upgrading a dell laptop's video card

[schmoron13]

my twin has a dell inspiron 2650, and I wanted to up the video card on it. I noticed that ATI (yuck) has a mobility card, but it got me thinking: can you upgrade a video card on a laptop? The computer is past it's warranty date so there's no issue of voiding it there. Any comments/warnings/suggestions?

[schmoron13]

looking at the specs at Dell's site, I noticed that for the Video card, it uses an external 4x AGP discreet graphic solution NV11, which I'd assume means it's not integrated...is it just a matter of ripping the case open then? Oh where's Hess when you need him?

[schmoron13]

bump (ahem)

 

some of the sites note that alienware can upgrade the videocards on their laptops, but most sites state that onboard video cards are there for good....I'm confused how to find this out on the dell, short of ripping it apart.

[mtutaj]

according to this link. the video card comes out. but who knows what you can replace it with.. its a special card built for dell most likely

 

http://docs.us.dell.com/docs/systems/ins2600/en/sm_en/system.htm#999507

 

and select home and home office

 

Hope this helps.

 

Mike

[radioVOY]

hi, you must be interested!!

hurry up and go to this link.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2790956326&category=40161

 

if doesnt open just go to ebay and search for quadro.

[Greg Hess]

Doron,

 

Is your warranty expired on the laptop?

[schmoron13]

Thanks for the replies.

 

radioVOY-

it says that it might not work with the mobility radeon series so I doubt i'll go that route.

 

Greg-

The warranty is expired, hence the lack of fear of voiding it (now that's some triple negatives!! ) any suggestions, since you're the guru?

[Greg Hess]

Hmm...I'm not very good with laptops, mostly due to the fact virtually everyone is different in some manner or form.

 

Aka what you learn to change out a proc on a IBM laptop, won't work for a dell, etc etc.

 

Thus I tend to treat them on a per laptop basis, instead of spending time remembering crap about them.

 

Considering many manufacturers spec their own video drivers for the cards in their laptops, you'll need to check to see what cards were available for your particlar model, and the voltage requirements and such for each one of those cards.

 

That would at least give you some sort of starting ground. Then I'd just research the wazzo out of it...maybe hit the http://www.2cpu.com forums, those guys are pretty techno wizards, they might know .