Dell C510 Mod: Battery Book

[Mooga]

So this "Mod" has been about 2 years in the making. I've been using and modifying to as needed. I've finally hit the point where I think I'm done. I've made this bad boy as perfect as possible. I use this for commuting and note taking in class.

I'll put pics and videos up at some point.

Here's what I started with:
1.2GHz Pentium 3
256 MB Ram
No Wifi
1 DVD Drive
1 Battery
Glitchy Mouse
Battery Life: ~15 Min

I started with updating the ram because XP SP2 with 256 is HELL. It's not worth the slight battery life if the computer is barely usable. I also used an external wireless card which I could plug in when needed.

The next upgrade was removing the DVD drive that wasn't needed. It was replaced with another battery which vastly improved batter life averaging up to 8 or 9 hours.

I fixed the annoying mouse issue by disabling the dumb "nipple" which would give my laptop "phantom mouse syndrome." Took me a LONG time to solve that bugger. I took it apart a countless number of times thinking it was weight on the touch pad.

The final upgrade I finished today. I cannibalized a few laptops and found a wireless card inside a Dell D610. After some pain-in-the-ass driver searching I finished.

Final Specs:
1.2GHz Pentium 3
512 MB Ram
Built In Wifi
2 Battery
Battery Life: 9+ Hours

Fun, eh?

[mervaka]

the sooner we replace lithium ion batteries with ethanol engines or something, the better. our demands for more power has exceeded by miles what batteries are capable of.

[פֿяαιп βαмαgεפ]

Originally Posted by Mooga

No point in quoting an enourmous post

Dude, can you put up a tutorial on how to add a second battery?

Could use that for my suitcase mod.

[Phatman]

Originally Posted by פֿяαιп βαмαgεפ

Dude, can you put up a tutorial on how to add a second battery?

Could use that for my suitcase mod.

Dell usually has a batter pack that you can buy that goes into the same slot as the cdrom or floppy drive depending on the setup.

[Mooga]

The c510 has two bays on the front. One is only for bateries, the other is for external media (Floppy and Optical Drives). However, you can replace the media bay with another battery. When i need to install something, I just put in a DVD drive.

[פֿяαιп βαмαgεפ]

Rats! I really could use some help on how to connect two or more batteries on the same pc.

[Innoc]

Originally Posted by Phatman

Dell usually has a batter pack that you can buy that goes into the same slot as the cdrom or floppy drive depending on the setup.

A number of mfrs do and have done that in the past. Sometimes they actually allow either battery be interchangeable....which is nice.