Goal:Convert a Dell Inspiron 600m laptop to a touch screen tablet.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Update 9/7/12About two weeks ago i wiped my tablet and installed Windows 7 Pro on it. Wow, what a difference in performance. Everything seems to be a little faster, a little smoother, nicer graphics. Over all the tablet runs great with Windows 7. Start-up time is around 30 sec. Wake from sleep is instantaneous. The on-screen keyboard is much nicer the one in XP. And much easier to tune Windows 7 for the touch interface and SSD. Most applications rocket to the screen. The tablet runs a little bit hotter and battery time is a bit shorter. but well worth upgrading. Check out the 'Disk data transfer rate - 5.9' The SSD makes all the difference on this computer. Memory usage is about as low as i can get it: 450MB on boot.Note: I built this computer almost a year ago. And it's still impressive and really cool to use. The shell has also proven to be quite durable. The case is as structurally sound as the day i finished it.Specs:Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005 SP31.8Ghz Pentium 4m14" LCD touch screen32MB ATI Radeon 90002GB RAM DDR PC270064GB SSD 2.5" ide interfaceinternal USB hubBluetooth recieverGPS Reciever2 Batteries Primary Dell Battery and secondary CD-ROM bay battery (7+ hours runtime)Results:Boots in 15 Sec., Firefox launches in under 1 sec.Changed:WIFI antennas and locations for better reception and relocate power button.Removed:Palm rest, Keyboard, trackpad and buttons, modem, PCMCIA Slot Cage and HDD Cage.Parts:Most of the parts were purchased via eBay.com

Dell Inspiron 600m in decent condition. (had on hand) eBay.com -$50.00-$100.00

Wireless mouse (had no hand) eBay.com -$10.00-$50.00

Globalsat USG-ND100 USB Dongle GPS Receiver for Laptops $40.95

Kingspec 2.5'' IDE PATA MLC 64GB SSD PC Disk Hi-speed $144.05

SECONDARY MEDIA BAY BATTERY INSPIRON 500m 600m $34.95

14.3" inch USB Panel Kit Set Add Touch Screen Function $50.99

Vantec UGT-MH304 USB 2.0 4 Port Mini HUB Mini Power $12.99

2GB DDR PC2700 Unbuffered NON-ECC DDR333 Crucial.com $84.00

Extra plastic

Wire (USB cable works great from an old mouse)

Heat-sinks



Docking Station:

Old 20" LCD monitor stand (had on hand)

Dell Docking Station Port Replicator (had on hand)

Tools:Solder iron & solderGood set of screw driversRazor blade –sharp knifeDremel tool –good assortment of bitsHot glue gun –lots of glue sticks. (Isopropyl alcohol releases the glue)pliers, snips, forceps, tweezers and wire strippers are all helpfulJ-B KWIK Weld----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Update 12/20/11This computer was quickly become my web-surf ‘n machine. I have 24Mbps DSL in combination with this Solid State tablet web pages render instantly and videos are smooth. I've only drained the battery a few times, and that was on purpose. And a cool interface, it’s like having a 8.5” X 11” trackpad. I do use the mouse sometimes but for the most part just the touch screen. Win XP SP3 includes a bunch of new games including Internet Backgammon. Which is one of my favorites, the touch screen is perfect for that game.The computer barely gets warm after watching TED Talks videos for an hour. I ran a burn-in test using BurnInTest from PassMark software and the computer passed every test. Also I have added heat-sinks to the RAM both DIMMs both sides. This is a 6 year old computer with pretty impressive performance in it's new configuration.I do have a fair investment in both time and materials in this project. I think it was worth it. I’ll use the computer and the knowledge I gained from building it for years. I’ve been thinking about my next tablet maybe a Mac?Update: 12/05/11Added a few more heat-sinks over the chipset and video processor.Update: 12/04/11A few more mods inspired by a USB hub failure. The GPS dongle was drawing too much power and killed the hub. So I found another hub (powered). Had to do some cutting and relocating of 1 USB port. I can pull 5 volts dc off the PCMCIA slot to power the USB hub. That’s next… I have also removed the SSD housing and added the 2 green heat-sinks from an old video card. And added the black heat-sink for the processor.----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------My name is Brian --> briPadA few OS tweaks for better SSD performance that should be noted:1. Disable winXP prefetcherhttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/307498search for Disable_Prefetcher.reg2. Disable the 8.3 Name Creation on NTFS Partitions:fsutil.exe behavior set disable8dot3 13. Disable timestamp for last access to a file to speed up Windowsfsutil behavior set disablelastaccess 14. Turn off Indexing on All Drivesfsutil usn deletejournal /d c:5. Turn off Virtual MemorySet to No Paging file6. Disable Write Cache and Power Protected:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/Q811392c:\dskcache +p c:7. Verify write caching is disabled:Device Manager --> Disk drives --> Policies un-check Enable write caching on the disk8. Disable Services:Error Reporting ServiceHelp and SupportRemote Registery9. Disable System Restore:Set to: Turn off System Restore10. Disable Windows HibernationPower Option Properties -Un-check Enable hibernation11. XPLite to clean up Windows update caches:http://www.litepc.com/xplite.htmlWOW. Nearly the fastest computer I’ve used. And I have quite a few fast computers.