You are on crack man LOL!!

got a question, i have the same exact laptop, can it actually play games well and fast such as rome total war and city of heroes without crapping up and becomming choppy, or have graphical errors

also lol but if u decide to contact me would u send a message to [edited] lol (dont mind the name)

Email sent Amy's Boi (and I edited the email out from the comment, to keep spammers from obtaining it).

Hi,

I just got the E1705 for Christmas. It only had 1GB of RAM, so I ordered another 1GB to max it out. I was searching Google for a hint as to what tools I'd need when I stumbled onto your site. Cool!

I haven't been so much into the H/W side of things for the past 10 years or so as I got more into software and the business side of things.

As an application developer/DBA, I could use a notebook with 4GB. That was the real downer for me. I did get it NIB for $875 from a guy in San Jose.

Are there two banks with two slots? I don't understand what you are saying regarding 2GB & 4GB. Does the 9400/E1705 mobo support it, but it isn't implemented, or can you just mod the BIOS to recognize 4 x 1GB SDRAM DIMMs?

A bit confused,

Thanx

---

Brad Maust,

former Atlantan,

Infrastructure Architect,

Silicon Valley / San Francisco Bay Area

Hey Brad:

I'm a former Atlantan myself.  :)

There are two SDRAM memory slots in the E1705.  So to achieve 4GB of ram, you will need two 2GB SDRAM sticks (for laptops).

The issue with a lot of bios' out there (desktops, laptops, and even the XPS-line of previous laptops) is that they do not allow full access to all 4096 MB of ram - if you were to stick in 4GB of ram.  The E1705 is one of them, and limits you to utilizing only 3.2 GB of ram available to the OS.

No, there is no bios hack either as even the XPS that supported 4GB of ram, did the same thing.

I myself am a DBA/Coder by trade, and need every bit of ram I can muster.  So $80 was a good investment for two 2GB memory sticks for me, so I can get 3.2 GB for now.  Hopefully my next laptop will support 4 GB of ram, and I can just transfer the memory over.  

Hope that helps!

-Eric

Nice work Eric, I just did the same exact thing today.  I bought the 150w power supply, the thermal paste, and the quadro 2500m.  I installed everything just fine but when I booted up some problems arose.  After a few minutes, lines or artifacts appeared on the screen.  Nothing was overheating and everything seemed fine except for the artifacts, or lines on the screen. Later on I was just browsing and my computer froze on me. I restarted and tried playing Quake III, a not hardware demanding game. Less than 10 mins into the game lots of artifacts appeared and within the minute the entire image was scrambled up and nothing was recognizable and it froze again.   After all this it froze on me again when i was looking at my desktop and so i restarted and all there was was a black screen. I finally took the quadro out and put in my old video card and everything worked fine.  I was using windows vista ultimate with all this.  What do you think could be the cause of this? Is it possible that I was sent a bad video card??  Do you know if the quadro 2500m has any issues with Windows Vista?  Which OS did you have the 2500m on?  Thank You very much, Ervin

@Ervin : I do not believe it is the video card, as I had the EXACT same thing happen to me!

It's directly the video card drivers for the 7900.  And believe me when I say the drivers are much harder to find then you think.  

Do not go to www.nvidia.com and download the latest for the 2500m.  They do not work (I never thought I'd see the day where nvidia.com's drivers did NOT work!).

Do not install the latest driver from Windows Vista Updates.

What you want to do is download a special "hacked" set.  It's basically the highend drivers from nvidia "desktop only" series of cards (laptops have lower-end versions).  But with a slight tweak to the INI files to allow you to install it for your 2500m Quatra mobile edition.  That's it.

www.laptopvideo2go.com <- You want to bookmark this site for future nVidia-powered laptops.

These are the ones I specifically have installed for Vista 32bit (64bit as well).  But they have released newer versions as well.

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=16545

NOTE: I went directly to the forums and researched precisely which driver I needed.  You can try the homepage drivers, but I didn't pick the right one.  Going to the forums I immediately found the ones I needed.

It took me a while to find them.  Uninstalling, installing, uninstalling, cleaning, etc.  Artifacts I had constantly.  Until I found those drivers above.

Now, everything is perfect!

Note that downloading the Drivers alone will not work.  There's a 2nd file to download in that post I linked to, the INI file!

Download the drivers, unpack them.  THen copy the INI file over the drivers.  Then do a Setup install of them all over again (may want to try removing your existing drivers first and rebooting).

i tried version 169.04 from laptop2go with the modded inf. currently i am about to ship the card back. do you know if that driver version works??

That is the driver version I am using.

Make sure to run the reg cleaning utility they have, as uninstalling may not remove all files - and the modded INF.

But, it just may be the card as well though.  

hi eric, what bios version are you using?  did you have to update to any specific bios? I am having a lot of trouble as the computer is booting up with a lot of pixelation. any help would be appreciated, thank you, Ervin

@ervman1: I am running the A08 bios.  Sorry I could not be of more help.

Hopefully you didn't mess up the LCD cable?

thanks for your help eric, unfortunately im still having problems. i formatted my hard drive completely last night and installed xp. i was able to boot into xp fine with my old video card, then i swapped video cards and turned it on, but nothing happened. even the initial bootup screen showing bios information did not pop up. all i get is a blank screen. aah! im getting nowhere, its driving me insane...

just thought id let you know i sent the video card back...now the waiting game begins for a new video card :)

Doh!  Good luck!

This is a near year for me, so a new year = new hardware (for tax breaks).  Was thinking of a 1730 with SLI.  But I will wait for the nvidia 8900 series to be released this year.

PingBack from http://machinehead.musicnewsandviews.com/2007/12/11/why-the-inspiron-is-a-king/

I've just picked up a quadro 2500M for my 9400 on ebay, specced nearly identically to yours and now just waiting for it to arrive. But now that i've read the artifact problem i'm a little bit worried, is it an easy fix to do? also, i've also looked at the dell website and it seems like they have a version of driver for the quadro avaliable, would that work with on the 9400?

@ alfred. hey there, i do believe my problem was the hardwares fault.  usually the whole process is a lot more pain free. Eric here has provided us with information as to what drivers have been tested and work.  Do not use the drivers from dell or any like that.  Like Eric said, you have to use the drivers from laptopvideo2go.com.  the driver version that ive come across from other forums has been 169.04 and Eric is using 169.25 which he has found to be working. you just have to make sure to use the modded inf file otherwise the driver wont install.  

I just picked up a 2500m off e-bay and went through the installation.  However, no matter what I do the A09 bios I have will only see it as a 7900 with 256mb instead of 512mb.  

Same in windows.  If I allow windows to automatically install drivers, it picks the 7900 drivers, however, if I force install 2500m drivers (reguardless of which ones I use) there are no errors or problems.

I'm wondering if the system is actually taking advantage of the card even though it's not reporting it correctly and if there's a way to get it to do so.

Any thoughts?

@Bryan Fusco: Did you happen to snap a picture of the card's part number, or write it down?

There is a 256MB version of the 7900 called a "GTS" or "GT".  The "GTX" is the only version that is 512 MB.

It's not windows reporting 256mb, it's the driver that talks to the card - and what the card is actually reporting back to the driver, to the OS.

I suspect you got a 7900 GS version.  What's the eBay link?  Perhaps he was selling it thinking it was a GTX (and falsely advertised if so).

I have great news!! it was the video cards fault. i just received the replacement card today and so far it has been working flawlessly!!! i have tried cod 4, unreal tournament 3, quake 3, and need for speed pro street and everything seems to be working great. i am running 169.04. thanks for all your help eric. and to anyone else whos going what i went through....it might just be the video card! lol

Excellent to hear!

So the moral to the story for everyone: if it's artifacts you have, make sure you have the laptopvideo2go drivers - cause that fixed what I was experiencing.  

If the correct drivers don't fix it, then it just may be the card.

@ervman1: Thanks for the feedback!

You said "This story starts with the Dell Inspiron E1705 or also known as the 9300/9400". I got so excited with the prospect of putting a 7900GTX in my 9300/XPS --till i did some more reading. It doesn't look like its at all possible to put that gpu into the 9300/Xps gen2, because the 9400/E1705 uses a different mobo, and the discontinued XPS gen2 never had a 7900 option. The 6800ultra/7800GTX swap works on the 9300, because its the same board as the XPS gen2, which had the 7800 as an option. I would like to be wrong about this, so if anyone has found a way to make this work, please let me know...

@Firestarter: The E1705/9300/9400 never came with the 7800 or 7900 or 7950 either!  That's the purpose of this post, to show that you can swap them in - with a little case modification.

As a matter of fact, the 7800/7900/7950s we (the E1705 guys) are sourcing for our swaps actually come from the 9400 XPS systems!  :)

Another fact that I think would help you is that the 7800GTX is the identicle physicaly card (identicle as in where it mounts, the heatsink pipe locations, etc) as the 7900 and 7950 cards!  

With that said, since you said the 7800 swap is an option - I would bet $20 (your shipping fee to send it back if it doesn't) that the 7900 and 7950s would fit as well.  :)  

They are the same physical card as to where it mounts, and the heat sinks.  I see no reason why it would not.  The mobo's BIOS doesn't care, nor does Windows.

Good luck and let us know!

Ps - I am working on an overhaul of my blog, to make reading/replying to these much either.

hi.

sorry for my bad inglish, i am chilean.

i have the same problem, i cant upgrade the ATI x1400 256 Mb to nVidia FX2500m Quatro.

where buy the nVidia FX2500m Quatro?

please add to msn

yamato_flag_ship@hotmail.com

tank you

Hi Eric,

Thanks loads, I just bought today 4gb of memory and a 250GB HDD to put in my inspiron 9400, I was really baffled over this memory issue and your information has been great.

Now that I can see you can upgrade the graphics card, I am really excited - I don't need to buy a new laptop!!!!

Quick question to clarify:

1. You have put in a fx2500 nvidia card. Am I right in saying I could buy the 7800/7900/7950 and do the same procedure as you have done?

If Yes, which card would you recommend if I was purely gaming or using programs heavy on rendering like after effects etc?

2. You mentioned something about HDD too - is there anyway to like replace the CD/DVD drive for a swappable HDD?

Thanks in advance - you are the man!

@blatta: Could you clarify what problem you are having when upgrading the card?  We need more information.  :)

@McMood:

1) Yes, any of them will work.  And fyi, 7800=fx1500, 7900=fx2500, and the 7950=fx3500.  Make sure to get the "FX2500/FX3500" models.  The 1500 is not worth it.  And make sure it says FX2500 or 3500.  There's a 7900 series card out there that is only 256 MB (see comments from others above, and I have private emails stating as such).  That "7900" series is not an FX2500.  Make sure you search and get the FX2500!

The FX3500 is the premium card, with just a tad higher FPS over the 2500.  I saw the several hundred-dollar difference and said, "The FX2500 is good enough for me!"

Search eBay.  I got mine for $170.  And I've seen them as high as $400 on eBay for the 2500.  :)  

2) Not that I am aware of.  With 16 GB memory sticks available (especially that fit in your built-in SD Card slot), I don't see why you would.

The 1720/1730s is what has the dual-HDD features built-in.  Our 1705s sadly do not have this.

Thanks for the quick response and the information.

Just to clarify there is no difference between a fx2500 quadro and a 7900gtx card? I always thought the M90 dell precision series had the quadro cards as they were geared to industry/research related programs and the 7900gtx series were made for gaming enthusiasts.

Sorry if this question seems dumb!

Actually that is incorrect.  What I was trying to say is the FX2500m Quattro "uses" the 7900GTX chipset, but with 512MB of ram though.  The standard 7900GTX card available only has 256MB of ram, and is not a quatro nor a FX2500.  I was only mentioning "7900=FX2500" to let u know it used the same chipset, and to search/Google/ebay for the "FX2500" or "FX3500", not the term "7900".  

Sorry for the confusion.  And no apology needed, as it seems I wasn't clear enough (I apology).  Shouldn't have said that.

Bottomline, only search for FX2500/FX3500.  Don't search for 7900s for sale.

I just received my fx2500 and followed the steps above to include the AS and my E1705/9400 only shows a black screen. I took every precaution to prevent ESD.  I still have a 90W adapter but that shouldn't matter.  Does anyone think it's the Video Card?

@Frank:

Does the external port work on an external monitor?  If so, it could be the ribbon cable for the LCD not secured.  

Beyond that, there isn't much you can do to test a used fx2500 without installing it into yet another machine.  

If you revert back to your old card and everything works, it just may be the video card.  

And nope, a 90W shouldn't matter for normal use.  Only intense 3D gaming is when u need a larger PSU (and even the 90W can work to a small degree in that, but it does get extremely hot under load).  But for normal booting and browsing/development, the 90w is fine (it's what I am using all of this time.  the 150w is in the bag, for gaming times).

Eric,

Thanks for the reply, by the ribbon cable for the LCD do you mean the one that connects to the card?  If so, I pressed down on it pretty good to insure it was fully seated.  The FX2500's second heat pipe was bent when I received it so I went ahead and returned it and will be getting a new one this Friday.  Hopefully it works. I'm at the point where I could take the laptop apart and put back together in 15 minutes...I found a used 150W on Ebay for $15 so I went ahead and purchasedit for future gaming. If the second card has the same black screen, I would venture to say that maybe it's the mother board???

@Frank:

The ribbon cable I was talking about is the cable from the LCD assembly that looks like a very flimsy piece of thin plastic, that has wires in it, and attaches to the motherboard.  It's listed in the process of the LCD removal in the manual.

Does the old card work?  If so, most likely it was just the one card you got.  Go ahead and get the latest bios, just in case.

I have an e1705 thats about a year old, and I recently upgraded it with the Nvidia GeForce Go 7900 GS card. Do the drivers you linked to above work with this card (on Vista) and also, do you know if it is possible to replace the fans from the e1705 with the fans from the XPS M1710 (with the cool little lights)? I figured this might help. Thanks in advance!

@Adam:

Now that is a cool idea.  The fans with the lights.  I'm pretty swamped at work for the next several weeks, or I'd look into that myself.  :)  I would start by looking at the Dell Service Manual I linked to above, and then compare the detailed pictures with the Service Manual for the XPS system.

As for the drivers, yes the drivers I linked to above are the ones I am using on my Vista install - and should fully support all 7XXX series (amongst all other nvidia cards pretty much up to about 6mo ago).  

Thanks, I take a look and let you know what I find out.

Alright, I looked it up and I dont think its going to work, the sizes look about the same, but to use the sweet LEDs there is a second plug that is not available on the Inspiron board. This is unfortunate, because from what I could see the XPS fan is pretty beefy and could move some serious air. Oh well, I'll try what you did with the Arctic Silver, hopefully that will help keep my running temps down. Thanks for the help!

Dude...TAKE THE 9300 reference out of your write up. IT IS PHYSICALLY DIFFERENT. The card does not fit. Also, bios will not recognize more than 2 gig of ram, and the machine will not boot with 4g ram in place. These are things I now know after spending $350.

Eric,  I received the replacement fx2500 and it works perfectly.  The CPU recognized the card & VGA. Do I need to do anythign else to enhance the performance.  I'm in the process of purchasing 4GB SDRAM.

Thanks again for the advice

@TheBobman: I removed the 1 reference to 9300 until it can be proven.  I appologize if someone took the leap of faith with their 9300 from this documentation, as the reports I found stated the 9300 worked as well as the 9400.  But you are incorrect about 4GB not booting in the 9300 - my previous 9300 booted with 4 GB just fine, but only showed 3.2GB, just like the 9400.

@Frank: That's great to hear!  "Enhance performance".  Well, you can overclock the GPU (search the links I supplied above).  Me?  This is my work/primary machine, so I chose stability over overclocking.  

In addition to that, just make sure you have the correct drivers.  And 4GB will help, for how cheap they are these days.  Even if you only get 3.2GB of them every GB helps - and you can use the ram in a newer laptop down the road (most likely).

Eric,

Once I installed the NVIDIA Quadro FX 2500M and turned on my CPU it automatically downloaded the following: driver version 6.14.11.119 dated 28.04.2007 on the latop2go site I downloaded version 169.09.  Which the best driver for 32 bit XP?

