Graphics card upgrade help and info needed!

**cmrightoff** · July 3rd, 2012, 05:51 PM

Hello,
I am needing some help upgrading a graphics card (NOT a driver upgrade). I want to upgrade from an old graphics card to a more newer card. As I posted in an old post, I had a Toshiba satellite 2415-S205 laptop that doesnt work. I have another laptop thats called a Dell inspiron 4000. All I want to do is put the card in from the Toshiba laptop in to the Dell laptop. If theres a way to, I will download the driver for the card before puting in the card.
Here is the specs I know about the Dell inspiron 4000:
Operating system: win XP home
CPU: 801 MHz
Graphics card: unknown
Java: yes (ver. 7 update 5)
CD-R/WR: yes (removable)
Floppy: yes (removable)
Ram: 256 installed (max 512)
Power cord: yes
Any more info needed then I will find out about it.
P.s. I am planing on over clocking the CPU (maby) to like 1.2 or 1.3 GHz.
thanks,

**GroundZero3** · July 3rd, 2012, 05:53 PM

You cant do this, you cant move hardware from one laptop to another . All hardware is attached to the motherboard

**cmrightoff** · July 3rd, 2012, 06:04 PM

Wow you replyed fast.
Ok or should I go out and buy a plug-in kind?
thanks,

**GroundZero3** · July 3rd, 2012, 06:07 PM

Laptops hardware are not connected to the motherboard like a regular desktop. You can not buy anything to allow you to do what you want to do. You have two options, buy a new motherboard that supports your CPU with a newer video card or buy a new laptop

That are your only choices.

**cmrightoff** · July 3rd, 2012, 06:26 PM

Its hard to decide... I might go ahead and buy a new computer, or if its cheaper to get a mother board with higher CPU speed then I will do that. Somthing like 1.6 - 2.0 GHz.
Thank for replying,
P.s. I have taken apart computers befor and put them back together, so I am not to stressed about breaking it. I am also very good with solving software issues.

**RicheemxX** · July 3rd, 2012, 06:54 PM

See GZ's above post!!

Laptops aren't like desktops, you can't just bye parts and slap them into the laptop case like you would be able to with a desktop. So not only is it not likel that you could change the GPU, you most certainly wouldn't be able to just replace the motherboard with a different one.

The case on laptops are very proprietary. In most cases there are a few options from the factory and that is about it. It would be very unlikely that you'd find another motherboard that would fit into the current case that would support any better hard ware than you have.

Now you might be able to replace the CPU with something better, but as I see it from looking at the specs you are dealing with some pretty old tech here. If you are already trying to upgrade the GPU for whatever reason, and want to upgrade the CPU then you are going to be far better off just buying something newer and faster.

**ShyguyXPC** · July 4th, 2012, 12:03 AM

Actually, you can buy an adapter to install in a laptop and use desktop GPU's in, though I don't think any were released for US Markets, I know in the asian markets there was a couple devices that allowed you to do this, and in the Euro Market there was at least one as well.

Basically it allowed you to plug in a Video card into this casing, which then connected to the laptop via an ExpressCard Slot (assuming the Laptop had one or the right size Slot).

I think the first time I read about these, they were being released back in the Geforce 8/9 era, and had Geforce 8600 series cards in them, they would require you to plug in the casing to the wall, and could only handle PCI Express slot cards up to a certain Size, and Wattage rating.

now here's the down side, besides limited markets/supply and limited cards that would work in them... they were also far from affordable.

As far as this situation goes though, as the others said, you just can't take the GPU out of one and put in another.

The only time that would be possible would be for the few laptops out there that actually use an upgradable GPU and slot, and even then, the upgrade options are very limiting and much more expensive usually than desktop equivalent GPU's.

**cmrightoff** · July 13th, 2012, 03:09 PM

Well forget about helping me on this old laptop. I went to use it and it lost its driver for the HDD for some reason. but my main purpose for that old laptop was to type, email or watch movies on the go. I have a desktop at my home, but the laptop was for on the go.
thx for helping!
bye,