question about custom built laptops

I bought my laptop 5 years ago. I wanted a white laptop, but I couldn't find one with the specs that I wanted, so I got one that was black. I wasn't happy. Very long story short and a year later, I had replaced its case, keyboard, and touchpad with ones from an earlier, white model, and I had the lid painted to make it white. Now, it looks like this.

Now, it's 5 years later, the laptop is on its last feet. The screen is dying line by line, the keyboard acts up on and off, the hard drive seems like it's louder, the DVD burner makes an awful lot of coasters... I tried looking for a new laptop - and all I really want is that it be 17" and white, or at least have a white keyboard since the case can be painted - but right now, such a laptop doesn't seem to exist. There are a couple retired models that might still be found, but one way or another, I'd be overpaying way too much - and since they are older, who knows how long they would last?

So, I thought of replacing the screen + keyboard + getting a SSD HDD. (I checked and it looks like finding the replacement screen + keyboard is not a problem.) But I'm kinda afraid that there are other components that are really want to fail. So, is it possible to replace EVERYTHING (or almost everything - I mean, the speakers are fine) and put a new computer inside the case? And, if so, what are some companies that might do that and what might I expect to pay for labor?

 

What you are asking is not really possible. Unfortunately there is zero compatibility of the cases and motherboards of virtually all laptops, new or old. Your only option is to either keep throwing money at your old laptop or modding a new one to suit your tastes.

 

I think you might be being a tiny bit too pessimistic. laptop motherboards within a single manufacturer may be more likely to be unique in terms of fit because they only build one board to a given space/ cooling package -- but between manufacturers there is probably quite a bit of accidental overlap.

Best idea I have is to go to a corner shop that has a generic laptop line on hand and ask the manager if they'll check if any of their cases fit your equipment.

 

Seconded. Its true of course you don't want to rely on anything like this.

However, with the pentium M laptops just around the bend towards pentium dual core? oh, there are plenty with a single core, and a dual core motherboard revision.
The HP dv1000 has a 915m and 945m chipset motherboard, and these are both from HP, no need for different brands. HP does this a lot.

The different brands thing is true too tho. The Dell inspiron 1300/b130/b120 has the exact same motherboard as the HP dv2000, although they arent dual core. And if you bring up the port layouts, well, the dv2000 has several different motherboards with different port layouts in itself.

I think the best idea is to first know your motherboard, the port layout, but more importantly the mounting holes and location of the socket and chipset where the heatsink is, and then spend A LOT of time on ebay. Just search 'motherboard'. Use a lot of search operators to avoid the junk, like '-jack -power -repair -desktop -p4' and probably some desktop chipsets.

 

here is an all white laptop. Not sure if it has the specs you want but it is new and all white,
Sony - VAIO Laptop / Intel® Core™ i3 Processor / 14" Display / 4GB Memory / 640GB Hard Drive - White - VPCEA46FM/W