Hi Eric,

My wife's mom just bought an E1720 and it bugged me that she now has a better system than my E1705, so I went poking around for ways to hotrod my laptop. I am totally impressed by what you have done with your machine and plan to do something similar.

What I am wondering is this: if I replace my T2400 processor with a T7200 and install 64 bit XP Pro, will it be able to see all 4gig? Do you foresee any problems with this? Also, if this is a good play, is there any reason you didn't do it?

Thanks Much!

@Frank:  I don't know which is best for XP.  Seems most do not have a problem with XP, it's Vista some have issues with flickering (note the driver version I used above in the comments, it solved my Vista Flickering).

@Trickster: Yep, once I found out how the 1705s were being "hotrodded", not having a 1720 made me feel much better.  Even though the 1730s now have dual GPUs as an option!  Jez.

To answer your question, no.  Changing the cpu, upgrading the bios, 64bit os, nada will enable any operating system to see more then 3.2 GB of ram.  It's the limit of the bios (think PCI being a 32bit bus, and 32bit is limited to 2 GB space).

No system will really have full access to 4GB (or my next machine I am planning - 16 GB), unless there is no PCI 32bit bus.  All PCIe or PCI64bit (i.e. servers).

As to your final question of why I didn't do it... Didn't do what?  I actually did install 4 GB of ram, and utilize the limited 3.2 GB of it in Vista x86 (32bit).  I did use 64bit for a short time, and all drivers were available from Dell.  But some of the software I use for programming and such just had issues on x64.  So I am back to x86 for now.  If, that was your question.  :) 

If you question was asking why I didn't go with a faster CPU, it's because there is no real point for me cause I already have the T7200.  :)  Once you have the Core2 Duo @ 2.0Ghz (no point in paying for anything faster), you have the cream-of-the-crop with 4MB of cache (2MB per core).  Anything less in speed only has 2MB (1MB per core).  Yes, the T7200 is worth the upgrade!  And I made damn sure I had it when I originally ordered my laptop.

Thanks Eric. My final question was why you didn't upgrade to a T7200/64bit OS assuming that was a way to see more than 3.2gig. But since it doesn't work that question is moot. And thanks for the warning about certain programming apps having issues with x64. I'm a developer and need all my tools to keep working.

Hi Eric,

Wow, this site gets alot of questions. I am sure I am not the only one who appreciates the time and effort you give in tech support to everyone who visits your blog.

I have two questions please:

1. I have the Core Duo T2600 in my 9400. At the time when I got it, it was the best I could get. Then when core duo 2 came out with double the L2 cache I was miffed! Can I purchase the T7200 and replace that in my lappy?

2. I have 4Gb in my lappy and I did the optimise thing with the /3gb option and I got XP 32 bit seeing the 3.25Gigs as well as some of my adobe products which needed that option to recognise more than 2Gb. But, recently when I boot up I get a message something like, "I am low or have run out of registry space and the registry will no longer be updated etc etc.." - I have over 150Gigs free in my 250Gig internal HDD! Any clues?

@McMood:

1) Yep, absolutely.  Don't purchase anything slower or faster than the T7200 as it would be a waste of money.  Slower has less cache; faster is just paying the huge premium for just a few hundred mhz.

2) Has nothing to do with hardware.  Something is corrupted in the registery, could have a virus (never seen Windows say, "I am low..." on ANYTHING).  

I had a policy of formatting every 6mo.  I had a drive C and a drive D.  C hovered around 36 to 50 GB of space for my OS and all software install.  Drive D had all of my project, media, desktop (editing the location of the profile folders), etc.  So I would just wipe drive C from time to time and install the OS/software.

Here's one good news about Vista: Since I moved to Vista in my laptop last year, I haven't formatted again - and don't see a need to.  Vista really is stable.  As long as you don't load down your OS with a bunch of crap.

Thanks alot.

So I just buy a T7200 and take the old one out and the new one just falls into place? :) cOOL!

The message I get in windows only happens when I boot into the /3gb option. When I do not boot into it, I never get that message....do you still think its a virus?

@McMood: Yes, the bios will recognize the difference.  There's nothing u have to do to the OS either.

About the error message, again, I don't think it's anything to do with hardware and is outside of the scope of this discussion (u didn't leave an email address).  But yes, you'd most likely get it with the /3GB switch than without.

Do you actually know what /3GB does?  It's more than "access to 4GB of memory", and actually it's not that at all.  32bit variables in code are limited to 2,147,483,647.  Windows 32bit (x86) uses a 32bit integer to address memory space, therefore the limit being 2 GB (long story short).

Windows has two memory address spaces: One for the applications, and one for the operating system, kernel, and yep - the registry.  By default, this gives you a 4 GB memory cap the entire Windows OS can use, with a max of 2 GB assigned to your Applications space to use and a max of 2 GB for the kernel to use.  This is why you only see 2 GB in Windows with 4GB of ram.  The OS does a 50/50 split on whatever memory you have.  So if you have 2GB installed, you'll only have 1 GB available for applications (actually, this changes with pagefiles under 4 GB, another discussion).

Having 2 GB for the kernel is well more than enough for heavy powerusers.  The kernel includes all I/O addressing, registry, drivers, system tasks, some background tasks, and more.

The /3GB switch does something special.  It changes the 50/50 split of memory to a 25/75 split: the Kernel gets 25%, the Application space gets 75%.  So in a 4GB system, that's 1 GB for the kernel and 3 GB address block for the applications (how it does this, beyond the 32bit limit, is a longer story).

With that said, no I don't think it's a virus at all: You just got too many damn things loaded on your PC.  :)  Or loaded/unloaded.  When you install and uninstall, it doesn't always clean up registry space.

Let me guess, was this an "Upgrade" of XP from a previous version?  Upgrades leave a huge amount of registry crap.

Long story short: Just format and clean out everything.  You can spend days/weeks cleaning your registry with registry cleaners (and hope it doesn't break stuff).  But only 4 hours or so formatting and installing on the applications u use.

Fyi, Vista no longer has this limitation (they got rid of the 50/50 split, double memory allocation spaces).  It's why you can install 4 GB and you are good to go, without a registry limit.

Thanks a whole lot, next time I will send you an email.

Best tech support I have ever had. Cheers.

McMood

Hey Eric, I'm looking at getting the 4GB for my own 9400 lappy, but I'm wondering what kind of performance gains I'll get getting from upgrading from the 2GB stock 533 stuff Dell shipped me? What are your thoughts?  

Another concern I have is I've come accross a post about a guy having serious issues with Linux on this bad boy with 4GB installed, just Hangs Ubuntu (and any live distro he tried) I think he was on Fiesty Fawn(7.04). Have you tried any linux variants on here with the 4GB?(http://ph.ubuntuforums.com/showthread.php?t=667640)

Bryan.Lahartinger@gmail.com

@Bryan Lahartinger:

If you are a serious poweruser, you might (might like in a hair) notice a difference between 533mhz and 667mhz memory by the snappy response windows seem to appear.  But that is just speed.  

Performance gains from 2 GB to 4 GB (actually only 3.25GB in the 9400) is little to null; because, it would depend upon what you are using the laptop for.  If you exceed 1 GB in application memory (editting a dozen large Photoshop files, perhaps migrating a very large database locally on the laptop, etc), then Windows XP/Vista will start to dig into your "Page File".  The pagefile is when Windows uses your HDD as virtual memory; because, it is out of physical memory (or may be reserving physical memory for something else, long story).

Actually, what I have seen a lot more of lately is games taking up far beyond 1 GB of ram!  I first noticed this with Battlefield 2 at settings of 1600x1200x32 with everything set to high.  On my 2nd monitor, I decided to look at some settings on my PC and noticed that it was using 1.2 GB of ram!  I was shocked.  Battlefield 2142 is even more!

With that said, if you have some highend 3D games then upgrading to 4 GB could "increase performance", because your system won't be using the very slow HDD as virtual memory.

A very quick comparison of memory vs. HDD:

Typical SATAII 500gb HDD = ~45 to 55 MB/s

PC2-6400 DDR-2 memory = ~6.4 GB/s throughput.  <- That's GigaBytes a second, not bits.  Serious increase of 1000x the speed of HDD when moving data.  And we are only talking about the average memory and HDD hardware.  

So yes, it is worth spending the extra money on far-more-memory-than-you-need vs. a larger HDD - from a PowerUser standpoint.  

@Bryan Lahartinger: Something else to note is Vista's built-in ReadyBoost.  I know, there are lots of articles that say this is a joke especially for low-end users.

But for powerusers that need every byte of memory for development (i.e. my migration of 5GB communityserver databases!), once I popped in a fast 8GB flash card, holy cow that sped up my system.  

Google "vista readyboost" to read more.  In very short terms: ReadyBoost allows Vista to use a flashcard for your Page File, instead of your HDD.  While not as fast as pure memory, USB2's throughput is far more than your HDD.  Therefore, increasing the speed of that pagefile use.  

I can testify it really increased the performance of my system.  That is, if you are actually using some big applications.  If not, it's just a waste.

Tip: You a flash card 2.5x the size of your physical ram for "optimum performance" per MS'  algorythms.  So with 4GB in the 9400 (3.25GB visible to the system), get an 8GB memory card.  Oh, and make sure it is rated at least "150x" speed.

would it be possible to cram one of the new quadro fx 3600m gpu's into the e1705?

i.e.: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEBTOX:IT&item=150235297325&_trksid=p3984.cTODAY.m238.lVI

oh, and what is the fastest processor you can stuff under the hood as well (laptop modding is not new to me since i've been doing some stuff to the office acers).  i've been looking, but no luck on a definitive answer. :-/

oops...i lied about the 3600...still looking for an answer on the cpu though.

enjoy the link everyone.  and, since i forgot to say it before (i'm in baghdad and working nights, so i'm a bit loopy right now since i should be sleeping atm, lol), this article is absolutely fantastic! keep up the excellent work :D

http://www.notebookforums.com/thread214624-7.html

@Sera: Very nice.  Yet another upgrade that works in the 1705 / 9400, the FX3600m.  But on a variation of someone's quote, my setup plays every game I currently own - I won't be upgrading anytime soon.  Especially at $800!

But, if I had the cash...  :)  

As far as maxing out CPU, the fastest is the 667mhz Core 2 Duo t7xxx series is about it.  The t7200 being the best price-vs-performance buy.  Anything faster is just just a waste of money for such a tiny increase.

What I don't see is anyone trying the 800mhz chips, which will be the biggest increase.  You linked to the best forum to research/ask in that regard for 800mhz support - www.notebookforums.com

Keep your head down in Baghdad!  Wouldn't want that e1705 to get hurt.  :)

Hi,i`m in the same position as some of you guys. Yesterday from nothing my ispiron 1705`s screen went black and after the restart there was the artifacts. So im considering to buy an Fx2500 and in the same time i want to upgrade my CPU from the T2250 to a T2600 or a T7200. So if anybody has one of these for sale (FX2500,T2600,T2700) please write me to seep91@gmail.com . Thanx.

hi Eric,

It is me again! I am about to take the plunge and get a better processor from my original core duo processor. Then I am going to attempt to do the above and the processor together! :S I already have the graphics card but was just about to buy the processor when Intel announced a cut in prices for many of its processors!

Now, I have someone who has offered me a T7200 and T7500 at the same price $160. He also has a T7400 at $230 and a T7600 at $300.

Would you suggest the T7500 is the best buy? It has a higher front bus speed but a lower multiplier than the T7600 as I found on wikipedia! I have no "real" idea on what that signifies but it is half the speed and the same price as the T7200 which you suggested?

Thanks in advance!

@McMood:

I am not sure the E1705 can support the 800mhz FSB of the T7500.  I'd really like to know though (and if it can support 800mhz ddr2).  

You can do the research on www.notebookforums.com.  Normally, I would be more than happy to research it - but I am swamped at work over the next couple of days.  I.e, no sleep.  Let us know!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T7200#.22Merom.22_.28standard-voltage.2C_65_nm.29

Would the fact that it uses the same socket mean it would work?

Well on notebookforums found someone say that only the even numbered T7*00 series will work in the E1705 and the guy seemed to know his stuff. He also says you cannot use 800 Mhz ddr2 ram...

A good link for general info:

http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=205763&highlight=e1705+t7500

Hey Eric,

Great post, thanks for all the info. My E1705 has been dying lately and I can't just figure out the deal. I did an upgrade from XP to Vista and wonder if it was just from the upgrade copy. I have 2GB RAM now with 4GB on order. I had a bunch of driver issues with the NVIDIA card, I got it with the GeForce Go 7900 GS and now I'm thinking the card might be going bad. I think my laptop got to hot and either RAM is damaged or maybe more. I get a ton of Blue Screens, mostly memory parity issues. It will work fine for a bit, heat up and then I get a weird graphics bug, nothing will open and all the windows that attempt to open will be black, or a dark orange with no wording visible. I will have to ctrl alt del to shutdown or restart and have the time that will bsod or freeze up.

Any suggestions as to what that might be? I am thinking about the graphics card upgrade and the AS5. I'm just stuck in Iraq and the E1705 isn't but a year and a half old. I'm glad I found your post about the modding though, that made me a lot happier about my purchase.

Any advise on the BSOD's would be great.....If you get a free moment

my email is

(snipped per request)

please remove it if/when this posts to your site.

Thanks a bunch

Cory

I will be emailing you shortly Cory.

Hi,boys. So i ordered an FX 2500 from ebay, it came. I put it in my 1705 and everything was fine. but after a short game tasting period i`ve got a BSOD with some NMI memory parity error.After the restart on post screen ( the screen with the dell logo)and in bios my screen resolution is halfed. I can boot to windows safe mod but there is the same situation with the resolution. The dell check utility cant find any errors, regarding to it my video card is OK. For explanation i uploaded some photos.

                                      http://picasaweb.google.com/Seep91/DEllInspiron1705

@SPeter: Oh man, yeah something went hairy.  Might be a small chance that the LCD ribbon cable wasn't secured completely (that flimsy cable from the LCD at the point of where it attaches to the motherboard).

Try reverting back to your previous setup/video card and see if it resolves.  If so, it may be the new card u got.  

@Eric:

Your site is just what I was looking for. I am planning to do almost the same upgrade... T7200, 4GB, and hesitating between 3500M and 2500M. But I was hoping to get x64 XP running on the new one with the ability to fully utilize all 4GB. Now that you say there is no difference, I am not sure it is really worth switching my T2400 with T7200.

Would you say Vista x32 is the same with RAM utilization as XP64 on your setup? What would be wiser choice for OS? I am running mainly 3D/2D apps as Photoshop, Pixologic ZBrush, Autodesk Maya and rendering engines.

@SPeter:

I have seen those weird stripes on my faulty 7900GS (after a year, it just "died"). You have faulty VGA. Fortunately it was still in warranty so DELL replaced it with new one. Could you say who did you buy it from on ebay, since I am planning to buy the same there.

@Eric:

OK, I `ll try the LCD cable one more time. I cant revert back to the old card because it completly died - it showing me only black screen.

@MaxtorAG:

I hope it is not the card again. The sellers name was round2tech.

Any other suggestions about my card?

@MaxtorAG: Vista x86 the same as XP x64, in reguards to RAM utilization.  Not exactly, but if you are referring to if the "3 GB" limit issue in XP x86 is in Vista x86, the answer is no (kind like 4.5 GB now or more in Vista x86).  But with 4 GB of ram, yes Vista x86 won't be limited similarily to how XP x64 won't be limited.

As far as the wiser choice, it boils down to 1 thing pertaining to the applications you listed (aside from features, prettiness, etc): Ram available.  You'll give up about 512 MB by switching to Vista.  But the good news is Vista has much better memory management than XP in general, especially if you utilize Vista's ReadyBoost feature.

@SPeter: If you had one card fail, and this is another card (given it was used though), perhaps there's something larger going on?

@Eric:

Well, I guess I will buy the T7200 upgrade (found it for $120) and try both XP x64 and Vista x64 and just benchmark.

