After breaking my keyboard and palm rest on my i9300 and going through weeks of hell to get dell to ship my orders to the right place. I finally have both an i9300 and xps-m1710 keyboard. Unfortunately, I got the Chinese Sunrex keyboard, which I am very disappointed w/. I was hoping to get the Chinese A196 KFRMB2 Series keyboard.
My first plan was to take off the adapter of the i9300 keyboard and put it on the end of the xps-m1710 keyboard.
2 issues…
One, the ribbon cable for the xps-m1710 keyboard is upside down to do this. We could fold it over, but it leaves very little space to work with.
Two, the end piece of the xps-m1710 keyboard is not as long as the end of the ribbon of the i9300 keyboard. The end of the i9300 ribbon has plastic edges that hold it in place inside of the adapter.
I do believe if somebody could get the end of the xps-m1710’s ribbon cable to sit properly inside the i9300 keyboard’s adapter, it would work. I’m not about to waste all that time, so I went to plan B.
The Chinese Sunrex keyboard happens to have the same two-piece white spring looking devices that holds each individual key in place. Therefore… I took off each key of the XPS-m1710 keyboard and placed it on the i9300 keyboard. I now have an i9300 w/ a working white keyboard, and may I add, it looks beautiful. I have an xps-m1710 palm rest w/ the silver trim on order, but I might not even use it seeing that the white trim of the i9300 palm rest really adds as an accent to this white/silverfish keyboard.
One problem… the Sunrex keyboard of the i9300 is CRAP. This is where I need all of you dell owners to help me out.
I would like to order the Chinese A196 KFRMB2 Series keyboard and have these white/silverfish keys placed on them. My only concern is that the A196 KFRMB2 Series keyboard uses something different to hold up the keys.
1.Can somebody post pictures or describe what the A196 KFRMB2 Series uses under the keys to hold the keys up.
2.For all you xps-m1710 users out there, may someone describe or post pictures of what’s under the keys of your keyboard. I curious as to if there are different xps-m1710 keyboards like there are for the other models.
I will soon post pictures of what the i9300 looks like w/ the i9300 white trim palm rest and the xps-m1710’s palm rest when I receive it.
Thank you
UPDATE:
To my surprise, Dell actually did something right. I just got my palm rest this morning.
I now have an i9300 w/ a silver keyboard and the m1710 palm rest. In order for me to get the palm rest to work, I had to do a lot of cutting under the palm rest, and my i9300 plastic power strip. After about an hour of work, it looks beautiful. The XPS logo on the touchpad lights up and everything. The touch pad is light years better. The synaptic drivers have tons of kool features such as pressure graph and moodpad. These small programs look like something out of James Bond. The right and left click are soooo much quieter. Very, Very nice!!
If your going from the i9400, I extremely jealous because I don’t’ believe you’ll have to do any moding or cutting at all. It should just all screw in for you as if it was built for you laptop. But don’t quote me on that.
If your going from i9300/Gen2/M170, few things to note on this mod.
Other then cutting several plastic tabs and parts under the palm rest, you have to…
1. Unscrew the small power chip that contains the power button on your original i9300/Gen2/M170 palm rest, and use that on your new palm rest instead. The power connector on these laptop motherboards are different the then one you get w/ the m1710.
2. The little LED’s that light up for the cap lock, num lock, ect, are sifted over one spot… Therefore you need to cut a new hole on the palm rest for the num lock LED to show up. It’s very simple to do and once you place the plastic power strip on, you’ll never notice.
3. There is nowhere to screw in the right screw for the keyboard. I taped it down under the plastic power strip, and the power strip also holds it down so it’s no problem at all. You can’t even tell.
4. For the keyboard to work, I still haven’t gotten the xps-m1710 keyboard to work on it yet, but I do believe w/ a little mod, I can get it to work. I didn’t feel it was worth it, and instead just replaced the keys of my i9300 keyboard w/ the silver ones.
5. I don’t’ believe the xps-m1710’s touch pad/multimedia buttons were designed w/ dell media direct in mind. On the i9300/Gen2/M170…. You could press the “play/pause” button, and that would turn your computer on. However, that does not work anymore. The logical reason would be because the 9400/m1710 models have the media direct button near the power button. I guess Dell figured people didn’t know that the “play/pause” button turns the computer on. The only reason why I feel this may be a concern for us i9300/Gen2/m170 owners is because for those of you looking at the 7900gtx mod, the “play/pause” button was our alternative to turning the computer on. That is if we couldn’t get the power button to work because of the graphic card covering the area where you plug in the power button. Now, if your up to it, you can always just replace the touch pad on this palm rest w/ one of a i9300/Gen2/m170, but then your losing an awesome touchpad.
I don’t own a camera, so I’ll do my best to borrow one and post pictures by the end of the day.
I’m still not done w/ the moding. Much more work to be done. Much more to replace.
