own right (though hardly rivaling anything you’d gawk on a gaming desktop), Toshiba charges about $3,000 for the G25. Bear in mind that you can get an Athlon 64 X2 and a pair of GeForce 7800 GTX cards with twice the hard drive space and a decent motherboard for less.

On the contrary, an ASUS Z71V notebook chassis costs a little more than $800. It includes a gorgeous 15.4-inch widescreen LCD supporting resolutions up to 1,680 x 1,050, the same GeForce Go 6600 add-in PCI-E adapter, an integrated 56Kbps modem, Gigabit Ethernet, five USB 2.0 ports, a card reader, and a bundled battery purportedly worth six hours of run time. A 2GHz boxed Pentium M 760 will set you back $450, while 1GB (2 x 512MB of DDR2-533) of memory costs $115. In the interest of conserving battery life, opt for a single 100GB hard drive rather than two repositories. The $175 you’ll pay is admittedly steep compared to desktop storage, but it’s plenty for most laptops. The grand total comes to $1,540--well below the Toshiba’s price and with roughly similar specs. You could even add $100 for a Toshiba dual-layer DVD burner and $150 for an OEM copy of Windows XP Professional. The final price is still $1,000 less than the pre-built notebook.

So there’s a clear financial justification for building a notebook from the comfort of your living room. Does that mean you will consequentially sacrifice quality in the name of saving a few bucks? Absolutely not. In fact, the ASUS Z71V is known for its sturdy build-quality and compelling design. It’s one of the many foundations on which value-added resellers use to build their own notebook brands. It has to be strong enough to compete with a Dell or Compaq, or else the small market of whitebook resellers would disappear entirely.

Companies manufacturing notebook shells used to refrain from promoting them, similar to the apprehensive approach first applied to K7 boards when AMD launched its Athlon. Now companies such as Arima, ASUS, Foxconn, and Uniwill actively advertise mobile platforms. They are still principally intended for small resellers with an opportunity to outmaneuver sluggish OEMs. Even a majority of the online outfits selling bare chassis offer build services for a nominal fee.

The longstanding conception is that notebooks are somehow more difficult to assemble than PCs. As increased visibility of platforms and parts illustrates, however, power users are frequently setting their apprehensions aside and learning as they go. Fortunately, heightened attention to detail is paving the way for better notebook designs, which of course are much easier to work around.

Starting From Scratch

In the desktop PC world, a blank slate is an aluminum or steel case and a pile of parts on the floor. Each piece has its own instruction manual, driver package, and logical interface. No matter who you buy from, boards, cards, and modules are designed to work in concert. The notebook world isn’t completely standardized, so a chassis from one vendor won’t work with a logic board from another and a third-party graphics adapter. Instead, starting from scratch consists of using a simple platform, including the LCD assembly, motherboard, keyboard, touchpad, and all of the necessary I/O. It is also common for manufacturers to preinstall a graphics solution, whether it’s integrated or discrete.

That leaves a CPU, memory, hard drive, optical drive, wireless networking solution, and OS. A year ago, some of those parts may have been difficult to track down. Now everything is available in a nice, neat box, just as you’d buy desktop components. Even Intel’s Pentium M processor, star of the Centrino triumvirate, is available at retail. The bottom line is that you have choices. Build an Athlon 64-based desktop replacement. Build a P4 machine. Try your luck with AMD’s new Turion 64 (good luck finding the processors, though) or balance performance and mobility with the popular Centrino design.

Lead By Example

We wouldn’t encourage you without first walking the walk. Thus, we acquired an ASUS Z71V notebook on which to demonstrate the fundamentals of building a hearty laptop. It’s worth noting that although ASUS includes a rudimentary manual on operating the Z71V, there’s no official guide for piecing it together. That’s a critical omission, considering a majority of customers interested in the chassis are going to be first-time architects. We nevertheless tackled the job confident that our award-winning system-building skills would serve us well. (Shameless self promotion: CPU took third place at TigerDirect.com’s eighth-annual Build Your Own PC charity race at this year’s CES.)

The easiest way to approach installation is one component at a time. Provided you already have the few components necessary to operate, start with the hard drive. Our Z71V shipped with its battery uninstalled, but if your model didn’t, turn the notebook over and remove the battery. Most hard drives are either secured by a cover underneath the chassis or a slide-out tray on the side. ASUS’ Z71V uses a cover held in place by two screws. Remove those screws and pull back the plastic cover. Below you’ll see an empty hard drive tray with another screw to remove. Once liberated the housing should be easy to lift away.

Next, place your new hard drive in the housing. Notice the four screw holes underneath the drive as opposed to the sides where you’d find them on most 3.5-inch desktop samples. With the housing assembled, attach the IDE or SATA hard drive connector that corresponds with your disk. The IDE adapter has a missing pin to ensure proper orientation. It’s now possible to reinstall the housing. Make sure the hard drive interface is plugged in completely by pushing on it gently. Reattach the screw responsible for keeping the hard drive enclosure from moving. Leave the outer cover off, though, as the next step involves pulling more plastic from the Z71V’s underbelly.

Memory Installation

Based on the Intel 915PM chipset, ASUS’ Z71V uses a dual-channel memory architecture that combines a pair of 64-bit channels running at up to 533MHz and yielding a maximum 8.5GBps of bandwidth. If you want to unearth the core logic’s full potential, it’ll take two matched memory modules. For us, twin OCZ PC2-4200 200-pin SODIMMs do the trick nicely. Just pick your capacities carefully because upgrading later means ditching whatever you buy today.