@SPeter:

That corruption is definitely faulty VGA (but miracles happen). Sorry about that. And it is disturbing that you bought it from round2tech, since that is supposed to be a good seller and I was going to buy FX3500 from them. Now I am not sure whether I should. Are you sure you are not doing something wrong while installing it or some MB problem? Why did your original one die?

One more question, Eric...

What about SATA Drivers? I know that while/before installing an XP in my desktop, I needed to load special SATA drivers into XP setup. Will I need special SATA drivers for XP x64 for my Inspiron, or the BIOS takes care of it. So far, I have installed only original DELL XP, so I guess there is everything in it, but when I will be switching...

@MaxtorAG:

Bios can't take care of anything.  If you needed a special Disk Driver for XP x86 (pressing F6 during install), you will need the same drivers for XP x64.  But look for 64bit versions of the driver as most drivers are written in c++, meaning they are unmanaged assemblies (bound to one type of processor or another).  

But with that said, I don't recall installing any Disk Driver (F6) on bootup on my E1705, and it's fairly new.  I got Vista x86 and x64 loaded without any driver needs.  But I did install them once the system was up.  

Now, my gf's E1520 is another story though... Dell is putting flash ram in the new computers that holds a complete backup of the default os install, called something like Cache Drive.  It's a PITA when installing your own os (disable the bitch in bios).

Hey wow what a page, ya I upgraded my e1705 from a 7900gs to a fx2500 and it's AWESOM, the performace gain is huge... COD4 on the 7900gs was not even playable at decent settings, with the fx2500 it's playable with the graphics all the way up!

My 7900gs fried from getting too hot for a year and finallt crapped out, like many many other peoples 7900gs (they made a VERY bad decision and only put one heat pipe on the 7900gs and we all have paid the price)

anyways, I'm sooo curious as to whether or not the new fx1600m and fx3600m cards will work in the e1705. The 1600m is basically a 8700m and the 3600m is a 8800m! I emailed the guy on ebay who currently has one of each available (I know 300 bucks for less performace that the fx2500 sucks but it's got directx 10) and the 3600m is $750 bucks but it blazes!

I'll let you guys know if the guy who is selling them replies and if he knows it it works or not, it's not a question as to whether it will fit it's a question as to if the BIOS will work or not. They might if we could flash them to a 8700m or 8800m prior to instal but I heard that the 1600m doesn't work with the latest 1600m bios in a e1705.

I know they are hard to find those cards now but I'm sure in time more will be available and perhaps the price will come down.

but ya, e1705/9400/M90 = best laptops ever!

also, to those who are getting artifacts after installing a used video card from ebay or whatever, you have to consider that the card you got is bad. many laptops die and they pull parts untested and sell them.

a side note, I installed my fx2500 and it was right on from day one.

@Matthew: Glad you jumped on the bangwagon with the rest of us.  Yep, it really is nice with that card.

As far as the new cards working with our bios, I see no reason why not.  It's a PCI Express x16 slot.  If it fits the slot, the bios will allocate resources, and all you need is drivers for your flavor of OS.

The only issue is voltage and/or wattage available for very highend cards.  I have no idea if the E1705 can supply the power for an 3600m.  But it's worth a shot.  :)

@SPeter:

Just a thought, but I still have my ATI x1400 sitting in the closet, works perfectly.  Just not for gaming.  If you (or anyone else reading this) need a card to get your laptop back up and going again, I can part with it.  I've been going strong for almost 6 months, so I think my system is stable enough to aprt with the ATI x1400.

Make me an offer...  

ya i'm dying to know whether the 1600m and 3600m will work in the e1705/9400/m90. I would buy a 3600m and a t7600 and save myself a lot of money upgrading. It would still be roughly 1000 for those but it's better than 2500 for a new one.

PingBack from http://www.insidemylaptop.com/upgrading-dell-inspiron-e1705-9400-graphics-card-memory/

@MaxtorAG:

Round2tech sold me the card as an FX3500, but it is a  non functional FX2500. There are other feedbacks on them that they are shipping wrong cards.So beware.

@Eric:

If you make a good price then i`ll buy your card.

@Matthew:

No, the fx1600 and the FX3600 will not work in our rig.

@SPeter (and everyone else): I've fixed my domain mailing alias/issues.  You should be able to contact me at the email when clicking "Who am I" at the top (i.e. Peter, for getting that ATI card of mine).

I didn't read all of the comments, so this may be redundant

but I got the fx2500M, and i flashed it to a 7900GTX.  I think it really made a difference.  The biggest difference I see is with Guitar Hero 3.  I can now run that 1440x900 full screen all effects on with almost no stutter.  in that game you need it to run SMOOTH.

I also have the clock settings at 600 core 1500 (750) RAM and it's been at that level for some time.

OH i highly recommend going to best buy and getting the Toshiba 200 GB 7200 RPM hard drive upgrade kit.  comes with an external enclosure and software to facilitate the swap and use your old hd as an external.  I think i paid around $175 for it.

I'm toying with the 4 gb upgrade now.

Hi guys!

Have a question...serious one ;)

Could I flash a 7900GTX card (some are marked on ebay as YF227 some CG129, don't know the difference) with BIOS of fx2500? And if so, where to get the BIOS? If so, could someone of you guys having fx2500 send me your BIOS file?

Important: I need the fx2500 version to work properly, as the quadro performance is crucial for me, I don't play games, so post a statement only if really true =)

Oh, and one more question...

could I flash my 7900GS with the BIOS from fx1500m?

That would probably solve my problem of upgrading.

Thanks.

Anyone have BIOS of fx1500m, I would try it myself...blindflash rulz =)

@MaxtorAG: Really those questions are for www.notebookforums.com (goto Dell, 17").  :)

Don't quote me, but if I remember difference between the 7900GTX and fx2500m allows you to flash down from fx2500m to 7900gtx to unlock the bios.  But not flashing from the 7900gtx up to the fx2500m, since the instruction set is different.

Check that website.

@Maxtor, it is possible to flash the 7900gs with a fx1500m bios. I tried it and it worked flawless.

@Eric, no answer from you regarding the x1400.

@SPeter:  Oh come on.  :)  I did reply.  I said, "I've fixed my domain mailing alias/issues.  You should be able to contact me at the email when clicking "Who am I" at the top (i.e. Peter, for getting that ATI card of mine)."  Ok, so I meant for you to click "Who am I" instead of "Contact me".  :P

Anyhoot, the email addy is eric @ this domain.

SPeter, well, I am glad that it works...what about some hints, reference for a website, etc.?

maxtorag at gmail

Hey guys...

Was just wondering what the fx2500 would be like running Age of Conan versus the 7900gs I've got in my e1705 right now. Is it worth the upgrade or should I start looking into new machines for running AoC?

I would say the difference would be noticable.  Because the fx2500 has 512mb of ram, where the 7900gs only has 256.  Memory usually is better quality too, to allow for a fraction better overclocking.

I've heard that upgrading from the 1440x900 screen to the 1920x1200 one can burn up my inverter.

Do you know if this is true? I want in on the 1080p goodness ;)

@Alex:  Sorry, have no idea.  www.notebookforums.com would be your best bet to ask.

-E

Hi, I am thinking of buying a... "nVidia Geforce 7900 GTX PCI-e 512MB Dual DVI HDTV Out", and I really have no experience with cards. Is that the correct card for an E1705? If so, is there anything extra I need to buy aside from that?

Hi Eric,

Finally, I have installed my quadro fx2500 and i went a little further and got the T7600 (Just had to do it :D). I got the nvidia hacked driver from where you said and it all seems to be running fine.

Although, I have still got my old power supply at the moment....

Now, I downloaded CPUID to monitor the temperatures and my idle temperatures for both my cores are around 62C and the GPU core 54C. That seems really high....I used Arctic Silver paste.....

The problem I do get at the moment, is that I leave my laptop on for alot of the day as I use it for work. Now sometimes overnight or when I go out for lunch, I come back to find that my laptop has turned off and restarted and I have lost anything I did not save! This has only started after installing the new devices and has happened at least 5 to 6 times now in the space of a week and a half.

Any ideas on what the problem is?

Its going up! 67C now!

On a totally sidepoint, do you know whats best if you want to get surround sound from the laptop? External sound card? Do you recommend one?

Thanks in advance!

Hi Eric,

I had a question. I have had my laptop for about a year and a half and i havent overclocked or anything. But recently, i start to get crazy artifacts and my screen turns off and frezzess. Most of the time it goes into a blue screen of death =/. Does anyone know what drivers to use and which work the best, it would be a great help. Thanks

Oh sorry, i forgot to say i have the stock 7900 GS with 174.82 drivers

Sorry guys.  I relocated from Dallas to NYC last week.  So I've been outta pocket for a while.

@Mike : Nope, that is not the correct card.  That card you mentioned is for a desktop with a PCI-E slot.  The dual DVI and tv-out kind of gives it away.

@McMood : Those temps aren't too bad actually.  The screenshot above is actually from when it was cold (winter), and I usually keep my place cold around 69F.  Now in the summer, here in ny, it's hot.  And around 78F in the home, my cpu idles around 58C.  My GPU is about 60C at 78F ambient temps.  What you want to do is a stress test, which means to peg both CPUs (cores) to 100% each.  Then monitor the temps.  I used Prime95 to do it on my system (tip: it runs only on 1 core.  You have to run two copies and configure them to use each core).

Surround sound?  Anything with opitcal out I suppose, then your speakers will take that as the best input.  Never got into which is better myself, such as decoding at the card level (more control, but uses cpu), or decoding at the speaker-level.  Any card that gives you optical out will work.

@BigArm : I can't answer that one.  Try notebookforums.com and click on the Dell 17" area.

Found some info about the fx3600m, and that it DOES fit and work in the 1705.  But, there's some additional hacking.

http://www.notebookforums.com/post2890326-96.html

Make sure to click the Thread link in that post, so u can read the whole thread.  I only got to page 7, out of like 20 pages.

What's the exact part numbers for FX2500 and FX3500 from Dell?

Doing search on the net brings confusing results: YF2009 or CG129...seems both apply to FX2500 and FX3500.

Sorry ment YF209

Man, I need to finish my new redesign for this site (to help with the comments/paging).

@Anton: Well in the screenshots above you can see the part number for my fx2500m.  I've said it before, but www.notebookforums.com is really the best place to ask such questions.  I just modded my laptop.  :)

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

Ok this seems bad....

All of a sudden during playback of a radio over the internet the audio started playing back and forth like at the end of an old LP on a gramaphone when it gets stuck on the same track. Then the screen went blank and it hasnt turned on since. Restarting the computer and even the dell bios thing does not appear. Although it seems like it is starting fully into Windows but not 100% sure. I opened the lappy up and now when I restart it doesnt boot, the num lock light is on, the caps lock and the next lock green symbol next to it flashes together for about 20 seconds before the laptop switches off!

What to do???? I appreciate your urgent help. Thanks.

@McMood: Well, for urgent help you could leave your email address when u post - so I can respond to you directly.

Still under warranty?  I recommend calling them and pretending u haven't done anythign to the machine.  If they say to send it in, revert the changes back to the way you bought it (original card and all).

Nope warranty has ended. I spoke to Dell they said they would arrange to pick up the laptop sometime on Friday and any charges for pick up and for parts will be charged. So before going to that.....

Anything I can do?

Thanks...

ok! It seems my graphics card went kaput and then the laptop went mad....

I put the old rubbbbbbbbish ATIx1400 128Mb graphics card back in and it works...now I doubt the ebayer is going to take back my graphics card fx2500m from me so many months down the line and plus I dont think shipping back to the states is going to be worth my while.

Anyway of getting a "new" card from Dell directly?

Plus these new cards you can get on the inspiron 1720 which are 512MB nvidia will they work on the 9400/e1705?

Thanks in advance...

@McMood: My fx2500m has 512 MB of ram.  So does the fx3500m.  I think you are referring to the fx2600 and fx3600.  Long story short (and scroll up 5 or 6 comments, I already linked to it and told ya'll about it) is yes they do fit, but there are voltage differences (screen is dimmer).  So there are a few bugs to work out.

Hi Eric, like most of the people posting here I too have upgraded to a new GPU, a 7900GTX, and 4gb ram. I have installed the ram successfully, and I thought the GPU as well... I was playing NWN2 and some red almost diagonal lines appeared on the screen. Since it was the first time I was playing with the new card installed I thought it was jusy some tweeking that needed to be done to the game settings or something... and suddenly the screen went black! I know the screen is on, but there is no image. I rushed to install the ol' 1400 and everything booted up and it seems no harm was done(at least to the hard drive which I feared). I am now pondering if it was something I forgot to do while setting up the new card, or if it is just a faulty card. What do you think? please help!

@Dennis (and others that have broken): Here's a question, are you using the larger 130W or 150W power supplies?  If you are using the power supply that came with your Dell laptop (the 90W one), you do not have enough power and this may contribute to the damage going on here.  Just a theory.

But to answer your question, since you replaced the card with the stock one, it seems to point to the card, yes.  Fautly install?  Really depends on how everything aligned.  It's straight forward, but does need a fragile hand.

Sorry i can't be of more help.  If you have the upgraded power supply, then it could point to any number of things.  

Yes, I did get the 130W brick. It's weird, I played with it for a day or so after installing the new card and it was working fine (or it seemed), then the next day I got the 130W brick and put it to work. No problems there. I am wondering if it has anything to do with the drivers at this point. I am gonna try to re install and un install drivers and see what happens. Help me god!!!

Doing some research in notebookforums I found people having the same problem. One guy claims it is related to the "extra" heat sink from the 7900 touching a small metal piece connecting to the power outlet (I noticed it while installing the card, but didn't think nothing of it). Claims he solved the problem bending the pipe slightly so that it would not touch the metal piece... I haven't tried it yet, but if that's the case I wanted to ask if this solution made sense.

Thanks.

@Dennis: Actually, that makes perfect sense if that is the case.  I had to do a double-take and open my images I posted above, to make sure mine was not touching.  

I think i remember seeing how it was touching mine, and went ahead and bent it anyways.  I also bent my pipe to better align the heatsink to the fans, as the normal way it was shipped to me seem to be sitting "to low" and blocked the natual airflow from the cpu's heatsink to the gpu's heatsink.

For everyone else, we are talking about the "left" heatsink (looking from the front of the laptop/normal view or use).  It is the heatsink that I used the aluminum (sp ck) foil to cover both heatsinks in the pics above.  Dennis mentions how the copper arm may be touching the power outlet.  Mine appearently isn't touching (zoom in on the picture of me holding the screw driver, and look at the bottom left for the powercode socket).  

Mine is not touching, and does sound like a valid reason.  But if you look at the pic I mentioned, the only thing that would touch it would be cast metal.  While a conductor of electricity, yes, I can't see a lot of draw through it as it seems to be a more of a type of alloy than a conducting metal.  But, it does warrant caution and I would recommend bending that pipe to get it away.

Note though before bending: do not bend while the card is installed!  I can see the socket easily breaking (or the mobo it is connected to).  I recommend removing the card and doing several test-fittings while bending.  Remove, bend, install and test alignment.  Repeat until cleared.

Good find Dennis!

well i got the 2500m and after install my computer does dont start up the lights come on for a second and then nothing. can you help me out

well i got the 2500m and after install my computer does not start up the lights come on for a second then nothing. can you help me out

Hi everybody, after a long sickness i`m back :-).

@McMood, Trevor - there is a whole load of Fx2500m on ebay which are damaged. Send it back to the seller.

@trevor: Check out SPeter's comment after your comment.  Go back to your old card and if it works, send it back.

okay, returned the card and shoulg get a new one next week. Will make the proper adjustments and hopefully it works, try #2!!!

OMG, this is such a good tutorial !

I always wondered how was the inside of my computer, Now I know :).

Im going to add some LED where you added the gpu pipe, im just wondering where im going to get the electricity...

