I'm 21 now

... how'd you replace the GPU?

Anyway, Happy Birthday!

...And how DID you replace the GPU?

[quote name='RoboticBuddy' post='3372792' date='Jan 6 2011, 01:33 AM']Anyway, Happy Birthday!

...And how DID you replace the GPU?[/quote]
He took the old one out and put a new one?

He probably had to replace the mobo too. It's possible to replace the graphics card in a laptop, but it's not easy.

[quote name='pyrmon24' post='3372797' date='Jan 6 2011, 01:36 AM'][quote name='RoboticBuddy' post='3372792' date='Jan 6 2011, 01:33 AM']Anyway, Happy Birthday!

...And how DID you replace the GPU?[/quote]
He took the old one out and put a new one?
[/quote]
I think they are refering to that fact that very very few laptops have replaceable GPU's .....most of them are soldered to the mobo
I think alienware laptops and some of the higher end Asus ones have replaceable GPU's

Edit: I almost forgot....GET DRUNK!

Either he removed it by getting his soldering iron or he has a laptop than has a replaceable GPU. Either way, my point still stands, he took the old one out and got the new one in.

[quote name='pyrmon24' post='3372816' date='Jan 6 2011, 01:45 AM']Either he removed it by getting his soldering iron or he has a laptop than has a replaceable GPU. Either way, my point still stands, he took the old one out and got the new one in.[/quote]

You really love being right

Anyway, whatcha get for your birthday besides the GPU?

[quote name='iFish' post='3372818' date='Jan 6 2011, 01:48 AM'][quote name='pyrmon24' post='3372816' date='Jan 6 2011, 01:45 AM']Either he removed it by getting his soldering iron or he has a laptop than has a replaceable GPU. Either way, my point still stands, he took the old one out and got the new one in.[/quote]

You really love being right

Anyway, whatcha get for your birthday besides the GPU?
[/quote]
I'm addicted to being right.

Congrats on turning 21. What kind of laptop do you have?

i7-720QM, 4GB DDR3 1066/1333, GTX 460M GDDR5 1536, 320GB HDD.

I have a Dell-Alienware M15x from late 2009. I can replace RAM, upgradable to 4GB x 2 SODIMMS (Currently 2GB x 2 SODIMMS), the CPU, (PM55 Chipset, Most of the i3-i5 Dual Cores, Pretty much every i3 Model with this compatible chipset up to the i7-920XM and i7-940XM) Hopefully I'll be able to upgrade to an ES/QS 920XM eventually, (Now that I've successfully taken apart this computer) (And put it back together) when the price comes down on tall these SandBridge models coming out. From what I've seen the 920-XM ES/QS models have been hovering between $420-500, though some of the guys on the notebook review forums have hinted at getting theirs for as low as $350.

The only real difficulty I had with replacing the GPU was taking off the heatsink, (the four screws that hold it down, well, particularly the #1 screw was very stiff) took me a considerably longer time to remove that one, but once I did the whole heat sink came right off and I was staring at the GPU. Then I unscrewed the two screws holding the card down and it started popping out, slid the GPU out, looked back at the instructions I found for my laptop and managed to take off the mounting plate off the 240M (this was rather confusing at first). Either way, after I got the mounting place off the 240M it snapped on the 460M rather easily. Once I got the card in it was just a matter of putting everything back together. Oh, and before someone says, "Oh, you must have paid $414.99 for a new card from dell", Well, I didn't I paid $240.00 for a used card off the notebookreview marketplace, works fantastic.

I used these guides to help me through the process, courtesy of Inap from the notebookreview forums.

M15x GPU Replacement Guide http://www.sendspace.com/file/7rp95f
M15x Thermal Paste Guide:http://www.sendspace.com/file/09h9ef

Click to expand...

I've got some crappy Sidewinder thermal paste on the GPU for now, but the cleaner (one dissolves, one cleans) and Artic Silver 5 came a few days ago, but I didn't want to open the laptop back up until the weekend, well, just because, I wanted a break. It isn't terribly stressful, but it does take a bit of patience. So far, temperatures have been fine around 40 Celcius average in both Ubuntu and Windows 7. I'm using LaptopVideo2Go drivers (265.90) though I may upgrade to 266.35 (if the INF is working). The only issue with these drivers is that you can't control brightness/power settings, but I think it's a fairly big gain in terms of performance. The Dell drivers will run if I want them to, but running the official nVidia drivers doesn't particularly work (though, to be fair, this is an issue many people with the GTX 460M GPU are dealing with right now.

Benchmarking programs will crash the computer right now, (Furmark, I'm looking at you), but I don't have any games or programs that really stress the computer beyond the 60 Celcius range, which is where most of my games tend to cap out the GPU temperature at (Half Life 2, Portal, Mass Effect, Counter Strike). Then again, I'm not particularly all that interested in benchmarking. So 75% of the time my temperature is around 40 degrees, and 25% it's at around 50 (during casual use/multimedia (non-gaming)). If I keep upgrading this computer, I'll definitely have to pick up some aftermarket thermal pads for the heatsink.

CES has been really interesting, glad it's just starting. I really liked the design on that Razor Portable Gaming netbook, not enough to buy one, yet, of course, but enough to keep me interested. My brother has a $50 bestbuy giftcard, so I'm going to pickup SC II in the morning tomorrow, should make for some fun times since he's a heavily addicted FPS player. Meanwhile, that means I can save what holiday money I have left for the future or start looking into a 1920x1080 resolution, (this 1600x900 one, is kinda worn), can't have dell come out and replace it unless I "accidentally" spill something on it, doesn't seem worth the effort, even so, isn't that fraud? even if I have a complete care warranty? no matter, upgrading this thing has been fun for me. Probably just going to save it.

Watching The A Team again, just checked up a little while ago, (well, earlier this morning) it's the series from 1983, it's pretty cool. Other than that, I've got a bunch of movies to play, some Half Life 2 to start playing again (about to get the gravity gun and play catch with the ... dog) and perhaps some ZNES/SNES9x, I've been having this strange Donkey Kong Country Craving which is weird since I've never played donkey kong since I was a child (and I mean in passing times as a child, rofl).

Birthday... Well, GPU was more of a Christmas gift, (some holiday money came into my possession, and with what I'd saved it was enough for the upgrade). Christmas & my birthday tend to get meshed together, I've got a nice warm jacket ^^, season 1 of Lost, (might return it and get store credit / borders, since I've seen like 85% of S1 of lost anyway). Some nice Jeans/Shirts, House Key, Borders gift card XD, NY License Plate, & a rather lengthy NY metropolis posterish thing.

Yeah, I initially thought I'd get drunk ; ), Thing is I know that if I got drunk, I'd probably just end up even more sick. I've been managing a bad cold for the last several weeks, don't need alcohol lowering my immune system anymore than it already is, but hey, one beer couldn't hurt right =P. Also, thanks for the birthday wishes everyone.