Hey all,n00b here.
I have my laptop,its all standard and not so impressive
Its a toshiba satellite a30





I want to mod it superficially,not doing any upgrades or fans or anything.I need suggestions and links to were to get stuff.
Im gonna paint it silver and a diffrent blue
I want to put some japanese letters too.I have found some painting guides but i might need some help opening this thing
What i really want advice on is:

-The top is just pure flat,bit boring,not like the dell stuff with the design thing,is there anywere to get some kind of thing for the top?Maybe with some light in it?

-LEDS,any links to these things??

The toshiba logos how the hell am i supposed to paint around them?

Could you put some of that glowing el wire behind the keys, that would be sweet. Put leds behind the fan grill also...a few ideas..

I suggest some clear acrylic somwhere - like a case window on a desktop. Leds is deffinantly a must. I think with the top screen cover its a case of painting - LEDs are gonna be nightmare to put in there, especially with cabeling.

Hey Tycoon thanks for the suggestion,however i am a complete mod newb and have no idea what your talking about
Anywhere to get this wire?

Quote: Originally Posted by Monkey-Mike Hey Tycoon thanks for the suggestion,however i am a complete mod newb and have no idea what your talking about Anywhere to get this wire?

Here is the PR guide on keyboard lighting.

Quote: Could you put some of that glowing el wire behind the keys, that would be sweet

I doubt there is enough room behind the yes for EL wire. Laptop keyboards are very thin... If you could get it to work that would be totally pimp though.

Thanks for the link man,thats on my list.
Now im thinking about them metal facias(i suppose thats what you would call them,like metal designs)
Any one know any links?
And yea im not gonna bother with led's on the screen side,too risky.Maybe a facia if i can get it

-edit-
Yep just looking now,dont think there would be any room,however ill take some pics tomorrow and see what you guys think if they could fit

Just don't pull a Hackers and spraypaint desert camo on the thing without masking off the internals.

in that case, can i tantalise you with this?



clear case mod or this?



chrome case mod or maybe even this:


super slick paint mod

Now THAT is slick,i think i will go for that kinda paintjob.Colours,diffrent i would have chosen.
However that "thing" that holds the name tag,that is f-ing cool.is there a way to get something like that on my laptop,or does it have to recessed to put something on?

Last summer I bought a $2500 laptop with my summer's earnings and I too have thought about modding the hell out of it - however, the main limitation is space and power.

Laptops are supposed to have good battery life and small size.

In addition, they are hard as hell to take apart. However, I am still determined to do some modding on mine this summer... if I were you, I'd focus on the lid of the laptop - this is the most important part of the computer (visually) and you can do a lot with it.
To start, I would suggest coming up with a design. I am going to go for a tribal art type paint job on the lid. I do not want to paint the entire lid because it's aluminum and looks nice as is.

I figure the best way to do this is not to take the laptop apart but to first mask off the area to be painted and then to cover the rest of the laptop with a couple layers of taped down plastic... this sound good to you painters out there? Also, what is the best way to mask... I'm definitely not an expert on this issue... so if I want to try the design on another piece of metal first, is there a good way to make a multi-use stencil?

alright, i'm subscribing to this page.

my friend is in the process of CnCing some clear acrylic for his laptop, he's going easy at first, just replaceing the battery, ram and cpu heatsink covers on the bottom...somthing like that would be realy cool

You could use some Sculpey or body filler to craft some sort of 3D logo or something on the top,then paint the whole thing.BTW I do custom auto quality paint if you dont want to do it yourself.

Arhg wat a headache,icant open this thing.its like theres invisible screws at the screen end,any help?

did you check under all the covers, batterie, stickers, ect? i had a heck of a time opening a xbox yesterday because two screws were under sticers, and my thumb took a while to fined em. use your finger nail and see if you find a not smooth area.

Quote: Originally Posted by Monkey-Mike Now THAT is slick,i think i will go for that kinda paintjob.Colours,diffrent i would have chosen. However that "thing" that holds the name tag,that is f-ing cool.is there a way to get something like that on my laptop,or does it have to recessed to put something on?

From what i read on it, I requires wet and dry sanding for al ittle bit, then a paint job similar to what you would do on a normal desktop case, with polishing being a major finishing part. I dont think you can do it with any old dell. Has to be a solid lappy to begin with

I picked up a little dell latitude LT for about $200 a few months ago (p233, 64mb ram, 4gb hd, but less than 3 pounds without the backup battery). Since my desktop was blue i decided to go with red for my laptop, although it was mostly to match the mouse i got for it(it lights up real good). I stripped off the case and gave it a few coats of silver, then a coat of clear UV reactive paint(red of course), then lotsa clear coat. After that i managed to squeeze(after some dremeling and drilling) 2 super bright 3mm red LEDs pointed at the keyboard and a micro slider switch into the hinge, all powered from the USB port. It all looked sweet at first, esp under UV, but the uv paint has since died or gotten worn off, so only patches of it glow anymore... Aside from paint, modding a laptop isn't an easy thing to do, and you wont find many good examples. You admited to being a n00b, so you may want to just give it a sweet coat of paint if your good enough at that.

Quote: Originally Posted by Cyno01 I picked up a little dell latitude LT for about $200 a few months ago (p233, 64mb ram, 4gb hd, but less than 3 pounds without the backup battery). Since my desktop was blue i decided to go with red for my laptop, although it was mostly to match the mouse i got for it(it lights up real good). I stripped off the case and gave it a few coats of silver, then a coat of clear UV reactive paint(red of course), then lotsa clear coat. After that i managed to squeeze(after some dremeling and drilling) 2 super bright 3mm red LEDs pointed at the keyboard and a micro slider switch into the hinge, all powered from the USB port. It all looked sweet at first, esp under UV, but the uv paint has since died or gotten worn off, so only patches of it glow anymore... Aside from paint, modding a laptop isn't an easy thing to do, and you wont find many good examples. You admited to being a n00b, so you may want to just give it a sweet coat of paint if your good enough at that.

sounds good mate - u got any pics?

Quote: Originally Posted by nev_payne sounds good mate - u got any pics?

New here, havn't done a gallery yet, and i just got my digicam not too long ago, i'll get around too it pretty soon. Maybe this week since i'm on spring break. Its a shame the UV paint wore off though, it looked sweet, the entire case glowing bright red. You can check out plans for my summer project here.