Hi Eric. I just wanted to say what a HUGE help this article was. I've read this article probably at least once every two weeks since I found it back in Febuary, just waiting for the time when I would be able to do these upgrades, and hopefully put the kabosh on my NMI Parity Errors while playing WoW.

Unfortunately, It did not all go well, as I've got nasty red lines on my desktop, and spikes in the 3D renders of WoW. I got my drivers from NotebookForums, so I'm pretty sure I got a bad card. I've contacted my seller on Ebay to hopefully get an exchange.

Just really wanted to say thanks for this well written article. =D

Hello there.

I have a Dell Inspiron e1705 with a GeForce GO 7900 GS card and I would like to upgrade it.

Would this be the card I'm looking for?

"Dell Inspiron 9400 M90 512M Quadro FX2500M Video CG129"

Thank you.

Yes, sounds like the right card.

Hey eric, i just ordered a 7900 GTX 512mb, but i didnt read a part where it said one heat pipe is "broken" i just got the card in the mail today and the heat pipe just looks a bit beat up. i installed it and it works fine and passes all stress tests. i just want to know if its safe to keep it in there or should i get it fixed. also i know i need at least a 130w power suplly but can i use the laptop with the 90watt just for normal use. THANKS!

Hey there!

I opened my m1710 to test a second t7400 which i have. However i couldnt remove the CPU/NB heat sink and i didnt want to rough it. Maybe i would break something or something. So can anyone tell me what i missed?

thanks

@Mike : if you don`t game a lot, you can use your 90w supply.

@Walid : the original dell thermal compound between the cpu and the heat sink is like a glue after a time.

SPeter is correct.

Hey guys, just a quick question. when i play any game and monitor my temperatures, the card starts cooking within seconds and says it peaks at 93 C and is currently an 77 C when game gets minimized for one second. how come these temps jump around so much and why so high...plz help =/ its the 7900 GTX 512

@ Mike: maybe because as you said before one of the heat pipes is broken, or it can be from unproper usage of thermal compound. My nv 7950 GTX is idling at 58 C and tops at 86 C. Try to use I8KFanGUI on automatic, or use some cooling pad.

@Mike, I agree with SPeter - and my temps are a few under what he reported.

Hey guys, thanx for all your help, it seems like i overused the AS5 a little and i dont think the heatsink was tightened on well. anyways i ordered a broken card with dual pipes and swaped it, put that black tape from the broken GPU and put it on mine cuz mine didnt have it for some reason, now i idle at 47C with fans on low and after 1 hour of crysis i peaked at 75c! i apperiate the help guys thanx!

wondering whether im s.o.l. or what.  I've got an e1705 with an intel mobile core 2 duo

says socket 479mPGA its a t5300.  from what i understand they are soldered on and not replaceable?  any thoughts as to upgrading cpu or not possible?

thanks in advance

@William: Not really the place to ask that, but the E1705s have replacement CPUs.  So you shouldnt have an issue upgrading the CPU.

See my pictures above, as I removed the heatsink - but not the actual CPU.  But you can see the CPU is removable.

Check the link I posted above about the Dell Service Manual for CPU replacement.  http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/my_systems_info/manuals?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&redirect=1

hi eric nice post, i'm planning to get one from ebay soon and i can't find the exact spec that you got, must be a rare piece. with all the identical shapes of video card i'm just afraid i might buy an incompatible card.

so i got some questions in mind: how did you know that the card you bought is compatible with your laptop? was it built for e1705/9400 or does dell's video card share the same structure? does it mean that video cards intended for XPS lineup can fit to Inspirons?

i've read some about the M90 designer card and MXM blah blah and I can't relate with all the technical stuff, can you shed me some light on this one. thanks!

@frederic: As mentioned in the original post, the card comes in the Dell XPS series - not the 9400/e1705.  You can see the pictures of where I had to modify (i.e. cut the plastic pieces off) to get the left heatsink to fit.  Otherwise, the entire card is a drop-in fit.

Any card for the XPS 1710 series sould fit our laptops, yes.  But remember, there's a whole new breed out there.  The 1720 and 1730s, which most likely won't fit.  

To find the card I have, search eBay for "nVidia FX2500m".  Or if you want the better card, search for "FX3500m".  That's it.

As far as more technical questions, what "may" and may not fit from newer laptops, you want to visit these forums as they have the most info out of anything: http://notebookforums.com.  I even provide direct links for the FAQs of the 1705 above in the original post.

Good luck!

Hello,

really outstanding performance you did, Eric! Congratulations! I just ordered my 2x2GB Kingston DDR 2 667 MHz RAM zu upgrade my system as well.

The graphics device I will leave as it is. I presently don't have the imminent need for an upgrade there. It's more the hard drive I think over... Which one does your system work with? I have the Toshiba MK2035GSS (12ms/8MB/4200) and am not that satisfied with it's performance. Do you possibly use the "Hitachi 7K200 TravelStar" which everyone is talking about? Or another device?

@Melkor: Oh man, that existing drive you have is horrible in performance.  Around 15 MB/s.  Going from that 4200rpm, to the Hitachi 7200rpm (or any drive) will be a major improvement in performance!  We're talking 60 to 70 MB/s (4x)!  

But remember, this will greatly cut your battery life as the HDD is one of most power-hungry devices in a laptop (unless u are gaming, then a highend GPU like we installed above can almost match the draw of the HDD).

If you are liking your battery life, cut it almost in 1/2 - that's about what you'll get.  Check to see if you have the 9 cell battery - if you only have the 6 cell, upgrade (but it will be costly, go aftermarket).

I took the 9cell right from the start. Never felt bad about that. So thanks for that info. Looking realy forward for a better drive. It's indeed horrible atm...

Just installed the 4GB RAM. As well as the BIOS even Vista is telling me I've got 4GB installed. Nevertheless available is less than that as a certain amount is used for system issues (meaning the graphics-device I guess). But still Vista shows 4GB installed (and not 3.25 as reported above)... But the score remains 4.5 - I hoped for a raise in that. Well, didn't work (of course - why should it get pushed up? 667 MHz remains 667 MHz...). But thanks for encouraging me to buy the RAM even against the manual telling me only 2GB are supported. I recognised the increase in speed instantly without any benchmarks just by navigating through the menus and using applications. Outstanding (compared to before).

Next for the hard drive. Has anyone of you a good idea for a HDD but the Hitachi 7K200 TravelStar? Maybe something nearly equal as fast but less consumpting my power? Or is it the best way to upgrade the system in speed? Which drives do you all use?

@Melkor: Which bios did you install?  I'm curious now of how you are seeing the full 4 GB in an e1705 machine (and yes, it would be the bios).

As far as HDD, it's the trade-off you always have to battle: Speed using more power, or less speed to save the power. THere is no magic wand...

Except, if you fork out for an SSD drive.  Much less power usage, with the best speed.  If you can wait until next summer, the prices will be about 1.5 times that of standard HDDs.  By 2010, they should be about 1.2.  But, they are costly now.

If you want to meet 1/2 way, look for some 5400rpm drives that are larger than 200 MB from just about any manufacturer.  You'll get the newer platters that use less power, with 16MB buffer or larger (32MB perhaps?).  Will be a vast improvement of what you got now, but not as fast as the 7200rpm drives.

@Melkor: Whoa, I see the SSDs have dropped a LOT!

http://www.pricewatch.com/hard_removable_drives/ssd_64gb.htm

$260 for a 64 GB drive.  I just read a comparison, and the current highend 10,000rpm desktop drives barely beat out the OCZ Core Series there in that list - meaning it's fast!  The problem is the drive uses a standard SATA connector, unlike our laptop hdds.  Why must we pay double the cost for just a different interface?  

Let me give my contact at OCZ a call...

How about lifetime with those SSDs? Somewhere I read they should only endure 10.000 writings and than be gone forever. Maybe rubish, but who knows exactly? I'm not willing to pay that much money for a drive which might brake down after a year or two. Although it's a really interesting imagination to have a SSD. But the prices aren't yet in a range I'm going to spend for such a thing (regarding the price per GB) - surely in some few years. Untill than I'm gonna use a conventional HDD. But nevertheless keep us informed about that connector thingy. Why not keeping an eye on the affaire?

I meanwhile choose a SAMSUNG SpinPoint M5S. Lesser rpm but lesser power consumption and noise. And nearly as fast as the Hitachi. Won several HDD tests.

This blog inspired me. I've since opened up my laptop for the first time, upgraded the ram and added a new keyboard, with big plans for a new graphics card. Thank you :)

hi eric,

Love your website. you inspired me to open up my laptop. Question for ya. Officially, dell says my motherboard can only support a  100 gb hard drive. is that true? i would love to upgrade my hard drive and get more space.

thanks

mark

dell inspiron 9400. 2gb memory i am going to try to put more inside thanks to you

A09 bios version  

@Mark Rose: I do not believe that is true.  Just like the max ram is 2GB, that is not true.  

But to be sure, I'd ask/search within this forum: http://www.notebookforums.com/forum153.html

thanks eric,

this is all so confusing. i posted a question on that forum we will see what replies i get

peace

@ This Beautiful Thread

I've read everything on your mod and i'm very excited! I've had issues springing up with my Dell e1705 regarding Hardware Failure, memory parity error.

After researching this error i've come to the conclusion that there's 2 possibilities.

1) My Geforce 7900 GS is inheirently bad/causing massive overheating problems.

2) My power is leaking and affecting parts of the system.

Apparently someone used a multi volt checker on the screws under the laptop and found voltage leaking out. I havent tested mine yet but I have taken mine apart to change out my keyboard.

The question I suppose I have now is about your foil usage regarding heat conduction with Artic Silver and how exactly you did it. I see the picture but it's a bit far away and you say it's thin. What brand/ type of foil are you using? How did you tape it up? I'm always nervous when I begin to modify any system, but I can't live with this error and perhaps this upgrade with the added Artic Silver and new GFX card will resolve my issues.

/Best

Curtis

@Curtis: Thanks for the compliment.  :)  Sorry to hear of your hardware issues.  Things like that are always hard to find.  "Power leaking"?  Even the human body has a slight negative charge.  Just haven't heard of that one before.

To your question: I just used any house-hold standard foil.  It really is too think to really transfer any real amount of heat, but it's there in case.  The main reason I used it was to better vent the air exiting the fan directly into the heatsink fins.  There is a very large gap between the two heatsinks (cpu and gpu), and i did not want that air wasted.  I elected to do it with foil for that little bit of extra chance of dissipating the heat from the hottest to the coolest.

As far as what I used to attach it, you can see the scotch tape in the picture.  Just ran it over the edges.  The AS5 keeps it a little sticky and in place as well.

Hope that helps!

Herm, I get the concept (which I think was genius), but it's the practical applications i'm confused about. You made "shrouds" of foil. I'm wondering if you wrapped the end of the heat dispersing copper conducter, or, you just put one piect across the top of both of them (with one side coated with some AS5).

Looking at the picture I really can only see all the scotch tape, it's hard to imagine what it looks like under there. =)

Oh, and here's that story I was talking about, from notebook forums.

http://www.notebookforums.com/thread188600.html

@Curtis: Interesting issue about the grounded prong...  Both my 90w and 150w adapters have the grounded prong, so I do not think I am at risk?  I remember the 65w travel adapter I had at Telligent and it was only two-prong (another 9400 I had there, and a few died).  That would explained why they died.

As for the application of the foil, I have a piece on top with as5 applied where it touches the copper pipes.  I also put a thin strip on the side, because of the big gap there as well.  None is required under the heatsinks as both omy heatsinks were almost touching the bottom of the case.  I actually bent my GPU copper pipe to get the heatsink to sit all the way down on the plastic case - therefore sealing the "under" area.  I guess I coul dhave install a small piece of felt under the heatsinks to better control any millimeter air-gap at the bottm - but it's pretty flush so I didn't see a need.

Just a word back to the hard drive I wrote about above:

I meanwhile bought a Samsung Spinpoint M5S 250GB 12ms/8MP/5400 rpm.

Althought the mentioned Hitachhi Travelstar 7K200 200GB 10ms/16MB/7200rpm has way better data the power consumption of the Samsung is way fewer. The difference to my former HDD you can "feel" and see every moment and the 9cell akku still endures 1 hour 45 mins (with standard balanced energy mode). Additionally the Spinpoint is really very silent, I don't hear anything even when using the drive intensively (e.g. defrag, virus scan and so on). Finally I read quite a handful of feedbacks within which people first wrote how outstanding the Travelstar is and what a huge performance upgrade it provides - but after few weeks or months there is an additional comment that the Hitachi drive simply and without any annoucment refused to work. It simply crashed an needed to be replaced. First I thought, ok, such things happen occasionally. But than those reports got more and more.

Well, now with the Spinpoint (at least at the moment) everything is fine, Windows Vista gives me 5.3 points for it an I no longer have the feeling that the hard drive slows down the entire system. And the Spinpoint costed 2/3 of the Travelstar, no heat problems at all, no vibrations or whatever. I really can recommend it! Those who need high end performance should maybe choose the Hitachi (or buy a SSD) but those who just seek for an upgrade and don't want to loose mobility and therefore gain loudness and vibrations are best served with it.

One additional quastion I got (sry for extra post...!):

You alle surely use CL4 RAM? I wasn't that intelligent when upgrading my system from 2GB to 4GB using CL5 RAM... :/ So I think about changing that again.

Is there a "feelable" effect? What's the Vista Index for CL4 RAM?

WOW! I've just read this entire thread and am superbly impressed with it all. I'm a VERY big laptop noobie in my opinion, only changing the keyboard once. I've had an M1710 for about 2 years now, and recently flashed my 7950 go gtx to unlock it. So I've been experimenting with ocing it, getting about 15% boosts in preformance, but find that I really should get the heatsinks cleaned and probably use AS5 to get my idle temps down.

I was curious if you guys could offer me any advice (plus being that the E1705 is very similar to it) on what needs to be removed etc. I'm not freaked out about the LCD removal or keyboard, but mostly the general top of the laptop, how to reconnect those antennae leads to the wifi card once I get them off, and when I get to the gpu and cpu how I should be putting AS5 on once I get down there.

Also my HDD has been getting frequent bad sectors and I think it's because it idles (the Hard disk) at 42C. Any advice?

Thanks a shamillion!!

Matchbox from canada,

m1710 T7600 (idle 50C)

2gb ram

7200rpm hitachi

7950 go gtx (idle 62C)

@Melkor: To be honest, I have no idea which CL4 or CL5 I have.  I just made sure to get 667mhz.  Either would work, but it's the bios that will set the timings.  CL4 isn't that much more than CL5 to begin with, so spend the extra $10.

@Matchbox from Canada: Those HDD temps aren't bad.  If you are getting bad sectors, it's time for a new HDD.  You can format, which will skip those bad sectors (sometimes); but, the drive is degrading.  Take a look at Melkor's HDD he just bought a few comments above yours.

As for what needs to be removed (upper part), it's no biggie.  It's why I took the photos above.  Also, the Dell repair manual I linked to in the original post has very detailed instructions.  I just made a post about the extra bits that the manual doesn't go too much into detail for.

Good luck!  It really is a piece of cake.

Hello Eric,

The screen on my 9400 went black on me yesterday and after poking around online I found this page.  I have little to know experience poking around in laptops so I was a little wary, and I've always been more software oriented.  

I still get no video with my comp so I am assuming it's my video card thats gone bad the screen lights up but I get nothing displayed.  

Do I need to know anything particular about picking up a new video card for a laptop or will basically anything do?

@Jason: Can you connect an LCD/monitor to the external port?  If so, it may not be the card but the back lighting of the LCD itself.

As far as opening up the laptop, it does not require previous electrics experience.  But instead, a steady-as-she-goes approach to one little thing at a time, very carefully, knowing that things can easily snap and break - except the Keyboard cover above in the forth pic.  That was scary - prying and pulling on that piece of plastic that felt like it was going to break.  But, I wanted to blog about it because it did not.  You just have to be a little forceful.  

The only other area of concern is the ribbon cables (tightly packed thin film-like cables) that connect the keyboard/trackpad and the LCD to your motherboard.  

Besides those concerns, anyone that has held a screw driver can handle all repairs to the laptop.

