You guys are probably getiing sick of me asking questions about Dell laptops, but I have an application for one here, that might seem strange, but I'm not sure it can be done.
What I want to do is strip my Dell D610 down to pretty much nothing.
By that I mean, removing the LCD screen and the keyboard.
It will have a seperate 20" LCD screen and a USB keyboard connected to it.
It will be installed out of the way, I thought that if the keyboard was removed, the cooling would be better, through better air-movement over the CPU,etc.
Besides, I hate the keys that laptops use, they never feel as "positive" as the keys you get on a full-sized keyboard.

The screen, I want to remove because of space limitations in this radio room here, I can't have another open laptop screen visually cluttering things up.

Does this sound reasonable at all?
Or am I finally nearing the end of total technological saturation?
The laptop itself is only going to be running my weather station software.
However, things like mapping and logging software may get added later on, you just never know.

Your thoughts?

You could probably open the keyboard up a bit to let it breathe better but I bet if you remove it you will get a 301 on POST. I doubt a laptop BIOS will let you ignore that error. You can usually turn off the screen but again, if it is disconnected I bet POST will fail.
I have an LS400 Dell working as a FAX and scanner engine in my shop but I do have it on an external monitor/keyboard via a KVM switch shared with another machine, for much the same reasons. I have it propped up so air circulates under it for better cooling.
In the next round of computer reorganization I am going to get my weather station over on it too. The problem for me is this does not have a serial port and I have had shaky results with the USB/serial adapter and my weather station.

Do you have the docking station for this unit? If so, just add the external KVM connections. You might think about removing the battery to reduce the heat load.

Larry C

I have a 600m with a failed display. The graphics card is good and drives an external monitor. 2GB of internal ram.
I'd sell it cheap and could even remove the display if you are interested. $50 and shipping?

I am typing this on a DellD610. You can remove the display but leave the keyboard. Many computers use the keyboard as part of the heatsink for the CPU. Also it shields the computer from external RFI and prevents it from radiating RFI. You can also just turn the internal display off using the keyboard command. There is a co in Texas that sells displays. A new display for most computers is $130-$160. My computer has two vertical bars going thru the screen. This is caused by failed connection at the matrix at the panel edge. Many dells have this problem. They changed screen types later to stop this problem. They replace many under warranty. Mine is on the far right side an does not warrant a new $145.00 screen. (Yet!)

Westuplace,
Actually, I managed to get this all sorted out.
I cut the little pin off that shuts the screen off when the laptop lid/screen is closed, I also turned off the screen with the Fn + F5 command.
I also bought one of them lap-top cooling pads and it is sitting on that, it's running a LOT cooler than it was when I was using it as an actual laptop.

Has anyone used an older Dell laptop lately sitting on thier laps and realised how hot they do get?

Good point about the keyboard forming part of the heatsink,
I left the keyboard in mine for that very reason.

The only thing I have left to do with this computer is work out how to make that annoying "Your computer may be at risk" nag bubble from appearing, now that I've turned Automatic updates off.
This computer is not connected to the internet or to my network, so I don't see why I need security updates.

I had an Averatec laptop with a Pentium 4HT... Those processors should have never been put in laptops, it acted like an oven for the family jewels if you actually put it on your lap.

I'm assuming you are running Windows XP; you can disable Security Center by running services.msc and looking for the service named "Security Center". Right-click, hit properties and change "Startup type" to "disabled." Hit the "Stop" button, hit "Ok" and you should be good.

Mr Fretwell got my old dell laptop and I replaced it with a Macbook pro. Hours of battery and never gets hot even on the power supply and running graphics for hours. the whole chassis is aluminum. Fabulous design and runs Windows better than most PC based computers once you get past the Apple specific drivers for their hardware. I have met a couple of guys that bought macbooks and pretty much did a minimum mac install and dedicated most resourses to windows. One fellow said his MB pro with a 2.0(?)mhz dual core is faster than his toshiba with a faster processor and more memory Ie 2gb on the macbook and 4 on the toshiba.
I don't really notice the speed since I still have internet traffic to contend with but I am impressed with the macbook pro.

Speaking of that laptop. I may be taking it to the mountains with me next week. The display still seems to be working but the "cabin" we are renting has a couple of plasma TVs so I will be taking a cable. We will mostly be using it for looking at google earth pictures to plan our hikes.

Hey Greg
glad you got lucky with that Dell. It was pretty expensive at the time I bought it because it was supposed to have like 4 hours of battery life. That translated to an hour and a little bit. BTW I did replace the battery 2 summers ago.

The display seemed to blink out after it ran for a while but once I got all of that silly "extended desktop" stuff turned off and got the clone option set up I could use the big screen TV at the house we were renting for a console. It actually worked pretty well. I was using Google Earth to plan our hikes and such. It was also good for looking at the "daily rushes" of our pictures.
When we got into a hotel with that LodgeNet mess where they want $10 for the music channel and stuff I could plug the laptop into the TV, switch the input and listen to my MP3s.
I was using that S-Video output that most new TVs have on the side so you don't even need to get behind them.

Did you ever look into what was causing the display to go out? I worked on a lot of computers over the last 45 years but not any laptops or LCD displays.