Building a field laptop help.

[voodooking]

OK, so I'm building a laptop for the field and I'm not finding much help. I'm starting with a water tight Pelican 1500 case. I have a monitor with inverter so I'm good there. I have to have an I7 because I need the multi-threading. I'm going to find the biggest baddest battery I can find to power it. Where do i get that. Newegg has been of little help for all of this by the way. The SSD is probably a samsung. That's the most durable and reliable one right? There will be a wireless keyboard and mouse. I'm not drilling into the case so all of the connections will have to come up to the top rim of the bottom section. There will need to be connections for all the different types of interfaces such as sata, USB 3.0, all the different memory cards, monitors, IDE, yes for old hard drives. Ethernet bla bla bla. The real question is: What is the best board for an application like this and where do I get one?

Other keen insights would be greatly appreciated as well.

EDIT: Does a laptop monitor have to have a laptop motherboard? Because I can just get a mini-ITX and be done with it. OR do those take up much more power than a laptop board?

 

[USAFRet]

Why not just a Panasonic Toughbook?

Yes, you can get them with an i7.
http://www.mruggedmobile.com/panasonic-toughbook-cf-31-mk2.aspx

 

[voodooking]

Good idea. I'm definitely keeping that link. But those things are really expensive. Lets just be honest as well. I really want to build my own. Also, for some reason, I just love the idea of having a waterproof computer. What kind of board do you think they are using?

 

[USAFRet]

Toughbooks are pretty waterproof, as well as shockproof, dustproof, etc.

What you are thinking of doing is merely putting a desktop PC in a watertight Pelican case.
You will be lacking multiple things.

Open your Pelican, and open a Toughbook.
Drop them both from 4' up. Which one survives?
Take them outside in a rainstorm. Which one survives?
Which one can I toss in a little backpack?

There is a reason the ToughBook is expensive. If this is for actual business use in the field, trying to wing it with desktop parts in a nice case will result in a dead PC, and lost productivity.
How much does it cost to keep an engineer onsite with no laptop?

 

[voodooking]

I'm not sayin' it a bad product. From what I found on the net, it's a great product! Thanks for the link. I still want to build my own. I really like doing this kind of stuff. It's my hobby. Do you know what kind of motherboard they use? I couldn't find out which one they used.

 

[USAFRet]

As with almost every laptop motherboard, it is proprietary. Not something you get off the shelf like with a desktop.

Can you make a portable desktop in a large case? Yeah, probably. Will it be a 'laptop'? No. Will it be as rugged as a ToughBook? Not a chance.

 

[LummusMaximus]

If you went ahead with such a build, I really think cooling is going to be an issue you should look into.

 

[voodooking]

Thanks for the heads up! Yes I am making quite sure that it is well ventilated. The cooling system should be very interesting. The machine will only operate when the top is open. Do you have any ideas where I can get the perfect battery for this application?

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks for the heads up! Yes I am making quite sure that it is well ventilated. The cooling system should be very interesting. The machine will only operate when the top is open. Do you have any ideas where I can get the perfect battery for this application?

To keep my medium grade desktop and monitor (standard i5-3570k + 22" monitor) running for 10 minutes requires a 10lb UPS.

There is a vast difference between laptop components and desktop components.

 

[LummusMaximus]

Thanks for the heads up! Yes I am making quite sure that it is well ventilated. The cooling system should be very interesting. The machine will only operate when the top is open. Do you have any ideas where I can get the perfect battery for this application?

To keep my medium grade desktop and monitor (standard i5-3570k + 22" monitor) running for 10 minutes requires a 10lb UPS.

There is a vast difference between laptop components and desktop components.

Desktops are always power hogs, their parts assume they'll be permanently attached to a power source such as the wall plug. You could look for laptop parts, but they're hard to find, and I think they use different sockets to desktop chips. I know for a fact that laptop GPUs don't usually even use sockets, so you'd have to buy a laptop motherboard or settle for a device that always needs to be plugged in.

 

[voodooking]

"Desktops are always power hogs," you know I assumed as much. although I don't know. Someone on another thread said that there was little difference between a Mini-ITX mb and desktop mb as far as power consumption goes. Is he full of it?

As for GPU's I really really don't need or care about that at all. The standard graphics is way more than enough for me. There will be no games or anything that requires any graphics performance at all on this build.

