Replacing Inspiron 8600 GPU

[Cade Foster]

Recently I inherited a rather nice looking Inspiron 8600 unfortunately beauty was only "skin" deep as I discovered that for some reason the Nvidia Fx Go5650 128mb GPU seems to want to run at over 50 degrees centigrade even after I've used the 18KFanGui program to push the fan speeds up to max.

I've pretty much given up on the Graphics Card and as I'm not really that interested in 3D Gaming would like to replace it with another compatible/cheaper one, with perhaps less ram and definitely one that doesn't want to burn a hole through the Motherboard.

I'd appreciate any advice on where to get laptop graphics cards, preferably in the U.K/Europe - fitting it isn't a problem, just finding it atm.

My System Stats:

CPU: Pentium M 1.7Ghz
Ram: 2 GHZDDR
Chipset: Intel i855pm
GPU Nvidia GeForce FX Go5650

Xp Pro SP2

Thnx in advance

[RicheemxX]

Laptop GPU's aren't typically replaceable as they are usually integrated, and in the case that they are replaceable the are extremely expensive

[Cade Foster]

I've already had the Card out and it was surprisingly easy, put it back in also, with the keyboard screwed off(data cable still connected) and blew a hair dryer on cool at the GPU which kept it cool and running

This got the GPU down to 44 degrees C which was enough to stop the screen from producing artifacts, as long as I don't mind running it with a wobbly keyboard in one hand and a hair dryer in the other.

This seems to be the only viable solution that I've found sans replacing the actual card itself, nonetheless I'm not looking for top of the line, just something passable.
http://www.bay-wolf.com/8500videoheat.htm

[Cade Foster]

Just to update this, I've since had an ATI mobility Radeon 128mb card I bought off ebay installed into this and its purring away quite nicely at 44C. I installed the 18kFanGui program to keep the fans running when the temperature gets hotter and its also sitting on a cooling pad.

I have the DX2 dockbay for the inspiron 8600 though I'm probably not going to use it as others have reported problems with bootup after undocking from it and it would also negate the use of the cooling pad. Hopefully this will help someone else though.

My cousin, who thought he was passing on an expensive paperweight to me is gutted btw.