(Pictures coming shortly..)
After today's crisis' were (mostly) solved, I needed some "de-stress" time.
I decided to investigate the possibility of combining the best parts of two old laptops here into one unit.
The laptops? A Dell Inspiron 8600, and a Latitude D800. Not anything fancy.. each has 1gb ram, 1.6ghz proc, 30gb in one 40gb in other, but the biggest difference is GPU/Video.
Inspiron 8600 has a Radeon 9600, and the Latitude D800 has a Geforce 4200. The difference in graphics power is pretty noticeable when using the machines. Here's the funny part.. the D800 has a killer high-res LCD on it, while the 8600 is the basic LCD. Why put a power gpu with a crap display? I didnt build this one, so I cant say what they were thinking.
8600
D800
So it occurs to me, "why not swap the GPU's?"
Now hold on a second.. before you all start raving about how you cant, it just so happens you CAN. These two laptops are almost identical inside, including the fact that both GPU's were optional on both laptops. Opening them up reveals, YES they are in fact upgradeable (swappable).
I pulled the 9600 first, and dropped it into the D800. Marvelous! LCD looks killer! Too bad the rest of the unit looks like garbage.. and it's not only ugly, it's much thicker/heavier than the Inspiron.
Further inspection reveals that the Inspiron also has 2mb L2 Cache, whereas the D800 only 1mb. So, I decided to swap the LCD from the Latitude into the Inspiron.
The disassembly of the units couldnt be easier. At the top of the keyboard (nearest the LCD), there is a slot on the left side. Get a fingernail in there (or a screwdrive) and pry it up gently. Lay the LCD back until it's flat on the desk/table/workbench, then lift up on the trim piece that you pried up. A couple clicks later, it will release. On the end of the right hand side, there is a ribbon cable that connects to the motherboard. Carefully unplug this, and set the whole piece aside.
Next, remove the 2 screws holding the keyboard in, and unplug the ribbon cable at the bottom (near the touchpad) carefully. Set this aside also.
Now, close the lid, and flip it over. Remove the 2 screws labelled with the letter "D" (for display). Turn the laptop right side up, carefully open the screen, and right where the power button used to be, there is a ribbon cable to connect the LCD to the GPU. Unplug that carefully, and the LCD will lift straight up and away from the rest of the laptop.