Recycling an old laptop into a 'tower'?

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Recycling an old laptop into a 'tower'?

by Sean

I have an old Mercury G320 laptop.

The processor was overheating since the replacement fan was not strong enough and the hard disk is no longer good. The rest everything's fine.

What I would like to try is to reuse these parts with a new hard disk and a stronger fan in a 'tower'?

Can it be done?

What are the possible costs and can a 'hardware novice' do such a thing?

Laptop Specs

14" LCD
CD-RW+DVD-ROM
LAN Card
Sound Card VIA
Processor VIA Nehemiah 1.4GHz
256 MB RAM
2 Speakers
4 USB 2.0 Ports
Printers/Screen/Mouse/Keyboard Ports

Thanks!

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Recycling an old laptop into a 'tower'?

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Jun 25, 2009
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Laptop
by: Support

Hello Sean,

It is possible, the thing is it may be expensive.

The considerations:
The case
The power supply

A case would run you from $45 USD (on the cheap side)

A power supply - You would either have to come up with a way to mount the laptop power supply in the tower or figure out the pin out to mate the connector for the motherboard to a normal power supply for a desktop or tower.

Then you would have to modify the case to mount the motherboard and the ports on the back of the motherboard for access.

This would be easier but not necessarily cheaper-

Find the docking station for the laptop, get the right fan for the processor and put a new hard drive in the computer.

You should be able to find the parts on eBay or with a search on the web for them.

The computer has all the ports necessary to connect to the Monitor, Mouse, and Keyboard with out a docking station. The docking station makes it neater and may have slots for additional cards.

I upgraded my T-30 awhile back, here is the article I wrote about it -

Upgrade Your Laptop

Hope this helps...

Jul 16, 2009
Rating

I'm back with more questions.
by: Sean

Hi Monte

Your reply was very helpful.

I've done some search in the meantime (locally and on the Internet) and I came up with the following..The service Guide for my laptop at threew's dot mercury-pc dot com/download_file.php?option=file&item_id=2106

I was mistaken in the specs I quoted earlier. The CPU is clocked at 1.0 GHz and not 1.4 GHz.

However I have the following issues:
Processor is VIA C3 1 GHz with 133MHz FSB...

What type of processor can I use to replace this.

Moreover can it be that the processor if 'fused' to the motherboard?

I've unscrewed the bottom cover and lifted off the heatsink..the processor looks like a shiny piece of metal with its specs printed over it and I can't budge this!

Also, the I have space for just 1 RAM card (4 black Infineon rectangles on a circuit board).

Some googling took me to the Elitegroup G320 (name of my laptop in US) website which says PC4200 1GB will fit and is available.
Is this OK?

BTW your article on upgrading laptop was very helpful...I got hope that something can be done about mine too.

Worse come to worse if I cannot change the processor I will settle for a wooden crate with a huge cooling system below my laptop!

Thanks

Jul 16, 2009
Rating

Processor type
by: Support

Hi Sean,

You need to look at the processor as in the images on the upgrade page, about half way down are the images I took of the processor before I changed it and then the new one.

The metal case has the processor version and type laser eched in to it.

You are looking for Pentium4 and the type of SL6 if how ever it has Pentium III then the processor is at it's highest speed. The fastest Pentium III was 1 GHZ.

If it is a Pentuim4 or P4 then you could get away with upgrading it.

Now the processeor should not be soldered to the motherboard. I don't know of any manufactures soldering the processor to the motherboard, the heat from the process could damage the processor that is the reason for the socket.

The socket has a screw that moves a cam, the cam causes the lower part of the socke to slide either tightening around the pins or losing pressure off the pins allowing removeal of the processor.

HTH...