Friday, May 4, 2012

Intel 945 Express Chipset Video card upgrade?

Is it possible for me to upgrade and get a video card for this chipset. It is on a lenovo 3000 n100 notebook. I've heard that integraded graphics are non upgradeable. I have the intel graphics media accelerator. Thanks|||The best thing you can do is update your video drivers. There's no much else you can do for most laptops.



Unless you've ordered the laptop with the card you wanted, you can't swap it out. Unlike Desktop graphics cards, which are limited only by available slots, Laptop graphics cards are hard to find, and even harder to replace.



Laptop GPUs are not cards at all, but GPU chips soldered into the motherboard (which is why the ones with dedicated cards are said to have "discrete graphics" and others have the built-in "integrated graphics" rather than having "cards"), so as are some of the CPUs - meaning you have to melt the metal solder to even take them out. This is the way most laptops today are made. You'll have to be a real expert to be able to swap them successfully - even then success isn't 100%. Manufacturers will not take them back for an upgrade.



Furthermore, your laptop motherboard chipset will not allow for you to upgrade to a discrete GPU if you ordered it with the integrated card.



Unless you have a laptop with a separate graphics unit or an MXM slot, you won't be able to upgrade/replace it. Check your manual to see if they allow any upgrades. Few laptops today allow you to do so (the Alienware line being one of the very last) I know for sure that recent Dell laptops use the soldering style.



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The only option you have left is to use an Expresscard-adpated graphics unit, but not yet. Maybe in the near future; right now external graphics through Expresscard is in the process of development/release.



There aren't that many for sale yet in the U.S., but if you're lucky, you can find an ASUS XG Station for sale somewhere (but it won't be cheap considering its around $300 for the dock alone). You just need to have an Expresscard slot. They're only offering the 7900GS and 8600GT (desktop card) for the dock so far, but from the looks of the design you might fit other PCI-E x16 graphic cards into it in the future.



http://www.hwupgrade.com/articles/print/…

http://img250.imageshack.us/img250/1671/…|||No, if you've got Intel GMA then you can't upgrade it. It will be integrated onto the motherboard of the laptop, and the only way to upgrade would be to replace the entire motherboard.



That usually costs almost as much as a new laptop.|||It's not that integrated video cards are not upgradable, it's that laptop video cards are not upgradable. Sorry.|||That's not a chipset issue; Check your BIOS and see if can disable onboard graphics. Is there a place for a video card in your notebook?

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