M1710 w/ Quadro card and color changing paint

UPDATE: The purple one is the "new" before picture. I posted the new pictures below.

Thx for the post. I think its because I installed Vista. I use Hmonitor to monitor these things, but it doesn't work anymore (only monitors CPU temp). RivaTuner seems to read the GPU temp, and it's still kinda high from before (idle temp at 60 C). I'll probably have to wipe some of it off and re-apply it without going overboard

The M1710 doesn't come with the silver backing. I used a M1710 Base and just used the palmrest from a Precision M90 and the lid cover from my old XPS G2.

My first color choice was actually gunmetal to match the precision M90 palmrest color, but I couldn't find a good match for it.

As for the details, I did have to sand the surfaces painted. I first used the masking tape to cover the parts i didn't want painted, and then started sanding the to-be-painted areas with 400 grit sanding paper. Also, to get a good masking job, line up the masking tape with the edges properly and line them up with your finger. For example, the black/silver/white lining on the palmrest (depends if it's a precison m90, e1705, m1710 palmrest) will have to be covered and the tape has to be lined up properly so it won't overlap the parts you want painted. If neccessary, use a box-cutter blade to cut off the pieces of the masking tape that don't overlap properly, but be careful not to scratch your surfaces too much.

I then washed the sanded surface with soap and water and finished the job with 600 grit sanding paper...and washed it again (it's a good thing to wash it when the parts are removed from the laptop so that water won't get onto the circuit boards).

I used dupli-color's CP199 adhesion promoter to help the paint stick better. I used about 2-3 coats of it, then I used the Mirage pack (comes with three cans) and followed through based on the directions given. The only problem I have now (now that i finished the paintjob) is that I didn't spray enough protective finish. Now the paint feels a bit tacky and has some friction when i swipe my finger through it. If I decide to do this next time (which I probably will), It would be best to buy an additional protective finish coat (probably a gloss one) to finsh the job after the original paint fully dries.

Update: Well, the good news is that I still have my sanity. Bad news is that the paint is peeling off like dead skin. It got so bad that I had to peel ofl/scratch off 3/4 of the palmrest paint so that the particles won't get stuck between the keys on my keyboard or even on the motherboard.

Anyways I decided that I'm going to go for the old school XPS Gen 2/M170 look instead (this is an M1710). So I ordered an XPS G2 lid (the black and silver), and a 9400 palmrest. This time, i'm going to use Krylon Fusion instead of that duplicolor stuff and just paint the white trim of the 9400 palmrest black. I'm also waiting until a 1710 start button cover is available. I'll keep it updated.

UPDATE:

Finally got everything in order. I painted the 9400 palmrest trim black using the fusion paint and used the protective coat spray over it. The combo is a lot stronger and scratch resistant than the duplicolor stuff. Anywho, this is what it looks like now. I also colored the dell logo on the lid and the touchpad buttons black, to make it stand out a bit.

Also, I finally overclocked the 2500m, but 3dmark is giving me some weird numbers. It's probably vista, but i'll post about it later.

I did more benchmarkings today and even got 3dmark06 too. Now it seems a bit consistent. The weird part was when I scored a 9320 on 575 mhz clock and 650 mhz mem clock, then scored lowered when I upped the clock and lowered it back again. It was probably an XP moment in vista, which is why I'm trying to reinstall XP for a dual boot. And this paintjob combo looks pretty strong now. Even when i try to dig deep and scratch it, it repels it Good question. Before it did with the duplicolor, and now it doesn't since i did the fusion combo with the krylon protective coat. It's been 6 days since i finished the paintjob for the touchpad buttons, and so far it's holding up well. But if you do decide to do something similar or even paint your entire touchpad, I'd recommend krylon fusion with the krylon protective coat. Some people used the fusion spray with their mods and it seems work well. I added the protective coat for the extra scratch resistance. Another good thing about the fusion spray is that you don't need to prime or sand anything. As long as you are spraying on plastic (like the palmrest) then it'll work. It also seems to work well even on the already painted surfaces. That saved me a lot of time and headache.