Space is allocated very carefully in a complex notebook design, so it’s hardly surprising the Z71V’s memory slots are each in different spots: one next to the hard drive enclosure and one under the keyboard. Getting to the first requires removing the remaining bottom cover, which is attached with nine small surface screws. You needn’t mess with any of the recessed screws, as they hold the chassis together. The vacant memory slot should stick out like a sore thumb once you lift the plastic piece away. Seat the 200-pin DIMM at a slight angle and gently push down until both latches snap into place.

Accessing the second module requires first removing the keyboard, which won’t just snap off. You’ll first need to remove two screws under the chassis labeled by the letter K. Turn the shell over and open it up. If you look closely, you’ll notice three equidistant clips holding the keyboard in place. Press down on each with a flathead screwdriver to release them. Slide the keyboard insert forward to free the bottom tabs and fold it over to reveal the second memory slot. Install your final module as you did the first and reinstall the keyboard. Secure both support screws to finish the job.

Brain Surgery

With a repository for storing data installed and two sticks of DDR2 memory ready to rumble, it’s time to give the Z71V some smarts. Intel, for all its marketing muscle, doesn’t make it a habit of sampling Pentium M processors. However, we were able to get our hands on a 2GHz model that served our testing purposes well. As luck would have it, the Z71V extends backward compatibility to 400MHz Pentium M processors through an onboard DIP switch, even though 533MHz bus support is one of the chipset’s hallmark features.

Start by removing the two screws on the cooling fan. Disconnect the fan’s power cable and set the fan aside. Next, unscrew the CPU retention mechanism. You should now be able to free the entire cooling apparatus, exposing the Socket 479 interface. There’s a nonremovable screw embedded into the ZIF socket, which locks the processor in place once you’ve installed it. Verifying the interface is indeed unlocked, carefully drop your Pentium M in place and twist that screw to the locked position.

One of the Pentium M’s best attributes is its manageable thermal spec, which lets a 2GHz chip operate at full speed with little more than a pint-sized copper radiator and tiny fan keeping it cool. Efficient heat transfer is what enables such diminutive devices. Therefore, it’s important to use a quality thermal paste or pad between the CPU core and thermal module. Make sure your processor is sufficiently covered before reassembling the retention mechanism.

Getting the radiator and heatpipe back into place can be frustrating, so start by tilting the device forward just slightly and inserting it radiator-first. It will probably take some twisting and turning to re-establish proper fitment. Thankfully, you’ll probably only have to do this once. Next, secure the four retention screws, taking care to attach them in the order etched into each arm. This way pressure is distributed evenly across the processor die. Set the fan bracket into place and reattach its two screws. Finish by plugging in the three-pin power lead.

Depending on your processor, the Z71V may require some manual adjustment. Whereas desktop motherboards are configurable in software, notebooks haven’t yet evolved to that point it seems. Fortunately, there’s just one switch next to the socket interface that’s used to configure CPUs with 400 or 533MHz front side buses. If you’re using a newer Pentium M “Dothan” core designed to complement the 915PM chipset, set switches 1 and 2 to the default position of 0. If you choose a Celeron M or older Pentium M chip on a 400MHz bus, you need to set the tiny DIP switches to 3, the opposite position. Such flexibility allows the Z71V to support any processor in Intel’s Socket 479 arsenal, even unreleased models up to 2.5GHz, according to ASUS.

Look Ma, No Wires

Three components together define Intel’s Centrino initiative. The first is its Pentium M, which we have already installed. The second is an approved chipset, formerly the 855 chipset family and now the 915-class core logic. Third, Centrino is all about wireless connectivity by virtue of an Intel MiniPCI module, either the PRO/Wireless 2200BG or the 2915ABG. Combining all three within a notebook chassis yields the essence of what Centrino is all about: performance, connectivity, manageable form factors, and extended battery life.

To save a few bucks and anticipating a dearth of 802.11a wireless hotspots in our suburban test environment of Bakersfield, Calif., we chose Intel’s PRO/Wireless 2200BG adapter, available for less than $30. The mini-PCI slot on ASUS’ Z71V should already be exposed, right under the hard drive. You’ll notice the GbE controller directly under where the wireless card will lay.

First, you will insert the card at a slight angle, just as with the memory modules. The card only fits one way, so if you encounter resistance, check the card orientation. Push down gently until both latches snap into place. Next, you’ll need to attach the antennas. The main antenna is a black wire, and the white is auxiliary. Technically, they should both snap into receptacles on the card, but pushing them by hand is difficult. Instead, use a flathead screwdriver to press each lead onto the connectors.

With the hard drive, memory modules, processor, and wireless adapter all installed, reaffix the back cover and replace the nine screws. Put the hard drive cover back on, along with its two smaller screws. From a hardware perspective, the job is pretty much finished. What’s left is to boot the machine, configure its BIOS, and install an OS. The first time we started our test platform, it failed to boot. Much hardware swapping eventually flushed a defective memory module. A drop-in replacement fixed everything and sent us on our way.

In Retrospect

Do you remember the first time you built a desktop PC and the feeling of accomplishment that surged when the platform POSTed granting you BIOS access? A home-brewed laptop will give you that same moment of pride, if only because you were able to procure all the parts and struggle through an installation instead of paying an inflated asking price to a pompous OEM for comparable equipment.

The time is right for DIYers to explore notebooks. Mobile hardware is readily available; the prices are right when you spec out an entire job; and installation is basic enough if you can follow instructions. Best of all, you won’t get a hard drive full of garbage demo software, your WinXP purchase will yield an actual installation disc rather than some recovery rubbish, and when friends ask why your notebook isn’t marred by branding, you can coolly explain that it was custom-built from scratch with the need for speed in mind.

by Chris Angelini