I unfortunately don't have an LCD at my disposal and recently moved to Japan so my resources are limited as I don't know anyone around here.

Would hooking it up to my TV work as well?  I have tried that using an S-Video cable as that was my only option but it does have the ports to connect the tv with a monitor cable as well.  So prehaps I'll buy the appropriate cable tonight to see.

Using your guide I already opened it up and took a look at things but all I could really do was clean it out and the problem still persisted after reassembly.

The screen does light up to a nice dark grey would that mean the backlight is still working?

@Jason: Ah, you can see the screen, very faintly?  Like it is extremely dim?  Yeha, most likely the backlight went out - a new LCD replacement is what you'd need.

You can actually buy broken 1705s on eBay, but the shipping to Jpn would be a bit high...  May be time for a new lappy, unless you can get one cheap and shipped cheaply.

So you think its the back light?  I can tell there is a faint light but I can't actually make out anything on screen.  As far as I can tell everything is working fine.  Harddrive internal fans etc all run but I get no sound, though on occasion (not every time) the computer makes two quick beeps.  I'm not up to snuff on notebook parts but are they made specific for models or would I be able to supplant an LCD from another model onto mine or at the least cannabalize another LCD for parts?

Hi Erick.

First of all want to thank you for all your info on this video upgrade adventure.

I just upgraded to 4 gigs of ram...waiting on my Quadro fx2500 to arrive.

The question i have is on the DELL PA15 Power Adapter ADP-15...i have search for one compatable to the I9400 but they all say it applies to the 9100 series ...is this the right adaptor???

http://cgi.ebay.com/Original-DELL-PA15-Power-Adapter-ADP-150EB-PA-1151-06D_W0QQitemZ380065747838QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item380065747838&_trkparms=72%3A1208|39%3A1|66%3A2|65%3A12|240%3A1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

thank you for your time.

cheers

kruz

@Kruz: Yep, that is the correct adapter.

Thank you Eric.

Ill let you how i make out with my upgrade.

Take care

Upgraded to a 7900GTX and a faster processor.  The 7900 crapped out after a month and the guy who sold it to me on eBay offered to replace it with an Quadro 1600m (he had no more 7900s).  I checked out the specs and it looks good.  I know it's not a gaming card, but since I was 15 days past his return period, I figure I'm lucky to get anything.  I'll let you know once it's installed how it performs compared to the 7900GTX.  

Also, I'm curious about the RAM issue.  I added another GB about a year ago (total 2GB) and I see that someone on here upgraded to 4GB.  Can someone who is successfully using 4GB post the E1705 BIOS revision you are using please?  Thanks.

@Tony: The 1600m is far different than the 2600m, mostly the memory (256 vs 512) if i recall.  There are also core and memory speeds.

As for 4 GB of ram, I have it installed - but like the 1710 that "supports" 4 GB officially by Dell, the same response comes out of it.

@Tony: The 1600m is far different than the 2600m, mostly the memory (256 vs 512) if i recall.  There are also core and memory speeds.

As for 4 GB of ram, I have it installed - but like the 1710 that "supports" 4 GB officially by Dell, the same response comes out of it.

Thanks.  I really have no need for more RAM at the moment.  Even with my IDE, an app server, a browser, and usually many other things running I rarely go over the 2GB I have. But it's nice to know that I can upgrade - even if it's not officially supported.  

I've never had a 2600m.  I had a 7900GTX, which died, so I'm just hoping that the 1600m that is replacing it is at least as good as the 7900GTX.  We'll see when I install it tomorrow.  

The 1600m scores pretty well on 3DMark06 compared to the 7900GTX, but the fact that it is not optimized for games becomes pretty apparent whe nI tried to play Bioschock.  My 7900GTX was great at high detail, but the 1600m is a little choppy and not really playable at high detail.  Even at medium detail it's still not as smooth as the 7900GTX.

Hey Eric, thanks for the excellent guide.  My E1705's video card recently died, and I am thinking of using it as an opportunity to upgrade.  Of course, all you can find out there now is refurbs, which makes me a bit nervous.  At any rate, I have read elsewhere that you must have the 9 cell battery for the upgrade to the fx2500 to work.  Is that true?  I rarely use my 1705 on battery power, so the 6 cell works fine for me.  Can I do this upgrade without changing batteries?

@Tony: Actually, I have the 7900GTX core in my FX 2600m Quatro card (see my original post waaaay above).  Yeah, 512 MB on the card doesn't do well for Bioshock.  But it's far better than the ATI card, and one-ups the 1600m cards.

@Rich: Refurbs are fine, as it is what I got.  But be warned that several of them have died very quickly, or were INOP when tey arrived.  So, make sure you can return the card to the vendor, and test it immediately when your card arrives.  So you are not stuck with a time limit to return it.

As for needing a 9 cell battery; nope, it is not needed.  As a matter of fact, I usually use my 6-cell around the house as it is much lighter (and I rather have the 6-cell die out from over-use, as most lappy batteries do).  The 9-cell is needed if you want to do any type of animation or graphics, as the extra wattage will be needed.  I.e., do not play any games on the 6-cell.  Besides, it would only last 5 to 10m too.

Hi eric i recently upgraded my ati x1400 to the nvdia 7900 which after reading your post seems pretty pointless. Im fairly happy with the performance of the card as i can run crysis on medium with no lag. i wondered if upgrading the ram really makes much difference in high quality games like crysis. I currently have 2gb of ram and can find the 4gb sets for as little as $70 i have the money but is it really worth it??? Also would overclocking be advised???

@Daabaa: Actually, going from the ATI x1400 to a 7900 is a big improvement in 3D performance.  Yes, it was worth it (depending on what you paid for the card).

As for 4gb vs 2gb, I know my Battlefield 2 and 2142 games used over 1.5 GB of ram, with all graphics turned up at high resolution.  My Vista idles around 700 to 800 GB in use, so that would put me over the 2GB limit.  For me, it was worth it.  

If you are running XP, sitting around 128 to 200 MB in use - it may not be.

If you plan on upgrading to Vista or running Windows 7, I'd recommend it.  My next laptop will have 8 GB, just to let you know what I am planning on (virtual machines).

Ok cool thanks for your help im very impressed with my machine as i payed a bargain price for it and it came with vista!!! So would it still be worth it if i can only use 3.2 gb of the ram. Does it make a sizable differance for gaming???

@Daabaa: To each his own.  Depends on the game and the level of details.  Really, it all depends.  Games will adapt - but since I am a developer, I use the extra ram in other areas.

If for example i was playing crysis would i be able to put the game up one detail level?

@Daabaa: Crysis is a serious memory hog.  It is not really how much more detail, but how smooth the gameplay is.  Yes, upgrade to 4gb if you are playing Crysis (I still need to download that again, never had the room - until now).  :)

Ok so im definately going to do the memory upgrade. Will i be able to fit this memory in the notebook:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/KINGSTON-HYPERX-PC6400-DDR2-800-4GB-2-x-2GB-RAM-MEMORY_W0QQitemZ260292767827QQihZ016QQcategoryZ172QQcmdZViewItem?refid=store

Cheers; if not what other high performance ram will fit in???

@Daabaa: That link is to memory for a Desktop, not laptop.  What you want to search on is "DDR2 SO-DIMM".  A link for here in the states is:

http://www.pricewatch.com/system_memory/so-dimm_ddr2_pc2-5300_4gb_kit.htm

The e1705 only supports up to 667mhz for memory.  There is 400, 533, and 667mhz versions of the soo-dimm chips.  So, you would want the 667 versions.  

so what would be the best ram i could get that is compatable?

@Daabaa: I cannot get into a "whie brand is better" debate, as I have had highend memory go bad, and generic memory last 10+ years.

Just stick to the highest PC2-XX00 number you can find, at 667mhz.  

I have PC2-5400 667mhz modules in mine.

ok thanks for your help?!?!!?

I've the inspiron9400, and I upgraded to 4GB 667mhz and quadro fx2500, the first one crashed when i tried to boot into windows, then I exchange another one, it worked fine in the first week, then it crashed all of a sudden then end up with a blue screen saying "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA"

Is it cause by the faulty video card?

Works fine when I switch back to my old 7900gs.

Should I ask for refund?

@Alan: I replied to your email, since you gave a lot more detail there.  :)

In short, I am thinking it is the video drivers you were using.  But the memory issue report does point to the memory.  Maybe even the mobo going out.

Certainly, my Email is "alanccfu@gmail.com"

So you think it might also be my mobo? OMG....

I hope not.... :(

Any kind of help will be good for me now.

Thanks a lot~

@Alan: I'm sorry.  I got an email yesterday morning from a "Rich" with almost the exact problem you specified.  I thought that was you?  Contact me through the Who am I link at the top.  Sorry about that.

I notice there's spaces before and after "@"

should I ignor the space on your email?

Hello

I would like to know or I can find the graphics card for LED M90 PRECISION (Nvidia FX2500m) thank you

Do you know if the GeForce 9800M GT SLI fits or is it limited to the 7000 series.

@Tete: Most of us found ours on eBay.

@JR: I believe it would not fit, but check out notebookforums.com.  They stay on top of the latest tech.

@Alan: Ignore spaces.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Samsung-4GB-DDR2-800Mhz-PC2-6400-2x-2GB-SODIMM-4-GB-KIT_W0QQitemZ130268453892QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item130268453892&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318 will this fit in?

@daabaa: Yes, they will "fit".  But, it is reported that the highest the BIOS will run memory is 667 (based on the embedded SPD of the memory chips themselves).  

While it is optimum to run an 800mhz FSB on the CPU, with 800mhz memory (1:1 ratio), I do not think the 1705 series will do 800mhz.

I could be completely wrong, and it may actually do that!  If so, I will be upgrading myself.  :)

The good news is if you buy it, you'll have 800mhz memory for your next laptop if it doesn't work at 800mhz in the 1705.

I finally got my replacement for the FX2500 from ebay seller and installed it and its working great...

Thanks Erick for the great tutorial and quick responses.

respects

kruz

@Kruz: Great to hear man!

@Everyone: Over the last 6 months, I relocated to NYC and have been so overwhelmed that I have not even started a game what-so-ever.  Recently, my almost-2yrs old install of Vista x86 was going good - but not as good as my Vista x64 I had on my work laptop.  I've really enjoyed Vista x64's performance and even the program restrictions, preventing me from "bloating" my machine.

So this week, I formatted and went to Vista x64 on this particular laptop.  I have time to settle back into the ways-of-things, so for the first time I installed CoD4's Demo (yeah, I'm late to the game).  Whoa...  It plays VERY nice!  I upped the graphics to 1920x1200, but didn't really touch on any other details.  It is still very smooth.  Not sure on the framerate, but it is at least 30fps-smooth at 1920x1200.

This card/laptop looks like it will live on for a good while longer, as I was debating on building another desktop.  Guess I'll hold off on that until next year for a 2009 tax deduction.  :)

hey there,

i purchased a dell xps1710 a year ago and guess wat one fine day while playing a movie it gave a driver error and then after that graphics went completely bad. Tried to check online some other people faced the same problem and concluded that might have to buy a new graphics card. Now the thing is if i buy the current graphics card which is there in the laptop ie nvidia GEforce Go 7950 gtc with 512mb i might have shell out almost $500 so i thought if i could actually put a lower end graphics card like ATI readeon mobility x1400. It would be cheaper. What do you reckon is it a good idea. Besides that do you know where can i buy it from. Coz i tried to find the same on the ati's website but am unable to find the price and also a link that might lead me to the puchase. Or i will have to buy it from dell itself.

Btw i only use it for watching the movies.

A quick search on eBay for "ATI x1400" brings up a good listing of them for about $65 to $90.

I'll raise my hand if u want to help out the guy who wrote the blog post.  :)  Mine is the 256mb version, so u can run Vista with Areo enabled.  $75.  Email: eric -at- eduncan911.com

I purchased the E1705 with the 7900GS for a modest upgrade in price. I really like the AS5 idea. I plan on pulling apart my machine to add that. Has anyone messed with 4-4-4-12 timings with 4GB of DDR2 667MHz.

I just finished re-doing the thermal grease (believe me its easy!) and this is the result:

Original Idle Temp: 140+ degrees F

New Idle Temp: 93 degrees F

What a difference! Also, I am looking at upgrading to the same 4Gb DDR2 (PC2-5300) 667MHz RAM at 4-4-4-12 timings, is this any better than 5-5-5-? The price is about the same for both ($50, thank-you newegg) but I want to make sure I get the best bang for the buck, any ideas?

Wow.  That is impressive, and makes me want to think about pulling mine apart again just to do the GPU.

As for the mem, there are hacks out there to adjust the timings in the bios.  But you can't hurt sticking in lower-timings in a mobo that will do 5-5-5-xx.  I say go with the 4-4-4-12.

I know, i was pretty amazed with the results, I mean all I did was clean out the dust, re-do the thermal grease, and attach your "airflow tunnel" and wow, what a difference! On a side note, I've had my E1705 for just over a year and a half, and since I bought I've been looking at upgrading the processor and RAM. I have the 2Ghz processor and 2Gbs of RAM, and I finally started looking around for RAM and a processor, and I'm happy to say that the 2.16Ghz processor is down to about $170 on ebay (as supposed to about $600 a few months ago) and 4Gbs of RAM are down to $50! I've got to say, this laptop is amazing!!! I have to say though, I am really happy I found this site, I've learned a lot about how this thing works! Thanks!

Great to hear Adam!

I've been looking for an article on replacing the CPU fan on my Dell Inspiron 9400/1705, as it has stopped working after 15 months use, and came across this article from Eric.

Since I only plan on replacing the CPU fan, as the graphics card fan still works fine, do I need to remove the Wi-Fi card and the LCD screen, or can I get away with just removing the keyboard, palm rest and the outer case?

@Rsaeire: I believe you will need to remove everything (wifi cables and LCD and all, just like we did above) in order to get to the fan.  Since the upper case cannot be removed until the LCD is removed.

To be sure, reference the actual Dell manual for your laptop: http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/my_systems_info/en/manuals?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

@Eric - Thank you for the reply.

I had looked through the service manual for the 9400 and was hoping that their recommendations to remove the display assembly  were not necessary; unfortunately it seems that I was mistaken.

Thank you again for the reply.

Hi everyone, I also have an Inspiron E1705 with a bad Nvidia Geforce Go 7900GS. I've tried to find a replacement for this card and they are no where to be found. There are actually some on ebay for about 300+ which seems to be very high to me. Can anyone refer me to a place where I can get this card for a reasonable price?

Eric: Do you still have that X1400? If I can't find the 7900GS or the FX2500, I'll get the X1400 from you.

Thanks. BTW, this is a great site. I really appreciate the effort to keep it up running.

LTRAN

@LTRAN: Yes, I still have it.  Hit the contact me at the top.

Hi Eric,

How much of a downgrade is it to go from the 7900GS to the X1400? I don't do any gaming, but just general purpose programs, somem photo editing with photoshop and some CAD work (Autocad...) I'm just trying to justify spending $300 for a refurbish 7900 card that could die again.

Thanks

@LTRAN: For the standard programs, you don't see a difference.  The 256mb version I have supports up to like 2200x1900 resolutions.

But, there will be a discrease in performance for AutoCAD - you bet.  

@Eric: Sent you an email.

Is the Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 the fastest processor the E1705 will handle?

@Adam: I believe T7600 is the fastest processor the E1705 can handle.

@Eric: Just wanna tell you that I finally got my f2500 to work after 3 cards! It renders so much faster than my old 7900GS, thank you for much for this wonderful site!!

@Adam, yeah man, unfortunately it won't take anything other than a socket M 667 FSB cpu. The last one made by intel was the T7600

HOWEVER, if you find a modded bios, you can force flash so you're bios will allow overclocking, then buy a T7600G with an unlocked multiplier. I just did that recently.

@Eric and everyone.

