Did most of mine on a smartphone but had to borrow a laptop to edit passport data as expiry date was out by about a 100 years and impossible to edit on my phone!
I renewed my uk passport via vfs in chiang mai. Took a total of 11 days including 1 weekend. They gave updates every step of the way until I received my new passport.i thought it was very efficient. Kept my old passport then went to immigration to get my stamp transferred to the new passport
that shouldn't be a problem with the dtv, it's just visa exempt that you may have to stay a couple of days at certain laos/thai border crossing points.
every time I have to border bounce or whatever I make it 3 or 4 week cycle tour, not interested in rushing it as I like to explore around. Not sure about checkpoints as I don't bother with motorbikes.