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I'm not extremely familiar with upgrading parts in any computer (working on that) but I've been playing games on my laptop on here the past 2 weeks and really enjoying it. I don't want to turn this completely into a gaming laptop, the most important thing to me is smooth frame rates. I want to keep the lag to a minimum. Can any laptop receive an upgrade? Thought I heard some can & others cannot. My AMD one that's installed on here is better than I would have expected but I know it would benefit from an upgrade if I want to play more games on here. Assuming mine can be changed out, what would you look for? Oh and I'm not going to be playing many taxing games. More like: Portal, Team fortress 2, Rainbow Six-3, probably going to buy Counter Strike and who knows what else.
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R.I.P. Thomas C.Originally posted by d4v0s -
In my experience if the laptop has the capability of upgrading the video card it's when you are purchasing it. After that I think the cost of upgrading the video card becomes too expensive.Ray
"If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you." - Randy Paush, Carnegie Mellon University -
How so?R.I.P. Thomas C.Originally posted by d4v0sComment
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Depending on what type of video card it has....it is possible to upgrade a video card...I've done so in a del xps system...but they are over priced parts..not advisedComment
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NRA Life Member
No posts of mine on Calguns are to be construed as legal advice, which can only be given by a lawyer.
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Ohh, fuh..I'll have to take this thing apart and take a look. I wont be replacing the mom board haha. What other alternatives would be beneficial to smoother game play? Recently upgraded from 3gb of ram to 4. Willing to do more. It's weird..when playing Portal, it plays buttery smooth when I'm charging my battery but when it's done and unplugged, it's a little sluggish. Doesn't react as fast as a point the cursor.R.I.P. Thomas C.Originally posted by d4v0sComment
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Agreed. Also, you may be able to find a used motherboard on ebay with the upgraded video for your series laptop. My only concern would be to make sure the motherboard input/output panel is the same and will fit into your laptop. An upgraded video motherboard may have an addition of a DVI monitor connection or some other connection that the original case wasn't molded for.Comment
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If you take the case apart you are only a few more minutes away from taking the motherboard out as well. I used to do this frequently when I was working on computers. I would draw each layer of the laptop as I took it apart and indicate where the screws go, and place the removed screw on it's corresponding spot on the drawing. That helped to avoid handing the customer a box of left over parts.Comment
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Ray
"If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you." - Randy Paush, Carnegie Mellon UniversityComment
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It's not so much taking it out, it's me having to buy a mother and video card
Or..ones that have the upgraded video card on it. Looking forward to my desktop build in the future haha. Don't have to worry about anything!
Ohhhh, I'm sure that's what that is. Thanks!
You know, I was looking into these external video card things as well but I think it's too expensive. Very neat things, though:
Last edited by Javi; 04-27-2011, 12:07 PM.R.I.P. Thomas C.Originally posted by d4v0sComment
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What are the specs on your laptop?
My big computer was down hard when I played Portal, so I used my wife's laptop. The video card on that one is only a Radeon HD 3200, and it's a Turion X2 RM-70 CPU. Played through Portal no problem on max settings.
The laptop I use now - Phenom II X3 / Radeon HD 5650 played through Portal 2 no problem, again with maxed out settings.NRA Life Member
No posts of mine on Calguns are to be construed as legal advice, which can only be given by a lawyer.
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*AMD Athlon II-P320 Dual core processor
*4GB Ram
*ATI Mobility Radion HD 4200 series
*300GB hard drive( I think)R.I.P. Thomas C.Originally posted by d4v0sComment
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You shouldn't have any problem playing Portal, or any other Source-engine game either, for that matter. When my laptop is unplugged, it switches from the 5650 to a 4200-series (yes, I have two video cards in my laptop, the 5650 is discrete and the 4200 is on-board), and I could still play Portal 2 on the same settings with the 4200-series.
This leads me to believe that there's some other issue somewhere. Drivers, maybe.NRA Life Member
No posts of mine on Calguns are to be construed as legal advice, which can only be given by a lawyer.
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I'm going to try maxing everything out in Portal and see how it is. Some settings were defaulted at "high" but not many so I just kept it as is (quite a few were left at medium)I think what Ricky mentioned is the problem I was having. It was just lagging quite a bit when I had it un-plugged so looks like I'll save some $
R.I.P. Thomas C.Originally posted by d4v0sComment
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newer laptops (say 3 years old or so) have modular designs.
i personally have replaced a dell d610 video card. while it was modular, i dont think video card makers will actually make them for laptops due to individual designs per manufacturer...leo d.Comment
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