Laptop motherboards -- form factor?

Nov 25, 2011 7 Replies

I haven't been able to pull up any info on this -- are there specific form factors for laptop motherboards like there are for desktop PC's? (ATX, ITX etc).



It looks like it's "whatever works", looking at images of laptop mobos on Google.



Are there required standards?



If so, what are the popular designations called (like atx etc) ?



THANKS !


factors for laptop motherboards like there are for desktop PC's? (ATX, ITX etc).

Google.

It's more "whatever fits".

Not that I'm aware of.

Since overall size is one of the major selling points of a laptop, such standards don't make a lot of sense. For this reason you don't see a market for laptop parts for home building.

At one point there was a small market for "white box" laptops, i.e. laptops with no hard drive, memory, or processor installed, and with options as to what video hardware (which was in a separate but proprietary card) you could put in.

I think it's still out there. It's more a small OEM thing than a hobbyist thing, but if you dig you may find it.

Asus made 'em, probably still does.

My liberal friends think I'm a conservative kook. My conservative friends think I'm a liberal kook. Why am I not happy that they have found common ground? Tim Wescott, Communications, Control, Circuits & Software http://www.wescottdesign.com

Still a proprietary design, not a "standard", no?

Intel, Asus and some other ODM's tried to get a standardised interchangable format for Laptop construction back in 2006. I don't think much came out of it.

formatting link

Ah...

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Well, that's that, or is it?

"However, the company will continue to promote the concept of Common Building Blocks, or standardized, interchangeable parts used in the manufacture of notebooks."

Adrian C

factors for laptop motherboards like there are for desktop PC's? (ATX, ITX etc).

Google.

There are small computer board standards like ETX and COM Express, but who knows if anyone has ever used them in their notebooks.

We used a COM Express module in one of our products. It's nice and small and provided everything we needed - without having to design the thing ourselves.

Here's some info from Kontron's version of COM Express:

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Bob

Whoops -- I kinda left that part unstated, didn't I?

Yes, as far as I know. Yes, hence the lack of a market in separate cases, displays, keyboards, etc. When you consider the amount of wasted space in a desktop, and the paucity of free space in a laptop, it should be obvious why the laptop world isn't ready for the standards & components market model of the desktop world.

Tim Wescott Control system and signal processing consulting www.wescottdesign.com

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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ HERE ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That's why I said the above. ;-)

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