My first plan was to take off the adapter of the i9300 keyboard and put it on the end of the xps-m1710 keyboard.
2 issues…
One, the ribbon cable for the xps-m1710 keyboard is upside down to do this. We could fold it over, but it leaves very little space to work with.
Two, the end piece of the xps-m1710 keyboard is not as long as the end of the ribbon of the i9300 keyboard. The end of the i9300 ribbon has plastic edges that hold it in place inside of the adapter.
I do believe if somebody could get the end of the xps-m1710’s ribbon cable to sit properly inside the i9300 keyboard’s adapter, it would work. I’m not about to waste all that time, so I went to plan B.
The Chinese Sunrex keyboard happens to have the same two-piece white spring looking devices that holds each individual key in place. Therefore… I took off each key of the XPS-m1710 keyboard and placed it on the i9300 keyboard. I now have an i9300 w/ a working white keyboard, and may I add, it looks beautiful. I have an xps-m1710 palm rest w/ the silver trim on order, but I might not even use it seeing that the white trim of the i9300 palm rest really adds as an accent to this white/silverfish keyboard.
One problem… the Sunrex keyboard of the i9300 is CRAP. This is where I need all of you dell owners to help me out.
I would like to order the Chinese A196 KFRMB2 Series keyboard and have these white/silverfish keys placed on them. My only concern is that the A196 KFRMB2 Series keyboard uses something different to hold up the keys.
1.Can somebody post pictures or describe what the A196 KFRMB2 Series uses under the keys to hold the keys up.
2.For all you xps-m1710 users out there, may someone describe or post pictures of what’s under the keys of your keyboard. I curious as to if there are different xps-m1710 keyboards like there are for the other models.
I will soon post pictures of what the i9300 looks like w/ the i9300 white trim palm rest and the xps-m1710’s palm rest when I receive it.
Thank you
UPDATE:
To my surprise, Dell actually did something right. I just got my palm rest this morning.
I now have an i9300 w/ a silver keyboard and the m1710 palm rest. In order for me to get the palm rest to work, I had to do a lot of cutting under the palm rest, and my i9300 plastic power strip. After about an hour of work, it looks beautiful. The XPS logo on the touchpad lights up and everything. The touch pad is light years better. The synaptic drivers have tons of kool features such as pressure graph and moodpad. These small programs look like something out of James Bond. The right and left click are soooo much quieter. Very, Very nice!!
If your going from the i9400, I extremely jealous because I don’t’ believe you’ll have to do any moding or cutting at all. It should just all screw in for you as if it was built for you laptop. But don’t quote me on that.
If your going from i9300/Gen2/M170, few things to note on this mod.
Other then cutting several plastic tabs and parts under the palm rest, you have to…
1. Unscrew the small power chip that contains the power button on your original i9300/Gen2/M170 palm rest, and use that on your new palm rest instead. The power connector on these laptop motherboards are different the then one you get w/ the m1710.
2. The little LED’s that light up for the cap lock, num lock, ect, are sifted over one spot… Therefore you need to cut a new hole on the palm rest for the num lock LED to show up. It’s very simple to do and once you place the plastic power strip on, you’ll never notice.
3. There is nowhere to screw in the right screw for the keyboard. I taped it down under the plastic power strip, and the power strip also holds it down so it’s no problem at all. You can’t even tell.
4. For the keyboard to work, I still haven’t gotten the xps-m1710 keyboard to work on it yet, but I do believe w/ a little mod, I can get it to work. I didn’t feel it was worth it, and instead just replaced the keys of my i9300 keyboard w/ the silver ones.
5. I don’t’ believe the xps-m1710’s touch pad/multimedia buttons were designed w/ dell media direct in mind. On the i9300/Gen2/M170…. You could press the “play/pause” button, and that would turn your computer on. However, that does not work anymore. The logical reason would be because the 9400/m1710 models have the media direct button near the power button. I guess Dell figured people didn’t know that the “play/pause” button turns the computer on. The only reason why I feel this may be a concern for us i9300/Gen2/m170 owners is because for those of you looking at the 7900gtx mod, the “play/pause” button was our alternative to turning the computer on. That is if we couldn’t get the power button to work because of the graphic card covering the area where you plug in the power button. Now, if your up to it, you can always just replace the touch pad on this palm rest w/ one of a i9300/Gen2/m170, but then your losing an awesome touchpad.
I don’t own a camera, so I’ll do my best to borrow one and post pictures by the end of the day.
I’m still not done w/ the moding. Much more work to be done. Much more to replace.
), the m1710 keyboard, and the m1710 palm rest, I believe dell charged 92$ w/ standard shipping. I might have gotten it for free, that’s a very, very long story though. Dell is just horrible sometimes.
I was just looking at QuickSet again....and after some clicking, the button seems to work again 
. But I am going to uninstall DellMedia tho, since I really dont' need that. Thanks for the help =)
