Modding your Dell laptop - Page 37

Not as much fun as Wife Swapping

Yeah I am interested too as to what you did and why? It seems from your pics that you have a 600m in a new case. Is there any benefits to having the latitude base versus the original 600m? 600m has a complaint about the heat on the left palm rest and keyboard flex. Is there now a reduction? Do you recommend the swap?

Whats the deal with the d600? (And this isnt a quote from Seinfeld) Why does everyone find the case superior? Is it lighter? more air vents?

Scotty "Asked enough questions to run me until Christmas" Romano

Well first of all I don't like how the 600m(been using my old 600m for over a year) looks and I think the d600 looks much better(IMO). Also I really wanted to have the trackpoint, because I prefer that to using a touchpad(got used to it using my old compaq armada m700 for such a long time!), so I needed to get a d600 keyboard and palmrest(the two mouse buttons are not on the 600m palmrest) to be able to use trackpoint. I already had the d600 lcd screen casing, because when I bought a replacement screen for my old 600m(upgraded it from XGA to SXGA+ screen) the used one I bought off ebay came with the d600 lcd casing.

For the lcd casing the d600 is better protected. If you take out your lcd screen from the lcd casing you can easily see the difference inside. The d600 lcd casing has what looks to be a flat metal(not sure what type) plate covering it up(behind the lcd screen), but if you look at the 600m it looks like a piece of folded aluminum foil in there. It does feel sturdier, if you push on the lcd covering compared to the 600m one.

Also it seems as if the d600 palmrest has a slightly lower profile compared to the 600m one. Not sure about the heating issue, since I only used the 30gb hd i got from dell one time, before I swapped in a 60gb 7200rpm drive. It seems like the 30gb one(on my old 600m) got hotter than what i'm using now, but that could just be that hd.

As for keyboard flex, there is still some flex, but it seems slightly reduced compared to the 600m. Not sure why that is though. For the base, it seems like it's the same exact base as the D600 one...Well I was just checking out parts-people.com and they have the same part #ON466 listed for both the "d500/d600" and the "500m/600m", so it should be the exact same base for it.

Do I recommend doing the swap? Well it depends, I personally prefer the look of the d600 over the 600m, so that's a plus for me. Now I have both the trackpoint and touchpad to use, the lcd casing is sturdier. Overall the d600 doesn't look like it has that "cheap plastic" look to it like the 600m does.

you can see better, upclose pics of an actual d600 here


oh yeah, if you do make the switch then you will have to get the d600 hd caddy, because it is different than the 600m hd caddy. You can use a d600 caddy in a 600m frame(with a little open space between the caddy and palmrest), but the 600m caddy is too big(at the top part of the caddy) to fit into the d600 frame.

If we wanted to give like $5 or something, how would we do it? Do you have PayPal or something?

Ok, I might as well ask this now.

I am planning on getting an 8600 and a D800 chassis ( and painting and all that stuff too )

There are a few things I am concerned about. The 8600c does not have the trackpoint. The D800 does. Now I know a lot of people hate this thing, but I will not use anything but. So with a D800 keyboard / chassis ( with buttons ) can/will this this work with the 8600c motherboard, or am I stuck having to find a non 8600c laptop?

Also, will a non 8600c motherboard run the Dothan Processors?

Well I don't really know too much about 8600's since I don't have one, but I'm pretty sure if you use the D800 keyboard/palmrest combo you should be able to use the trackpoint with it. My 600m didn't have a trackpoint either, but when I hooked up the d600 keyboard(w/trackpoint) and the d600 palmrest(w/trackpoint buttons) then it was enabled on my system and I can use either the trackpoint or the touchpad just fine. I'd imagine that it would be the same way on the 8600.

Cool, thats good enough for me It would have been annoying to try to find a non 8600c around anyway. So now all I need to do is look around and get myself the 8600. Thanks!

Links are down?

In response to this, I repeat:

I posted that request for info on 10/29...

I can't donate money, sorry, but I would be willing to host the pages for the time being. If you sent them over to me (kievit at gmail.com) I'd be happy to put them up. LMK

Sweet. Why the hell did they do green anyway? Cheap bastards.

Hi guys,

I'm thinking about doing the GPU copper mod and the keyboard flex.

The worst problem I've got is unarguably the heat from the HD under my left palm. I wonder if there's any way to create a heatsink system to divert heat away from the palm area

Just went through all 49 pages so I may have missed some posts but just to confirm... I have a 8600c, so if I obtain only 2 d800 parts (palmrest and the hinge center console) and use my existing keyboard (which has no trackpoint), existing HDD caddy and LCD bezel/lid it can still work right? Thanks.

well from my understanding, it would "Work" but the bezel is made to work with the palmrest ( It kinda curves out to match the palmrest, so you might want to get at least the bezel. I dont know if the d800 bezel would work with the 8600 cover, but that could be interesting because I kinda like the 8600 top better.

But Im ordering the parts right now, so by the end of this week I should have all of it and can give a better Idea then.

I am also looking to do the d800 conversion but I want to keep the 8600 cover. I know you cannot use the d800 inner bezel with the 8600 lid. I wrote my friend that has helped design on all dell's "high end" laptops since the 8500.

He said you can use the 8600 bezel in the d800 base, but
1. the tolerances dont line up to hit the suspend switch - if you disable that through the software, then it doesnt matter.
2. the cosmetic gaps are no longer as good as designed between the display and the base

The 8600 HDD caddy will work also, but the cosmetic lines dont line up with teh d800 palmrest.

When asked if I could use the 9100/xps palmrest, the 9100/xps doesnt fit on the d800/8600, it is almost identical though.

Seems that I will be keeping the 8600 lcd cover and just using the d800 palmrest and control console. Hope this helps.

thanks bleego and rykwon97 for the replies, i did find a post by spiike that did say you can just replace the palmrest and power console and it can still work but interesting point (from rykwon) that the display and base wont line up as well ... nevertheless ive ordered those two d800 parts so I guess in a week or so ill find out how it turns out!

Ok, I just got done doing the D800 chassis parts mod to my 8600c.

These are the parts that are needed. (in my opinion)

1- Dell part # 0N037 palmrest assembly. - $49.95 new from Dell
2- Dell part # 7T982 hinge cover. $29.95 new from Dell
3- Dell part # 1M745 keyboard. $19.95 new from Dell
4- Dell part # 3C453 hard drive carrier D800. $4.95 new from Dell

I also ordered Dell part # 8T884 D800 bezel $4.95 new from Dell, but did not use as it will not fit
the 8600 display top without cutting/grinding to fit the 8600 outer cover. I checked the fit of
8600 bezel to D800 top and it seems ok to me, the rubber feet all seem to hit the D800 palmrest.

The hard drive carrier is also needed as the 8600 carrier sticks out and does not
look good - the D800 carrier solves that ugly problem.

Start..


New parts..


Old parts..


Finish..


Ugly gap...


Hard drive carriers, if you look close you can see the difference..


Was pretty easy and only took about 30 minutes to complete.

Followed service manual here for instructions.
http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...r/sm/index.htm