T43 GPU upgradable? Currently have GMA 900

[bigtiger]

I ordered a used T43. 1875-dmu. It has GMA 900. Anybody if the GPU is upgradable. Is there any spare socket to plugin a new graphic card. I know the GMA900 is integrated.

From what people say in this forum, GMA900 might be enough for ordinary use, but I might do some 3D design some day. I did that 2 years ago.

[christopher_wolf]

If "Upgrade" encompasses "System board replacement" then, yes...It is upgradable

Otherwise; no, the GPU is not upgradable as it is is soldered to the motherboard.

You might want to look into the latest high-end dock they have for the T4X Series as you can add a half-height graphics card there although I am unsure of how much you would get out of that. to begin with.

A good start, though, would be to max out your memory and HDD first before getting a new video card. The GMA900 will be good enough for all but the heaviest 3D design. If the scenes are full render and aren't very animated, then you could get by well enough with a GMA900 with 2GB Memory and a fast HDD (don't really need the fast HDD unless it starts to page alot, which the memory should have taken care of to begin with.).

HTH

[bigtiger]

OMG, worst nightmare come true.

Ok, I can live with that card then. No more investment. Thanks, Mod.

[christopher_wolf]

Didn't mean to scare you away, there; I am pretty sure you can get good performance out of it with simply an increase in memory and perhaps a little system optimization. It isn't as if it really sucks at anything 3D, just at going no-holds-barred with anything requiring hardware based 3D acceleration. The ATI does this better although there is more to it than just having a discrete physical VRAM set for the chip to use.

[bigtiger]

Thank you, Mod. I already have 1G memory on it. Hope that is enough.

[Troels]

1 gig will be fine i think, i don't feel much difference when i did a upgrade from 512MB, but applications may think otherwise, especially when multitasking.

An other suggestion which i've been thinking about..... buying a replacement system board, the cheapest possible with radeon 7500, but for a T42. Since i know someone with a machine that de-solders what you tell it to desolder - then desolder the 7500 and replace it with an X1600

It is just a very hypotetical project as it may not even be possible at all -most likely NOT. It seems that the 7500 and 9600 and x300 IBM use all have their VRAM close by the core of the GPU which differs a lot from all the PCI-express boards available for Dells etc.. I read somewhere here that, unlike nVidia, ATI doesn't fancy the idea of upgradeable laptop graphics, so their cores are not available for end users. Has this changed? Would this outrageous even have a chance of working?