Acer Extensa Laptop 5620 Hotrod Overhaul Guide

Step 12 Finished product!

So, was it all worth it? It was to me! Instead of buying another low-end laptop, I've extended the life of this one; keeping the good points I liked, and overhauling the outdated specs. The cpu seems to run much cooler; the battery lasts over an hour (hooray!); the hard drive is nice and quiet; the OS is now snappy and responsive as it should be. To recap, our new specs:

T9500 CPU (2.6Ghz, 800Mhz FSB, 8MB L2 Cache)
4GB DDR2 6400 RAM @ 667Mhz (two sticks of 2GB)
15.4" WSXGA+ Glossy 1440x900 LCD
320GB 7200rpm SATA 16MB cache HD
Dell 1505 802.11a/b/g/n Mini-PCIe Wifi
5200mAh Lithium Ion Battery

Now don't you feel smart that you bought one of these notebooks? Think about it. After using it for two years, I was able to reinvest about $400 and have a competitive machine again. Consider the sort of specs you'd get if you bought a new laptop with that budget!

And yes, I've said it before, but my operating system of choice that this machine runs so great... ? Well, that's for another Instructable :)

Comments

[jimdangle]

thanks for this, this kind of looks like what I have been obsessing over. My deal is i have a dell 1737 laptop that came with a wcga+ screen which cracked ( i suspect heavier laptops cause screens to crack more easily when falling due to gravity and their extra weight). Anyways, i had several led lcd displays of the same 17 inch size from various other laptops, hp, toshiba, acer, etc, but not from dell. i wanted to do a swap up to one of these wuxga screens (are they superior or does led just save energy costs and let the screen be thinner?, doesn't led improve contrast ratio a bunch in hdtv's?)
Anyways, my comment/questions relates to having to buy a nu484 led lcd cable for $30 to go witha new dell wuxga for over one hundred and nto being able to use any of the other brands screens mentioned aboe.

Why do laptop makers make it so damn hard to use other screens? This seems to involved these lvds cables and the fact that they all seem to have proprietary connecters. Even from dell to dell the same cables seemingly cannot be used. is this just there way of making it harder to cut them out of the replacement screen chain? could i just solder or splice the lvds cable from, say, the toshiba screen into the dell cable that will fit into my dell 1737 motherboard? are there little adapters i coudl put on the end fo these things? lets say i wanted to use the acer 7714z led lcd screen and i had a dell cable nu 481...how would one combine those? also, is it true that no inverter is needed to put with my new wuxga monitor in my dell, which came with a wxga+ screen that had a separate inverter?
thanks,