If you wanted the best I7 motherboard for this build where would you go?

 

[USAFRet]

"Desktops are always power hogs," you know I assumed as much. although I don't know. Someone on another thread said that there was little difference between a Mini-ITX mb and desktop mb as far as power consumption goes. Is he full of it?

As for GPU's I really really don't need or care about that at all. The standard graphics is way more than enough for me. There will be no games or anything that requires any graphics performance at all on this build.

If you wanted the best I7 motherboard for this build where would you go?

No, he wasn't full of it. Any desktop motherboard is way more power hungry than a laptop.
A laptop will easily run with a 60 or 90 watt adapter.
Any current desktop board, even mini-ITX, will need 200-250+ minimum.

Add in an i7 and a monitor, and you are looking at a BIG battery to even get an hour out of it.

 

[LummusMaximus]

Not to mention, a laptop part will cost a bit more than the equivalent desktop part while being harder to find and less powerful. i5 is the sweet spot for desktops, or so I've heard, and will consume less than i7. You could always go Intel Atom, but those things are slow- believe me, i have experience. All in all, go the laptop or build a thing that needs to be plugged in once you arrive.

 

[voodooking]

Most of the places i go have power. I just want the battery power just in case. I know I will need it every once in a while. I have to stick with the I7 because I need the multi-threading. Speed is king. I have found some really great batteries. Now it seems I just need a board that has all the connections I want. I wrote both MSI and ASUS. Lets see what they respond with. I can't wait to put this together.

 

[LummusMaximus]

Well, the hardest part will be cooling- plastic is just FANTASTIC at conducting all of the heat from your system and keeping it around, so large fans are a must. Maybe look at some liquid cooling solutions. Here's a thought i had for cooling: (I am assuming you'd want an integrated keyboard)

Put a clear acrylic on top of everything- for protection, and clear because it's cool looking. I think a keyboard should be integrated into the area of this surface closest to you, so the top area is all clear for fans to be mounted (I am also assuming you want the case to remain waterproof). Maybe invest in a water cooling solution, this will be so many times more efficient at keeping everything icy cold. If you integrated batteries, not only would it only power everything for a very short amount of time, it would add a ton of weight and generate lots of heat.

Those are just my suggestions

Also, pick up some USB hubs. Use SSDs for their toughness, and if you mount a disk drive, mount it so the tray comes up vertically. This way everything can be contained inside in a waterproof fashion. Make sure to make a mouse storage pocket, maybe somewhere where you can coil up the power cables. You'd have to build custom mounts for everything- try and ensure your pelican case comes with that foam, it's good for making mounts. I'm hoping you've thought of most of these already, but just making sure everything's cool.

 

[voodooking]

The cooling part I have down because of the design. I'm getting the no foam case. The case will contain two modular parts that are suspended inside the case. One on the bottom section and the other for the top. The spaces in between the case and modules is where the excess heat will be blow out to. It has to have a SSD because of speed. There won't just be USB ports on top. I will have SATA, ethernet, ect.. Someone will be able to plugin just about any type of drive. I want the mouse and keyboard to be wireless and yes they will have their own compartments.

As for battery heat, that may be an issue that I haven't thought of fully. I want to get a big 16 cell (or something like that) type of external unit that is designed to have much longer life than the standard internal batteries. The really good ones are very expensive though. As for right now I just can't see myself being in a situation where I need to power the thing for 10 hrs without a recharge. But back to cooling. I think that if I have a vented space between the battery and the rest of the module I can keep it cool with some really small fans. I just have to design the air flow correctly.

I hope I hear back from MSI or ASUS this week.

 

[USAFRet]

No one is saying "10 hours battery life".
Unless you're hauling something the size of a car battery, you'll be extremely lucky to get an hour.

I anxiously await the final build and tested results.

 

[LummusMaximus]

No one is saying "10 hours battery life".
Unless you're hauling something the size of a car battery, you'll be extremely lucky to get an hour.

I anxiously await the final build and tested results.

As do I.

A question: why use smaller fans? Bigger ones are only marginally more expensive, and this clearly isn't a budget build. When it comes to fans, bigger IS better, so why only get small ones? I'd rather have a slightly ugly system than when that fries itself.