Thanks so much for your original encouragement, I've opened up a total of 8 laptops in my life :P and this was by far the EASIEST one ever (I was expecting lots of difficulties, none at all.) So easy, I'm totally at ease with it. I was able to change out the fans with faster ones, changed the paste, and installed a new super small 5Volt fan via USB inside the laptop for better cooling. I even made my own laptop cooler (the ones to buy all don't blow enough air) to blow air through the vent for ram (which I took off and installed another heatsink)

I'm stuck with what to do about this thermal pad for my northbridge (it actually seems to be a bottleneck) though, and I couldn't get into my gcard cause it needs a torx bit. I'll see about dealing with both those things when my website is up and when I have more time (being a student :P, the website is going to be about mostly turning m1710's into overclocking machines, unheard of for laptops :P. )

...The mobo can support only the dx9 cards btw guys, I tried a dx10, but even though it boots it works like crap (cause unlike a 'regular' pc bios, this one will only detect any other vcard other than ones with a dell somewhere in their bios as some random vga card.) I tried, it didn't work...frown. Plus it messes with the LCD brightness big time (probably a bios issue)

ANYWAYS!

My temperatures were pretty high, and now with overclocking even the temps are freaking lower.

See here if you'd like my super high clocks & low temps with the M1710.

http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/5696/highestocsuw3.png

The motherboard and everything is IDENTICAL to the Inspiron, except for the BIOS, I wouldn't see why a forced flash wouldn't work for people to get T7600G cpus and overclock for better preformance. Hell you might even be able to get the lights in it :P Not the touchpad one though more than likely.

If anyone's interested in 'those' cpus, I can help you find them, even though they are rare, it's easier to find overseas (and a lot cheaper then getting them from Dell, 300 bucks as opposed to 1600 :O )What might help you is the sSpec of the cpus. Which is.....SL9U5. Intel won't have it on their website, but it exists, hell I think there might be one on ebay even (which is frankly very rare since I looked for this thing for almost a year straight and used a lot of coffee up doin it.)

So thank you Eric for the earlier encouragements! :)

My question to you guys...what should I use to replace the purple northbridge (co-processor) thermal pad? A better one? AS5? (Which I have there now...but seems to still be too hot), put in another little fan? or adding metal to the heatsink to make up for space (like folded aluminum foil with AS5 on everyfold). Could a different BIOS possibly allow better fan control for it?

BTW!! For anyone wishing to force flash, or with m1710's already. If you overclock, your fans will AUTOMATICALLY go to maximum, 4600RPM, which is great, because using RM Clock you can make it go slower and get even better stock speed cooling. Plus it boots in about 20 seconds.

Thanks again guys! Hope to hear input! ;)

And yes, I need to update my video drivers...I've been using 84.69 for....tooo long.

Cyas guys! I need sleep :)

@Matchbox:  Excellent post (and man, I need to revamp my site - these blog comments look ugly).

Yes, please do setup that website!  While I most likely won't be upgrading the cpu or overclocking, I am sure there are plenty out there that want to.

To answer your question about the Northbridge, yeah I want something to fill that gap.  If you did not fill the gap between the chip and the heatsink, and simply put a glob of AS5 on it, that is not efficent.  AS5 works best with a film of 0.05" spread (yes, extremely thin).  Any more allows for micro air pockets that do not transfer heat.  As for taking up the space between the NB and the heatsink, I would advise against that and look into bending the heat pipe to force the heatsink directly onto the chip, allowing for a thin film of AS5.  Can't get any better than that (except a custom heatsink and fan, if you are willing).

In terms of rather its worth the effort (hacking the bios, overclocking the cpu, etc), it is well known in the overclocking world that Intel, and especially the Core series, all respond to higher FSB speeds than clock speeds.  Your screenshots show you operating at a 667Mhz FSB (stock speed), but a 19x multiplier (nice!) to get the 3.1Ghz speed.  But with the FSB at 667, that's still a bottleneck for performance.

I saw this personally with my own rig:  I was running a Pentium D @ 4.6Ghz at 1066Mhz FSB with ram 1:1.  When I switched to 4.1Ghz but the FSB at 1250Mhz, with ram at 1250Mhz, I got much higher FPS in games, about 15% improvement in cpu tests, and so on.  

I'd say you have taken a great laptop to the extreme!  But until I build another desktop machine, I aint touching my one-and-only personal machine I have - the 1705.  :)

Make that website!

8700m   NVidia???

@Ryan: Nope.

@Eric and Ryan: Actually the FX1600 which is a 8700m is working in the 1710 so i think it'll work also in the 1705/9400.

@SPeter.

The FX1600m works!! Are you totally sure? The motherboard would detect it but I would think that the custom dell bios wouldn't allow very good control over it (or much preformance at that).

MAYBE. The Bioses of the two are NOT the same. However, the motherboards themselves are completely identical in every way that I've seen (Hell the plugs for extra LED lights are even in the 1705 mobo, proving it's the exact match for the m1710.)

I'm not 100% sure about the 1705/9400. I tried it on a 1710. The BIOS didn't detect the cards name, but it was possible to install the driver and even the brightness control from the keyboard worked. But search about this on notebookforums.com

So is it possible to flash the e1705 with the m1710 bios? I just bought an unlocked multiplier t7600 and would like to overclock it but am not sure where to start, can someone help me out? I have the e1705, but I'm trying to get the performance of the m1710. Thanks in advance.

ack... I really hope this is posting and not repeating a billion times...

AHHA that's why.

It wasn't posting before cause it's SOOO huge :P.

@ Erik

I can do that max overclock, but only in short bursts of a minute. Otherwise the thing just straight up dies while on both cores. The highest stable clock I can get is 3ghz really. However, the FSB is a limiting factor, and since dell has kindly locked me out of that option, and I have tried software based ocing to no avail...it seems I'm out of options. I can take a look inside again to see if there's a readable pll module in there to read and hopefully fsbsoft or cpucool have been updated enough to allow me to adjust them :D. The motherboard says FOXCONN everywhere though, so at least we have a grim idea about it's true maker. Along with on the heat sink for the cpu as well.

I have already got the small fan in there blowing below the video card and pulling air from the space in the battery bay. Along with taking that thermal pad and using thermal paste to put the northbridge heat sink in contact with the heatpipe for the video card. It seems to have helped a fair bit, but can't wait to get some copper shims in there instead, huge improvement over what I have I'm sure :P.

@SPeter,

Yes they did get it working I was on those forums, it's unfortunate though cause apparently it still really hasn't 'worked' persay. It can display stuff, but brightness control isn't working well and it's still shown as an unknown video card in windows. Plus according to the benchmarks, unless you REALLY want DX10, it's kind of pointless cause it preforms slightly worse than a stock 7950 go gtx. It's kind of like getting an FX3500M, it's the same preformance as a go 7950, it just has the CAD certification crap.

Now, if I could get an FX 3600M working in my lappy, with a bigger power brick too...probably in the 180 200 range, i'd be effing good to go. However, don't know if there's a type that'll fit, and even if it did, the fans might not be good enough, plus hell the bios might still be too limited to allow full control just like the quadro fx1600m senario. If you go on notebookforums and talk to zzpulp, he's very very, very experienced with mobile video cards, so he'd be the man to talk to about it.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-Quadro-FX-3600M.8834.0.html

@Adam

Well, the motherboard is identical (the plugs for some models aren't actually there apparently, but the places to solder them on are). If you could get the right diagonostics on there :P and if you could force flash a m1710 bios onto your lappy, it would MAYBE work. I'm saying that because they look identical, but it would be difficult to say without seeing how they make it for absolute sure, but if I were a betting man, and I am, I'd say to save money they are the exact same board.

The problem is of course, an E1705 bios won't open up any multipliers for you, and without bios support, even using software to overclock the multiplier won't work. The M1710 bios at A03 revision or higher can do it. I would love to know how to force flash a motherboard, I've looked for some third party stuff but haven't found very much :( . Plus, dell (and most companies) have their bioses on the web bundled with the flasher itself. If there was a switch you could use in the flasher to tell it in dos to force a flash even if there's a mismatch, it might be doable. Otherwise, I don't know how you're gonna peel the bios out of the exe, and then get some other flasher program to do the dirty deed. Of course, this is presuming it works at all. If it didn't, you'd be left with a piece of worthless motherboard, unless you unsoldered the cmos chip and soldered a new one on :P (VERY unlikely). However, I'm fairly confident it would work if it were forced. They look exactly the same to me, the m1710 and e1705 mobos. I may be flashing my motherboard soon (I'm not scared, I still have my warranty :P ), so I can see if there's an option to force a flash or not.

The only other way, and this is true of an unlocked multiplier t7600, to overclock is to adjust the front side bus frequency. I myself, have tried, relentlessly until I finally just bought an unlocked cpu. I'll eventually be going back into my lappy, so I'll see if maybe it's possible nowadays (6 months later, if they updated some plls, it's mostly for desktops though :(  

The programs you can try are CPUcool and softFSB or which I know. You need to know the pll module and the motherboard maker......unfortunately all I know right now is that possibly FOXCONN makes the motherboard. It won't hurt your computer if you try looking for settings and seeing if the laptop can be read at different frequencies. If you find one that reads, 166mhz, you're probably in luck, otherwise your not. If you try adjusting the fsb blindly, it most likely will cause a lock up and a forced reboot. Worst case scenario, you're computer will die, or die after a couple days because something exceeded it's limit and just hangs in there for that long :P . (Woe to my video memory. :P )

Otherwise, there's a billion and two people looking for those T7600Gs or life. They are ususally found overseas (for me at least, got mine from the uk from a site called ultratecdirect I believe...can't remember). Since most people don't know that, nor the proper way of finding them (Type the sSpec Intel Cpu ID in google "SL9U5" is the T7600G unlocked ;)   ),

http://www.cpu-world.com/sspec/SL/SL9U5.html

that is 'most' people, I suggest you sell it on ebay in the worst scenario. I honestly think you would make upwards of 400-600 us dollars from it, if not more, so if you bought it for 405 Canadian like me :P You'd actually make money. That is, if you give up on force flashing, research it a little, and know the risks, a worthless motherboard. I'd start by downloading the A03 bios .exe from dell and looking for stuff to take it apart.

Also so you know, getting a gpu upgrade is much better for gaming. My 'overclock' only gets me an additional 6-8 fps before it begins throttling on me (not as much as it did at first however) however at stock 2.33, with my core at 680mhz, I get some rediculous increases, upwards of 25-30 (especially battlefield 2, demo :P I play that shit all the time.) Either that or you can overclock you gpu, but again this involves flashing which I 'can' help you with.....but it IS a little bit tricky, and can have the same effect of rendering your laptop as a useless piece of &%$#%$^&er. (try to imagine <-- :P) But preformance will benefit a shatload more than a gpu upgrade. Unless your cpu is throttling below 2 ghz, it's the gpu that's the bottleneck.

@ Anyone who wants an FYI.

And to everyone on that note, I believe that in speedfan when you are running temps, that the DIMM sensor it finds is NOT your memory, but in fact is the memory on the video card. It increases at the same rate as the gpu core pretty much exactly when I watched the graphs, and seems to be responsible for a lot of the throttling of the cpu, Temp4 sensor seems to be my actual DDR2 ram. Northbridge I am still unsure...if it's even there at all. Hopefully it's not DIMM after all :P. I'll find out eventually when I bring this thing to school.

With the mods I've done, it does not throttle in games below 2.5 - 2.66 range, before it was throttling even at stock 2.33ghz to my horror. It's still a preformance nightmare though. It will sometimes throttle on me down to 266mhz, however I found that by setting a throttle preset in RM Clock, I can actually get it to stay at about 1.6Ghz without throttling no matter what (till the point it'll freeze and explode if I wanted, it won't stop till the TM1 sensor is tripped, so I have to be careful at that setting). Also, a benefit of the M1710 bios is that when you overclock to 3.16ghz, the fans will go to full, and then you can use RM Clock to reduce the clock speed, so you have a very cool system with all clock speeds available to you. 'Tis How I got my rediculous 27C idle for my cpu (Running at 700Mhz, lowest voltages 0.9475Volts, and a 20C room :P)

Hopefully that helps with you guys.

@Erik...again

Oh and here's the website I'm starting soon, It's mediocrely thrown together, might do more this weekend if I'm not in piles of homework and calculus :S.

http://web.unbc.ca/~prior/m1715/index.html

PS!!!!!!T! haha, @ Erik, I don't know THAT much about HTML, sooooo how did you get this forum thinger working? It seems pretty basic, and I'd love to know how you made it so I can give my website one at some point in life :) .

@Adam

Haha, need to fix this, where I said...

"But preformance will benefit a shatload more than a gpu upgrade."

I 'meant' that preformance will benefit more from overclocking the gpu, RATHER than overclocking the CPU, unless it's throttling to less than 2 Ghz.

@ SPeter

@SPeter,

Yes they did get it working I was on those forums, it's unfortunate though cause apparently it still really hasn't 'worked' persay. It can display stuff, but brightness control isn't working well and it's still shown as an unknown video card in windows. Plus according to the benchmarks, unless you REALLY want DX10, it's kind of pointless cause it preforms slightly worse than a stock 7950 go gtx. It's kind of like getting an FX3500M, it's the same preformance as a go 7950, it just has the CAD certification crap.

/quote

I stand corrected. I was looking in the 3500M thread out of obsession for getting that card working in my laptop. Apparently the FX1600M is buggy, but it DOES work and the bios does semi support it enough to play games and have it be very useable. My bad bud :). It was the 3500M that is having brightness issues and isn't working correctly...to my dismay...meaning the 7950 gtx or FX 3500M /1600M are the best we can do for our little Xpses and their inspiron cousins...until someone hacks the m1710 bios successfully like one man did with the Nvidia 7 go series bioses

Haha Frick I'm tired!! I meant I was looking in the 3600M forums :P and it was the 3600M having issues. Jezz, I'm on crack tonight.

3500M = 7950 go gtx

3600M = 8800M GTS (not GTX cause of a lack of pipelines, only 64 as opposed to 96, huge difference.)

@Matchbox: Awesome posts!  Hehe, the site is cool - but, you can ping me about setting up a blog or forum: eric -at- eduncan911.com.

I really need to overhaul my site, as comments tend to dominate the posts.  I'm working on an asp.net mvc cms as we speak, just for that task.  :)

Eric,

 Amazing website, the best I've seen so far! I love all the detailed information and am seriously considering upgrading to the 3600fx as opposed to the 7950gtx as I orignally wanted. I am going to follow all the steps and have already taken my laptop apart after my 7800 go crapped out. Dell replaced it with a another faulty one for $200, so I had it replaced a third time free of charge. I just wanted to know what the BEST of the BEST video cards are out there for the Inspiron E1705. I know its prob the 3600fx, but I want to make sure I'm future proofing my lappy as long as I'm going to operate on it. Also, do you think its worth upgrading my T2300 processors to T7600? I'm interested in doing so if the performance is worth it.  I truly thank God for people like you who share their knowledge...

Armando

@Matchbox

Thanks for the help on the processor overclocking. I have yet to get the processor, as I just bought it on ebay. The post on ebay said it was an engineering sample of the original T7600 with the multiplier unlocked, I'll take a closer look as soon as i get it. I'm running on the T7200 2.00Ghz processor right now, so if i can sell the new one and just get a normal 2.33ghz T7600 AND save some money, that may be the way to go. I just put in a 7950 GTX card and was thinking about overclocking it, but don't know where to start, I used to overclock my old ATI x1400 with ATI Tool, but that is all I know. Unfortunately this is my main computer, so I'd like to be careful about how I go about these major overhauls... Thanks for the help.

Ok well if you can, send me a bios version of your processor (simply download gpu-z and save the picture, or use print screen) and post the pic somewhere or tell me what it says in bios version since I might have the right bios you'll need to overclock the 7950 go gtx. I'll be putting it up this weekend along with starting my website up. you'll be able to get it at (once it's up)

http://web.unbc.ca/~prior/m1715/

@Armando.

Yes. :)

That is all, just be sure you have the latest bios for your motherboard.

Ok, here is a pic of both GPU-Z and CPU-Z so you can see if you can help me. I appreciate the help!

