Will it work? Dell motherboard + Dell Docking station

Hi,

I was wondering something, if I get a motherboard + heatsink + ram + hdd, plugged on a docking station, will it boot up?

I saw this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...em-to-boot-a-motherboard.763230/#post-9801485

It seems not but I’m curious about it, could be a cheap way to have a new PC.

What do you think?

 

In the thread that you linked, it looks like he wasn't able to get it to work.
This is basically a laptop without the chassis. Seems like it would work but I'm sure that there is some minimum number of parts required, which might be more than the ones you have enumerated. (Will the BIOS start the OS boot process if the display is missing? The keyboard?)

It "could be a cheap way to have a new PC" but it's probably cheaper and easier just to buy a used desktop system from the same era. ("New" being relative, as none of the "new" systems support the ePort dock anymore.)

 

I forgot to mention with a keyboard, mouse, monitor plugged to the docking station

 

Indeed, but what I meant was the BIOS might error out if the laptop keyboard or laptop display (or something else not listed) was not connected. After all, it "expects" to be operating in a laptop PC where these components are present. Again, @priamida in the thread that you linked tried this without success, so it seems like at least one other missing component is needed.

 

I see, the BIOS may look for these expected parts at boot

 

If you can at least boot into the bios, you should be able to tell it to ignore errors and keep booting.

Depending on the model motherboard you are trying to boot with it may need more parts to keep it from thinking there is a catastrophic hardware failure. Precision 7710, 7720, 7510 and 7520 may need to have both the left and right daughter boards installed to successfully boot.

It might just be easier to buy a used laptop with a broken screen and just plop that onto your dock.