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Modding your Dell laptop - Page 11

post #201 of 1095
6/8/04 at 7:27pm
Soldering wires together is a whole lot more reliable, but not evryone is able to solder, so they might want to got the twisting route.
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post #202 of 1095
6/8/04 at 11:16pm
by the way check out this page
http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=26625
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post #203 of 1095
6/9/04 at 1:19pm
how plastik is the D800 casing. what is metal on it.
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post #204 of 1095
6/9/04 at 10:44pm
ok i think i know what i'm going to do :-)

i wanna get and do the d800 mod... then i'm gonna paint it :-)

mate, spike has it looking awesome!!!

How hard is it? :\ I'd love to do it, I just hope the tutorial is thorough, leaving no room for morons like me to make mistakes....

This way i'll have an 8600 case in the shelf, in case of any warrany claims i might want to do....

Spike.. awesome work...

eagerly anticipating the painting tutorial..

i think i'll do both mods in one hit... no doubt you paint the case while its NOT on the computer..... so i'll get the case and paint it in one hit before attatching it.

Loz
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post #205 of 1095
6/10/04 at 12:54pm
... it just opccured to me...

Spike: if you are going to get your d800 case... then paint that.. so you have all your 8600 equipment in pristine condition.. does this mean you are going to paint your battery too??

Is the base separate to the whole system? ie can just be removed.. just like that...?

I was under the impression it was integreated with the internals....

anyways.. waiting on the d800 tutorial..

i must admit you have done some of the most amazing mods!! well done! As soon as my exams are over, i'll start looking into getting the parts!

Loz
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post #206 of 1095
6/11/04 at 11:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by lozza6
hmm ok,

well in any case, some lapies, IBM and toshibas have the media keys on the outside, i think thats a nifty little trick, so can play music/skip and change with the lid ****...

as for the off thing, it should be possible, you'd need a second controller, so the whole system stays off, but some small program/chip could run the HDD.. something like an ipod does on its HDD>. you dont need a fully fledged system running to get that working...


HDD and sound card, media keys as its sole inputs, thats it? rest can be off...

that would be cool, have lappy off in backpack... drag a cable out and you got a nice ipod.. just as compact too

loz
Some of the Compaq machines can do that. I had a Presario (don't remember which) and the audio subsystem could operate with the machine turned off. Yes, TURNED OFF, not just with the lid shut. You could get some killer battery life if you just wanted to play CD's on it.
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post #207 of 1095
6/11/04 at 11:35am
i would really like to do this. but it should be so hard. does anyone here know a little of electronics. damn it would be call to find some kind of USB controller. i cant you RF because ill be underground most of the time (NYC subway) and a RF remote would require me to have the laptop out the bag. Can anyone here take on this challege with me and let c if we can work something out. ideas or something.
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post #208 of 1095
6/11/04 at 11:37am
cool thanks for that!

i thought soo!!!!!

umm, MP3's too? as in operate the HDD?

but yeah tahts what i meant.. i meant COMPLETELY off...... just use external media buttons to run simple media player straight to the phone jack....

hahah imagine using my 5 hour dell battey to JUST run a pair of wimpy earphone pieces.. haha it'd last forever!

Damn... Dell, if you are listing.. DO IT.!

..or spike :-) figure out how to mod it so... you've done good so far! :-)

Loz
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post #209 of 1095
6/11/04 at 6:39pm
Just did the keyboard and track stick button mods. Pretty easy and a great fix. No more spongy keyboard or loose feeling buttons. Thanks
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post #210 of 1095
6/11/04 at 7:05pm
The keyboard thing if first on my list.
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post #211 of 1095
6/13/04 at 7:35am
Great tutorials!

I'd be interested to know how to swap the Inspiron 8600's LEDs on the right hinge (eg. swap the Green hard drive light to Red, Battery to Orange, Bluetooth to Blue)

Michael
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post #212 of 1095
6/13/04 at 9:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by hksscom
Great tutorials!

I'd be interested to know how to swap the Inspiron 8600's LEDs on the right hinge (eg. swap the Green hard drive light to Red, Battery to Orange, Bluetooth to Blue)

Michael
Bluetooth is already blue
And that mod is already on the cards I believe, if Spiike doesn't get to it first I probably will over my Summer break.
stu
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post #213 of 1095
6/13/04 at 2:03pm
Ah Great! I wonder if it's just a simple swap of the LEDs and nothing more?
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post #214 of 1095
6/14/04 at 12:34am
It should just be an LED swap, but not sure exactly how simple. Spiike was saying that they are v. small surface mounted diodes which are going to be tricky to solder by hand.
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post #215 of 1095
6/14/04 at 1:36am
dunno if you guys saw this or not, but here's the LED mod for the lights on the right LCD hindge: http://www.wam.umd.edu/~dell/8600LED.JPG

i got my LEDs from www.coolbattery.com
the guys LEDs are for cellphones, but they work for the LEDs in the hindge. Get the 0603 size, he's got blue, purple, red, orange, white, and i dunno what else.

-Yi Chen
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post #216 of 1095
6/14/04 at 2:11am
Thread Starter 
i wonder...

http://www.lsdiodes.com/smd/
vs
www.coolbattery.com

cool battery is 3 times the price. are those led's really bright? I'm trying to figure out why coolbattery's prices are so high. Mainly I'm curious if they're better leds.
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post #217 of 1095
6/14/04 at 2:13am
i dunno, never bought from other website. but the ones from coolbattery are pretty bright, just like cellphone keypad LEDs
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post #218 of 1095
6/14/04 at 2:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by yichen
dunno if you guys saw this or not, but here's the LED mod for the lights on the right LCD hindge: http://www.wam.umd.edu/~dell/8600LED.JPG
Thanks I'll wait for a tutorial to come out... not sure if I should trust myself soldering the LEDs in there as I'm not that good with soldering.

Did he replace the hinge too? It doesn't look like the one that came with my 8600.

Mike
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post #219 of 1095
6/14/04 at 3:35am
No, its definitely a new or heavily modified (and well done too) hinge.

I mostly want to put in little partitions in the hinge and in the concol beside the power button (where the caps and num lock lights are) so that when one lights up, the light won't show in the others.
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post #220 of 1095
6/14/04 at 4:27am
Hey, I just opened up the Inspiron 8600 to fix the rattling noise issue of the graphics fan. Luckily for me (as if on a stroke of luck as I've already had an extremely lucky customer service experience with one of the Dell Forum moderators (on dell's site) who has made my WSXGA+/Bad Power/Bad DVD burner replacement with the current system (see signature) a breeze), the old system couldn't get shipped on Friday due to some problem with UPS. Good thing! Took out the fan of the old system and voila... finally a graphics fan that's smooth and quiet (even when set to High.)

Now, while I was doing that, I got the chance (finally) to see the console that houses the LEDs. Wooster, what you'd like to do is actually very doable -- perhaps very easily done. I've taken the opportunity to take lots of side-by-side pictures of both systems (to show the difference between WSXGA+ and WUXGA), and so I'll be able to show you what that console looks like. From what I've seen, all you'll probably need to do is wrap some kind of non-conducting tape or foil around the "LEDs" (they actually aren't LEDs.) Will post the pics here if I finish working on them tonight.

Michael
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