Building a Whitebox Notebook: Part 2

Installing the Intel Mini-PCI 802.11 Card:

The ASUS M6000 Series Notebook comes with a Mini-PCI slot that can be used for wireless internet connectivity. The ASUS M6000 notebook comes with the antenna already installed around the screen so you do not have to worry about running the antenna wires. We went with Intel’s PROWireless solution and it will give us the ability to connect to wireless LAN networks in your home, in the office, and in wireless LAN hotspots in airports, hotels and coffee shops!

With the keyboard removed you need to remove one screw on the mini-PCI cover and take it off. Once the cover is removed insert the new wireless LAN module into the mini-PCI socket at a 45 degrees angle and push it down to lock it in place. Once the card is secured just connect the 2 antenna cables (white and black cables in above right photo) to complete the module installation. Once the card is secure and the antenna snapped into place just put on the mini-PCI cover and secure the one screw previously removed.

Installing the Memory:

The M6000 Series Notebook do not have onboard memory and requires the use of PC-2700 SO-DIMM memory. The ASUS M6000 Series comes with two sockets for installing SO-DIMM RAM. This will allow memory hungry users to install up to 2GB of memory if installing a 1GB module on each socket. The primary memory module is installed underneath the keyboard & the secondary module is installed on the other side (bottom) of the notebook. For the notebook to function you need to have a module installed in the primary DIMM socket. The secondary DIMM socket can be used for future memory upgrades or right away for additional notebook memory capacity.

On our notebook we went with two Kingston PC-2700 512Mb (Kingston part #KVR333X64SC25/512) memory modules for a total of 1GB of memory. Installing the memory modules are really simple. One just needs to insert the new SO-DIMM memory module into the DIMM socket at a 45 degrees angle and push it down to lock it in place. For the secondary module the cover is held on by the memory DIMM cover and has 2 screws that need to be removed for installation/removal.

After the Processor, WiFi Card, and Primary memory module has been installed you are done working underneath the keyboard! At this point you can re-install the keyboard, so you don’t lose any screws and to avoid damaging any of the static electricity sensitive parts.

Now we can move on to installing the hard drive and optical drives!