Barebones laptop mobo recommendations?

Hi all,

I need recommendations for a laptop motherboard. Requirements:

- Min 1 mini PCIe slot, 2 better
- Recognise 1Gb RAM, SODIMM.
- Min 2 USB ports
- LVDS pinout info available. In fact, decent documentation on the whole board.
- Mic & line out
- RJ45 ethernet
- Smallest size footprint possible

Optional, but desirable:
- Serial port
- More USB ports
- 2.1 channel audio
- Reasonably decent onboard graphics
- DVI out
- SD card reader
- Optical drive connector
- Able to take an Intel Pentium M 1.7Ghz

Don't want/care:
Modem, SPDIF etc, PCMCIA, firewire.

At the moment, all I can that roughly meets most of these requirements is the mobo from the Asus EEE, but I'd prefer not to have to desolder the processor. And it seems to be impossible to find a cheap eee board around. Under the $100 mark would be preferable. Anyone have any ideas?

if you want a decent laptop then don't get a barebones. The OEM ones are all custom boards with everything soldered on. Its done that way because it makes it small and saves power, everything can be as small as possible. While it is possible to make a "laptop" the stuff used is just not sold, nobody wants the parts because they are relativity slow and expensive for a build it yourself box. On top of that due partially to the size requirements sockets, cases, and motherboards are just not standardized and are therefor not sold.

So if you did go through with it you would probably end up with a 20lb laptop that is 4" thick and costs more then a similarly speced OEM box, and the battery life would probably be non-existent. And if anyone actually answered your question about a motherboard the answer would be something like a 'MacBookPro 15"' motherboard, it would fit in a MacBookPro 15" case and you could choose some of the parts, however all those motherboards come from broken laptops that have been scrapped, and are therefore very expensive.

IIRC there are a few companies that will sell you real laptop parts, but what it comes down to is they are just selling you their OEM laptop as a barebones system, their parts are generally not compatible with other parts

Right, normally, I would agree with you. However, my circumstances are a little different in that I already have all the necessary parts sitting around except the motherboard, case & battery, and I'd like to put them to good use. Seriously - right down to the bluetooth dongle & screen hinges. I'll be making the case myself with the help of polycarbonate & aluminium, & rubberised paint. The battery will be based on NiMH cells, because capacity is not too important, and I want to be able to swap the cells out easily.

So, I'm using "barebones" in a literal sense, rather than that thing where you choose your case & screen & add oem parts from there (as you said, expensive).

Apart from the PCIe requirement, which excludes many old boards, there's nothing really unusual on the "required" list. The mac motherboard suggestion is interesting. I hadn't ever considered macs because I still tend to think of them as motorola machines.