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj36/Da_Raabi/MyStats.jpg

Hi Eric,

Just to let you know that I have just successfully modded my Ins 9400/E1705 with a FX2500m as per your guide.  Thanks a million for all the useful hints etc.  Boy! what a difference a simple graphics card can make....I bought my E1705 with a GO 7900 GS (215MB) and I thought it was OK!  The FX2500M mod is worth it.  Have installed 4GB and am running XP pro SP3.  Drivers from www.laptopvideo2go.com - great value those guys.  Driver worked perfectly first time - NO artefacts etc etc - NO glitches.  Used Artic Silver 5 and polished my CPU as per your instructions and also filled gaps and did the al foil trick etc.....just perrrrrrfect!  CPU runs at 32 C to 34 C and GPU at 54 C.  Before it was well above these temps - 70-80 C etc etc.  Have ordered the PA-15.  A NEW laptop!  What can i say, but MANY MANY THANKS.

@PerriAR: I love hearing about those with great success.  I know, a new laptop.  

Work bought me the new Apple Macbook Pro 2, the 1066mhz FSB kick-ass machine with a GForce 9600M.  First thing I did was make a 230 GB Bootcamp partition, install Vista x64, and configured it to boot natively in Vista x64 at all times (I never book into OSX).  Games are pretty good, but my 1705 seems to eek it out just a few FPS (and load times!).  So, I still prefer my old 1705 to this new Macbook's hardware.  lol

Thanks for writing back!

Eric,

I have tried to post to Notebookforums.com but it won't allow me to. I am looking for a broken video card with dual heatsinks, or anyone who is just trying to sell the dual heatsinks. I've looked on Ebay to no avial. Can you please tell me where I can go to find dual heatsinks for my 7800 Go video card, as I want to use that along with AS5 to cool my card down and make it last as long as possible.

@Armando

This looks like something.

It's a 7800 with dual heatsinks. Take a peak, and ask the guy for sure if the heatsink is what is seems. Kind of expensive though...

Hi Eric,

Did you remove the heatpad on the north bridge and apply AS5?  or did you just clean the north bridge surface, but keep the heatpad on the heatsink?

Thanks.

Leo

Hi Eric,

Thank you for the guide to replace the graphic card.

The Go 7900 gs card in my Dell was overheated after 2 years.  I just ordered a fx3500 on Ebay.  After installing the new card and turning it on, only black / blank screen came up (not even the blue DELL logo).  I could tell that the lcd was on, and the hdd was reading.

I swapped back with the old card, and it displayed the post screen, with DELL logo, ok.

I checked previous posts, I'm sure the lcd cabe connecting the motherboard is securely attached.

I am using the 90W power adaptor that came with the laptop.  Would that be the reason?  Or do I need to install new firmware for fx3500 before using it?

Any help is appreciated, Thanks a lot!

Leo

@Leo: I tried using AS5 on the northbridge, but there wasn't enough pressure to make me feel confortable.  So, I cleaned it and went back to the sticky pad.

As for the blank screen you are getting - a lot of users get the same thing with bad cards.  Contact who sent it to you on eBay and get another card.  

Yeah, bad cards happen, shame on people who try to pawn them off. Either that or the bios refuses to use it. I don't think a 90W power adaptor would've caused it, but with the extra current that card uses I'd say get a 130 anyways.

@Adam

Do you know how to burn a .iso file image to a cd? If you do, then I've made something that should streamline the video flash process for you.

And if it 'does' work when I post the image, show us your best overclocks eh? :P

Here's mine if you're interested at all.

http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/09/02/02/d7.png

@Adam

And two quick other things...

According to your cpuz, your cpu is running at max voltage. I run at 2.83Ghz on a T7600G at that voltage. If you download rightmark cpu clock utility, and set the voltage down to 0.975V in that program (it will show 1.08V in cpu-z) your temperature will go down by about 10 degrees or so, je te kid not, and it will still run great, if it doesn't, turn the voltage up by a single notch. (.013V). Plus you save power!:)

Also, I know my drivers are a LOT older, but for yours at 175.32...., I'm uncertain if they will allow overclocking. If they don't right now, then it's possible that they won't even with the unlocked bios (driver locked overclocking, I believe anything above drivers 169.04 are useless for overclocking now for mobiles).

If the unlock doesn't work, try downgrading to that driver or a version before and see if it works. That is once I get the iso up on my site. The uni's having issues. And I have to get my drivers up :P.

Thanks, Eric and Matchbox.

I'll return it.

Thanks for the info. Fortunately I dont have to worry about power consumption, as I dont use a battery (it died) and I run at about 100 F most of the time. I'll look at playing with the voltages to see if i can get a little cooler. Thanks again.

Adam

Just wanted to say, that besides you having the coolest last name *>* but your postings here have helped me tremedously.  I had never opened a lappy yet alone try and mod it.  I now sit here with my laptop completely opened up and moddable (word?).  

I was having issues where I would get random BSOD's stating IRQ related errors, and occasionally getting memory dumps and restarts due to this.  I reinstalled XP, which during that process I encountered issues with random files not being able to be copied over per the XP Setup process.  I have tried multiple XP install discs, including one shipped with lappy, same issue.  

I have since desided to unseat and reseat the RAM in hopes that would be the delinquent in the system.  I would have never been able to do any of this before reading this post, so thanks again for everyone who has contributed here!

I will probably upgrade GPU/CPU/RAM together, currently running:

GeForce 7800Go

Processor,80539,YONAH,T2300 1.66

512MB 533MhZ RAM

Thanks again!

kylohre26@hotmail.com

@Matt:  Thanks for the props.

I'd just spend $40 on 4 GB of ram, and the WD HDD mentioned above in the comments for super-quiet and speed (anything is better than the HDDs that come with the systems).

A faster CPU will net you speed under intense apps; but, is it just me or did the T7x00 processors greatly increase in price lately?  I see my T7200 at almost $400.  That doesn't sound right (pricewatch).  Must be a shortage.  

None-the-less, don't spend more than $200 on a CPU.

I have not noticed that, there are plenty of brand new T7600s on ebay for around $250, and the slower processors are significantly cheaper. I bought the Engineering Sample for $250, which as it turns out IS what it was advertised as, so back on ebay THAT goes... Too bad I could not have used it myself! Oh well, but I have yet to see any non-special edition T7xxx processor go for over $300.

@Adam

I've made it very simple for you. Hopefully it works.

I just finished making the boot disk image for my site for others in time, the cd includes a bunch of vbioses that are backups and unlocked ones.

Just go to my website and click in the News pop-up box, it'll be there literally spelt out for you.

http://web.unbc.ca/~prior/m1715/index.html

I don't have time to keep doing the site until reading week, but I should let you know what to do.

Firstly, Burn the .iso image to a cd using any program you want that can do it.

In the hopes that it works, go reboot and boot from it. There's a backup of your bios on the cd, but just incase you want to be that much extra safer, you can save your bios using a program called nvibitor.exe which you can google up. Then just take what you see on the cd directory and copy it to another folder with that bios and burn a new cd, make sure it's bootable. I might be including the tools I used on my next boot disk sometime.

Make sure you're on AC Power.

Now boot the disk, when you're greeted with a menu, select option 2 (emm386 max memory, you'll need the memory at max otherwise the flash will most definately hang).

Now type dir/w at the command prompt and see what you have. Look for a file named 795GTXUN.rom, that's the unlocked bios.

Two other bioses to be aware of is bu.rom which is the .12 bios locked and the 795GTXNN.rom which is the .06 bios locked. Those are backups in case the flash goes horribly wrong.

type nvflash 795gtxun.rom

Make sure it detects your video card, and that the versions of things are the same.

Make sure nvflash says flashing is ok,

press y for confirmation,

pray.

Make sure you see computer lights flashing around.

When it's done it should reboot on it's own.

IF anything here goes wrong, as in the flash doesn't work or it hangs (stops going for more than 20 minutes) then you'll have to either 1) Have a spare card you can use to boot to and then force flash your old card, 2) blind force flash your old card bios back on, 3) buy a new card.

This process can yield lots of gains, but the risk that your card will be killed is also great, so take every procaution.

I've included the Dell A03 bios on here as well, in case you wanted to try flashing your inspiron to be able to use the t7600g. It probably won't even let you flash, and it's a much bigger risk since both boards look identical but you can never be 100% sure unless you watch it being made.

Hope this helps, if something goes wrong, post on here and I'll try to walk you through what you can do to save your card, but this is at your own risk.

Also you should be able to get about 500 bucks for the t7600g on ebay, it's a hot product on there usually, you should set a reserve around thatish.

BTW this was about flashing your video card for overclocking:P. Be careful.

There's bioses on there for the 7800 and 7900 go series too and their backups. Justfyi the bioses weren't made by me, only 795gtxun.rom was tweaked a little by me, I'm running on it now it should work perfectly. There are those two revisions though so make sure everything matches before flashing.

Thanks for the stuff. I'm gonna think long and hard about this, because I dont want to run the risk of turning my computer into a boat anchor. This is my only computer, so if anybody else trys this please let me know how it goes. We shall see...

Well if nvflash shows that everything looks the same it shouldn't be a problem. It's much riskier for force flashing a different card (ie. trying to make a quadro into a geforce) but not AS much if nvflash says go ahead.

Just be sure you're on ac power, have selected max memory (so it doesn't run out of memory midflash) which is an option during bootup, and that you have a warranty in effect :P if you have little morals.

The reason I'm so unkeen about it is because it can ruin your card doing it, I've flashed about 6 times thus far in life, and my first ever attempt caused me to turn my laptop into a piece of shat that couldn't power on. I learned my lesson there (that was NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER flash while in your native os, only from something else that's  like bootable, too much can go wrong in something like winxp doing that:P, this is it's own bootable media though)

But I did flash my video card this way, and it has been working great and I can overclock. Pretty well too.

@Eric

Once I get copper from somewhere or possibly fairly good preformance heatpads I'm going to attempt to lap the gpu, cpu and northbridge heatsinks.

Just wanted to ask, there's these little raised bits of metal in the way where I'm sure heat pads are designed to go. Should I "try" to sand them away? How'd you end up sanding it properly? Also I did get the graphics card apart (it wasn't too painful actually) And was curious about that one too (same outlining raised metal crap in the way of lapping:P)

So far I have gotten my temps fairly low but I'm aiming for 2 degrees C above ambient at idle still :P. quite far from my 10 degrees right now. C not F.

@Matchbox: I "Lap" my heatsinks.  Found this decent link:  http://www.driverheaven.net/guides/lappingheatsink/

If "bits" are in y our way, get rid of 'em.  :)

No go on the nvidia flash. All I got was an invalid command response when I went to flash it. Any ideas?

Invalid, good thing you didn't force flash it.

As I recall, force flashing you type

nvflash.exe (unlockedbioshere).rom -4 -5 -6

A regular flash is

nvflash.exe (unlockedbioshere).rom

Also try typing nvflash.exe --version

That will tell you if it even sees your card.

But the boot disk itself boots? (I'll be quite content if it does) also make SURE you selected option 2 at the boot prompt

@Eric

I've got a couple questions. I have posted a pic of th gpu copper heatsink I have and you can see the rectangle bits I'm talking about which seem to be an indication of where to put a phase pad for techs.

http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/1525/img1002kj6.jpg

you can also see it's scratched to hell.

My question for lapping is, did you just remove them? Exactly how did you do it with these heatsinks so that it was flat (since they aren't exactly a regular cpu heatsink.)

@Everyone

I'm going to be getting either copper or some good quality thermal pads. If anyone can tell me where to buy either I'd love it.

Also I'd like everyone's opinion about cooling for my m1710. I'm also thinking of buying a blower that will fit inside and pull air from the battery socket and slot above the hd (adding to hd cooling) to blow under the video card and across the northbridge.

I don't have an exit yet, but was thinking either the top of the case, the back, or possibly use foam to direct the air out the top vent (found on the e1705's palmrest) on the left above the cpu fan, since heat rises and all that.

I also have a 120mm 12V fan blowing directly on the ram at the bottom and pushing air across the bottom of the mobo already (it decreases ram temp by apx 7 degrees.)

Just wanted some advice and opinions mostly about what I can do and other heat improvements

Here's the blower I think may work is 60 x 60 x 15 mm for some reason I can't link to it.

and my motherboard right now...

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/6493/img0969on7.jpg

Just an idea on the cooling matter: I just disassembled my old battery ( it would only hold a charge for about 5 mins) and am looking at installing some USB fans inside it so that they blow air horizontally across the motherboard. Theres enough space for say 3 fans in there, so I'll see what I can do!

@Matchbox: I didn't have tabs like the photo you showed.  I just sanded it down with multiple grits and cleaned it with rubbing alcohol.  Kind of think my effort was wasted though on the NB part after it was all said and done.  A bit high, around 50 C yes.

@Adam: Interesting idea to install fans into the battery.  I am guessing it is the 6 cell battery, not the 9 cell correct?  What is the wattage?  If it says 53WH, then it is the 6 cell - which would leave a lot of room for fans, yes.

@Adam

you're a freaking genious.

I'm going to install a blower into the battery compartment and use the little fan under the mobo.

I'll now lap the heatsinks, put some copper in there, and this baby will be amazing.

The battery....it's not like I need it while at a desk, and theres a hole RIGHT there going directly to the video card. This'll work amazingly.

Thanks again, I'll update you guys when the thing is done (I'll probably buy a shittttty battery from ebay that fits and take it apart so I can snap the fan compartment into place :D:D:D:D

speaking of which, anyone know where to buy a crap battery?

If any of you want to sell your battery that's goin to crap let me know and I'll pay probably 25 bucks for it cause I don't care for the battery itself, only the case.

Otherwise I'll see what dell has since ebay only has new expensive batteries.

Well, as I said I am attempting to convert my battery to a cooling center of sorts, and I've got a few pictures of my progress thus far.

A few notes on how I plan on doing this:

1. I will be running 2 ANCIENT cpu fans sealed inside the battery case which will outlet air through a hole in the side of the case directly through an identical hole in the comp case and across the motherboard.

2. I will power these old 3-pin fans using the built-n fan controller of my Thermaltake cooling pad. I plan on running the wiring through the inside of the comp case, exiting with quick-release connectors at either end, for easy disconnect.

The plan is to get as much airflow through the case as is possible, and these fans are most likely just temporary, as i may be able to scale them up a little if I want to spend some money on the project (which I have yet to do, this is all junk I have lying around my dorm room). I'll post more pictures as soon as I get some more work done.

Here are those pics:

photobucket.com/albums/jj36/Da_Raabi/S7300464.jpg

photobucket.com/albums/jj36/Da_Raabi/S7300466.jpg

photobucket.com/albums/jj36/Da_Raabi/S7300468.jpg

@Adam:

Holy shit man!  You have gone down a new road no one has travelled!  :)  Very very cool.

My 6 cell and 9 cell still work very well; so, i won't be doing that anytime soon.  But very nice work man!

@Adam,

Very, very nice. I'm liking it, yes that hole in the battery slot is located perfectly.

That could actually become a very marketable product if it worked.

What are you gonna do with the extra cells? is there room in there?

I might just buy a spare battery for this,

the other way around I was thinking is actually making a battery pack to put a huge fan in, or a slim blower.

Does it actually work? Or do you think a slim centrifical fan would be better?

And one last thing, if I gave you credits for you having the idea, would you let me use your idea in the website I'm making?

Wow, thanks for the support on this project, I'm glad to see that everybody likes my idea! Feel free to use it on your site, Matchbox, the more people that find out about it the better, right?

