Gaming Overclocking?

[Excellentnuke]

I just started to get into PC gaming, but I noticed that games run slow on my laptop. On GameFAQs, someone posted a tutorial on how to run BC2 faster on the PC, and it mentioned overclocking. How do I do this?

My friend said to check my BIOS, but my laptop's BIOS (For Dell XPS M1530) won't let me. It says my processor is already clocked to the max (2.16 GHZ IIRC).

Specs:
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS
Processor: Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo T5850

 

[myuusmeow]

Don't even bother on a laptop. Laptops run hot enough as it is, a little overclocking can do no good in this situation.

 

[Rydian]

a little overclocking can do no good in this situation.

This, but also because gaming depends heavily on the video card, and your laptop's is not one aimed at decent gaming.

 

[Excellentnuke]

Would it be possible to upgrade my hardware if I have a pre-built Dell laptop?

 

[myuusmeow]

Would it be possible to upgrade my hardware if I have a pre-built Dell laptop?

possible to upgrade my hardware if I have a pre-built Dell laptop?

upgrade my hardware if I have a pre-built Dell laptop?
QUOTE(Excellentnuke @ Feb 20 2010, 08:49 PM) I have a pre-built Dell laptop?

QUOTE(Excellentnuke @ Feb 20 2010, 08:49 PM)

pre-built Dell laptop?

[Darth Vader] Noooooooooooooo! [/Darth Vader]

You could probably add more RAM and change the HD, you might be able to upgrade your CPU to another Socket P one, but I really doubt it would be worth it.

 

[Rydian]

None of that would improve gaming performance (assuming we're talking non-emulation).

And it's not even the fact that it's a Dell, it's the fact that it's a laptop. They don't use interchangeable cards like desktops. In fact the only laptops I'm aware of with upgradeable graphics was a limited-run (read: failed) alienware series. Hell, you can't even find the cards except on ebay and such where people are selling parts of other laptops.

Sorry, you're screwed.

 

[Cermage]

there external options you can use. some of them never came out(asus XG Station) the ones that did are fairly expensive (ViDock), but you can build yourself an external gpu enclosure.

http://www.hwtools.net/Adapter/PE4H.html
+ external 12v psu.

people have been running ati's 5 series on newer i7 laptops.

 

[cobleman]

You have the second top graphics card in your system already with 256mb ram if you want more you need the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT, 16 stream processors vs 32 stream processors you choose
You can have a wopping 8GB of system ram installed if you want

 

[Raki]

there external options you can use. some of them never came out(asus XG Station) the ones that did are fairly expensive (ViDock), but you can build yourself an external gpu enclosure.

http://www.hwtools.net/Adapter/PE4H.html
+ external 12v psu.

people have been running ati's 5 series on newer i7 laptops.

it's still crippled due to the 1x PCI-E Speed of the express card slot + you cannot use your internal display then

 

[Scorpei]

there external options you can use. some of them never came out(asus XG Station) the ones that did are fairly expensive (ViDock), but you can build yourself an external gpu enclosure.

http://www.hwtools.net/Adapter/PE4H.html
+ external 12v psu.

people have been running ati's 5 series on newer i7 laptops.

it's still crippled due to the 1x PCI-E Speed of the express card slot + you cannot use your internal display then

It is however still quite a lot better then the onboard grafix and personally, when you get to the point where such a thing is useful, you're going to be doing some serious gaming on a LAN party or similar (not gaming on the train or something

). Also it's a fun solution ^^. He won't be able to replace the grafics card in his laptop though as dell uses a custom connection rather then normal MXM, so finding a replacement is going to be hard and the price of the card high which in turn leads back to the external suggestion. Also overclocking your laptop CPU/GPU won't gain much speedwise and will make the hardware quite a bit hotter all in all not something you would want to do.

My laptop has a 9300M G and I have a PC (with a HD5770), so I personally have no need for the external solution but if my laptop was my only machine the 200-250USD to upgrade/externalise the grafics card (HD5670 or something similar included), would be a better option then replacing a non MXM card or buying a new laptop / PC.