I've made some updates to the project, and I took a few more pictures:

Just one thing, this is only a project to undertake if your are at least a little handy with your basic hand tools (power drills, squares, files, etc) although it could really be made a great project with access to a mill or even just an end mill on a drill press. I did this all by hand, and it shows, if you want a pro job, make sure you have the right tools.

photobucket.com/albums/jj36/Da_Raabi/S7300469.jpg

photobucket.com/albums/jj36/Da_Raabi/S7300471.jpg

photobucket.com/albums/jj36/Da_Raabi/S7300472.jpg

photobucket.com/albums/jj36/Da_Raabi/S7300473.jpg

photobucket.com/albums/jj36/Da_Raabi/S7300474.jpg

To answer your questions Matchbox, I just tore out the old cells from the battery, and I've got them hanging on my wall in my dorm (they make a great ornament...) From what i have seen with my basic tests, this should work quite well, as long as i make sure everything in the battery case is sealed (so that there is only one air outlet). As you can see the fans I am using right now are... lacking... I will most likely upgrade as soon as I am sure this will work the way I want it to. I'll keep posting pics as I go, so you can see my progress, and hopefully this works out ok!

@Matchbox:

Is it anyhow possible to flash an i9400 bios with the overclockable m1710 bios? i just got my lovely t7600g but i can't oc it because its not possible with the original i9400 bios.

@all:

Great site!!

Thanx for that!

Maybe :P

There doesn't seem to be a difference in mobos, but it might need an xps bios originally on there to allow a flash...I dunno if it's even forceable.

I'd imagine it's considerably riskier though. If there is the slightest difference in mobos if it was to flash it would ruin the lappy.

However, I'm still somewhat confident it could be done. I'd be more comfy trying it with a warranty or spare mobo laying around. Alas I just have the m1710 and not a e1705 to try a force flash on.

You could always sell that cpu and get 400-800 bucks for it via ebay. (I got 400 CAD for my t7600.)

The M1710 A03 Bios is what you need for overclockiing, it can be found pretty easily on the dell site. Good luck if it will actually allow flashing on a different laptop make (only by name really).

Hello everybody!!I need your help.I have inspiron 9400 with fx 2500m which is overheated.Strange squares and symbols appeared on the screen so i am sure it's damaged.I make music on my laptop so i dont need any hi-tech card.Do you now is there any cards for my laptop (cheap) with 64-128 graphic memory.I dont want to buy new fx 2500 m because it's too expensive for my pocket.Or is there any method for recovery my card.I decreased speeds (opposite overclocking)in my card bios but it didnt help :( Or anybody have some old card to sell.Thanks for help!

@Michael:

I am sorry to hear that.  Yes, the ATI X1400 is the base card you can get that can replace the FX2500 or any card in the 9300.  They make 128 and 256 versions.  Unfortunantly, I already sold mine or I would offer it up.  A quick eBay search should reveal a few; but, I would not pay more than $90 for one.

Good luck!

Thanks for quick reply.Does ati x1400 support full screen resolution (1920)??

I found one here :

http://cgi.ebay.ie/Dell-6400-and-E1505-ATI-X1400-Video-Card-WF148_W0QQitemZ300290404878QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Computing_LaptopAccess_RL?hash=item300290404878&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1301|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318

but gus says thats for inspiron 6400.Will it be good for 9400?Thank you

That card will not fit the e1705/9400. That card is for the smaller 15" version, the 1505. I recently took my friend's laptop apart and that is what he had (it was the e1505). The card you are looking for will look more like the one in the pictures on this site, but with only one heat pipe going off the the right. Keep looking, there are several available out there!

You could always look for the fx 1500m for something cheaper, that should fit as well.

Hi guys, great site, i have learned a hell of a lot by just reading all the comments and such.

I just have a quick question though, i am definately planning on upgrading my 9400 to 4GB of ram, probably doing the graphics card too. But i was wondering if i should upgrade the processor too? According to CPUZ i am running an 'Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo T5500 @ 1.66GHz'. Is that enough do you think? I'm not planning to use it for super straining tasks, some gaming though...ok if i can upgrade it enough a lot of gaming.

Also i am thinking of maybe installing a new HDD, is that a reasonably simple task?

Thanks For any help

@Phil: You most likely want to upgrade the CPU to at least a T7200 - as it is the lower-end "4 MB L2 Cache" chips.  The one you have has 2 MB of total cache - and cache=speed when it comes to cpus.

HDD is very easy.  Just two screws on the side, remove, replace.  It's a "SATA" drive, FYI.  The super-quiet 5400rpm 250 GB Hitachi mentioned in the comments above would be more #1 choice for the best speed-vs-power (and quiet!).

@Eric

Thanks for the reply. What sort of speed should i be looking for in the processor? I assume i want another core 2 duo one too? Also does my mother board matter when it comes to the processor...i mean i know it does, but are all 9400 similar motherboards, what im trying to say is will that processor that you recommended fit all 9400 motherboards? Is it difficult to install a new processor?

One more quick thing, i assume if i am replacing the hard drive (mine is a 100GB at the moment) that i will have to reinstall windows, if i can find the disk :S.

Sorry for all the questions. But thanks for any more help you can offer.

Phil

Sorry for the double post but i was browsing amazon and came across a western digital 320GB HDD for laptops and wondered if it would be any good. I'm not really very good with the specs of things when it comes to computers so i thought i would quickly ask here.

Technical Details

Main Specifications

   * Product Description: WD Scorpio WD3200BEVT - hard drive - 320 GB - SATA-300

   * Type: Hard drive - internal

   * Form Factor: 2.5" x 1/8H

   * Dimensions (WxDxH): 7 cm x 10 cm x 9.5 mm

   * Weight: 117 g

   * Capacity: 320 GB

   * Interface Type: Serial ATA-300

   * Data Transfer Rate: 300 MBps

   * Average Seek Time: 12 ms

   * Spindle Speed: 5400 rpm

   * Buffer Size: 8 MB

   * Manufacturer Warranty: 3 years warranty

Extended Specifications

General

   * Width: 7 cm

   * Depth: 10 cm

   * Height: 9.5 mm

   * Weight: 117 g

   * Device Type: Hard drive - internal

Expansion / Connectivity

   * Interfaces: 1 x Serial ATA-300 - 7 pin Serial ATA

   * Compatible Bays: 1 x internal - 2.5" x 1/8H

Manufacturer Warranty

   * Service & Support: 3 years warranty

   * Service & Support Details: Limited warranty - 3 years

Miscellaneous

   * Compliant Standards: RoHS

Environmental Parameters

   * Sound Emission: 24 dBA

   * Min Operating Temperature: 5 °C

   * Max Operating Temperature: 60 °C

   * Humidity Range Operating: 8 - 90%

   * Vibration Tolerance: 0.00459 g @ 10-500 Hz (operating) / 0.05102 g @ 10-500 Hz (non-operating)

Hard Drive

   * Form Factor: 2.5" x 1/8H

   * Features: Shock Guard, WhisperDrive, SecurePark

   * Compliant Standards: S.M.A.R.T.

   * Interface Type: Serial ATA-300

   * Buffer Size: 8 MB

   * Capacity: 320 GB

Performance

   * Drive Transfer Rate: 300 MBps (external)

   * Seek Time: 12 ms (average)

   * Spindle Speed: 5400 rpm

   * Track-to-Track Seek Time: 2 ms

   * Average Latency: 5.5 ms

Reliability

   * Non-Recoverable Errors: 1 per 10^14

   * Start / Stop Cycles: 50,000

Just wondering if that looks ok. Its only 50 pounds which i think is a bargain for the size. But i was just wondering if its suitable for the ol' 9400.

Many thanks

Phil

@Phil: Any Core2 Duo 2.0Ghz or higher will work.  It's a bit finite, but not difficult.  If you've installed any Core2 cpu in a normal computer, you can upgrade the laptop.

I can't say much about that HDD.  The spindle is 5400, which will give you better battery life.  That's about all I know about that specific.

Thanks Eric for such a great reference. (and everyone for the comments)

Wondering if the new Nvidia 9800m or FX 3700m cards will work with this mod?  

I'm interested in CUDA programming and I don't want to have to completely upgrade my laptop, particularly in light of this option...

Thanks

Hi there everyone!. Geez...I tried to follow the whole proccedure to see if it could help me with a problem I have...but i found no help, so I'll expose my case to see if I can get some of your valuable help:

You'll see...I got this Inspiron E1705 a long time ago from another guy, and I wanted to upgrade its RAM memory...so I bought a couple of Kingston 1 GB DDR2 PC2-5300 667 MHZ Rams's so I could get 2 GB of RAM. The problem is that, once I installed them it still displays the 0.99 GB of RAM i has been displaying me this whole time.

To make matters worst, I reallize that the previous Owner of the notebook tried to upgrade it by doing the same (I mean...it already had the 1 GB x 2 Rams installed, I thought it had 2 x 512 MB ).

By this point, I'm clueless...I've tried upgrading the Bios (to A09) but it still doesn't display my 2 GB...and im kinda getting upset!

What can I do? I'd appreciate your help VERY much!

Update the bios maybe? That works for both posts above, But as for an E1705 to have a 9 series card, it MIGHT work but it'd be limited, since unlike most bioses, dells are video card specific and don't support anything above a FX3600M as far as I know (and even that is limited support and a 7950 go gtx ends up being better). The Fx1600M apparently works though, but you get less memory than the 7950.

Well...I updated the BIOS to de "A09" version via support.dell.com ....

...and i still got 1 GB of RAM when im supposed to have 2 GB!!

Any other clue gentlemen?!!

@Richard: Try swamping the memory chips.  If you get 1 GB both times AND you are sure they are 1 GB DIMMs, then the physical slot may actually be damaged!  Try using 1 slot at a time to see which one is damaged.  Then, place the other DIMM into it and see if the same results happen.

@All-that-want-the-newer-cards: I agree with matchbox.  Dell's bios' are specific and anything pretty much not listed in these comments here will not work, or will work in a limited fashion.  There's only so much this 1705 baby can do.  :)

Hands down, the best results are with the older 7950 512 MB card.  Anything else is degregated in performance vs. value for-the-money.

I'm kind of wishing I had a 7950 now...  But, my 512 MB FX2500m is holding strong.  It's the 2nd best choice.

Well, I think I have found the solution to all of our gaming problems. Over the past few weeks I have been trying to find the best way to overclock my 7950 GTX which I installed about 3 months ago. You may see my posts earlier where matchbox tried to help me flash the video card bios (thanks for the help by the way). But it would appear all of that was unnecessary. First some background:

Dell is notorious for releasing video cards with limiting bios's installed. They revert the clocks back to whatever the stock ones were set at, no matter what you do. This has been an issue that would appear to have only been remedied by risking a flash of the bios, which had as many possible negative effects as positive. This is an issue which I have finally found the solution for. Thank you online forums!!! THIS IS SO SIMPLE YOU WILL SERIOUSLY START LAUGHING!!!!!! I found this and just had to post about it!!!

Its this easy:

1a. Download the latest drivers (I am using the newest driver 179.48 beta)

1b. Download Ntune (I am using version 5.05.54.00)

1. Make sure invisible folders are visible

2. Open My Computer and browse to C:\Users\Your Name\App Data\Local\Nvidia Corporation\ntune\Profiles\sysdflt.nsu, and open the file with notepad, wordpad, or similar. (This folder structure will be different in XP or other, I did this in Vista)

3. You will see the following:

[BoardConfiguration]

Version=200

CPU=6f6

MCP=65535

SPP=65534

GPU=NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX

[ClockSettings]

FSBMHZ=0

AGPMHZ=0

PCIe2MHZ=0

TRAS=0

TRCD=0

TRP=0

GPUCOREMHZ=575

GPUMEMMHZ=600

[VoltageSettings]

CPUVOLTAGE=-1

NFORCEVOLTAGE=-1

MEMVOLTAGE=-1

AGPVOLTAGE=-1

AUXVOLTAGE=-1

CPUFAN=-1

AUXFAN1=-1

HTCPUSPPVOL=-1

HTSPPMCPVOL=-1

NFORCEFAN=-1

AUX1FAN=-1

AUX2FAN=-1

GPUFANPERIOD=0

GPUFAN3D=0

GPUFAN2D=0

You can see the two lines "GPUCOREMHZ=575" and "GPUMEMMHZ=600". These are the stock clock settings, although interestingly enough, some monitors read those clocks at half the speed (300/300). It gets confusing when Ntune is showing you two different core speeds!

4. Simply change those two values to the values that you want, save them, close the text editor, and double click the file. Ntune should pop up saying that the settings have been accepted and vioala!!!! Overclocked!!!!

I currently have overclocked to 667/667 on my 7950 GTX. I do not want to go higher though, as gpu-z registered a change in temperature from 49-50 C to upwards of 70 C on the GPU during gameplay, so be VERY CAREFUL, you do NOT want to burn out your card!

To give you an idea of the performance boost though, I tried to run Stalker: Clear Sky, a VERY graphics-intensive game, on low settings (1440x900, low settings on everything else) and it would lag to the point that it was unplayable. With the new settings, I was able to play with some lag at 1920x1200 on med-high settings!!!! 1440x900 with med-high was perfect!!! WOWWWWWW What an increase!!!

The only downfall was the temperature increase, but there are ways to fix that.

I did not change the other settings, but if anyone finds a better setup, please let me know, it could really breath life into this old laptop!!! Good luck, and dont burn up your laptop!!!

One more note: I am using I8KFanGui to keep my fans at max speed at all times and have performed all of the stuff that Eric Duncan suggested above, so that is why my temps are what they are, so be CAREFUL!!!

Haha, yeah I just realized something a little while ago from zzpulp on notebookforums, turns out that the latest drivers ALLOW overclocking to a limited range apparently. BUT only with the latest bios (which means that if you HAD flashed with the bios I had which is a version earlier, it would've worked but only for all drivers up to 169.04<---I think, can't remember which one it was).

I'm still running 84.69 drivers......very old, but I hate the new nvidia panel with such disgust. argh, I'm hoping to one day find time to just update to 94.24 or whatever it is and leave it at that.

Glad it worked out for you without the risk of flashing anyhow, :) kinda takes the risky fun out of it:P.

I think having the battery compartment fan, having it angled up and with the hinge cover off (along with lapping the heat sink and AS5ing it obviously) would definately allow some serious overclocking. I've gotten mine up to 688Mhz core clock, but past that the voltage is insufficient, and I don't know of any mobile volt mods. :S. If I could do that and the battery fan thinger, I could probably pump up another 50mhz or so.

@Eric, your card pretty is a 7950 if I'm right and not too tired. I think the only difference was the clock speeds when tehy were built, so you could probably overclock too.

And some notes about this heat business, the cards are tough but anything past 90C isn't good times, it took a while, but my card finally commited suicide. Thankfully my new one can oc just a little cooler, but still, think of cooling first before thinking of oding on ocing :P.

Last thing I've noticed is that the T7600G cpu (for those depressed at not having it) proves to not be an advantage at all. I might get maybe 2-3fps extra, for a shat load of heat and constant throttling at 2.5-2.66ghz. It throttles based on it "thinking" it's overheating according to the dell tech, when overclocked it uses an algorithm to find out with the mofset and northbridge temps "should" be. So even if I put all the cooling in the world into it, it would throttle above 2.5ghz when under strenuous bus loads. (Meaning it WILL throttle in games, but NOT when doing something cpu intensive rather than gpu). So it's all in the graphics card and getting that thing cold and fast.

And yeah gpu ocing always shows dramatic results whenever you have mid range framerates to begin with :)

A good thing to try is using the overclocking tool that nvidia has and detecting optimal frequencies. Any memory higher than 800mhz is a waste, and for me any gpu clock higher than 685 is suicide. 656core/784mem has been my best combo without modding, and 681 / 875 with modding. <--a 100 mhz boost in core :O tada! or roughly 20% faster gaming.

argh tired, any mem higher than 800 is a waste without higher gpu clock is what i meant.

@Richard, this might seem idiotic, but where are you checking the ram? Under windows or under the bios? or some mystery meat third option ? :P

Well, I made the jump and switched to Vista Ultimate x64, which to be honest has been a bit of a dissapointment. For one I'm still only reading 3.3Gb of RAM, and some of the other "features" of the x64 OS are making things... Difficult. Does anyone have any idea how to get around the built-in non-signed driver block built into x64? I can do it if I hit F8 ever time I boot and manually turn of the driver checker, but that is a pain! The reason for the problem is mainly I8KfanGUI, which is unsigned, so Vista blocks it! Issues... Issues...