Laptop Upgrading question

[Causey842]

Recently received new laptop from parents for school. I have never used a laptop in my life and I have heard their quite hard to upgrade so here are a few questions I hope can be answered.

1. the laptop came with a 128 MB ATI radeon x300 is this a decent card? I have played world of warcraft on it and it comes in looking great should this card be able to hold up for awhile?

2. In the future If i want to upgrade my video card to like a Ge-force 6600 GT would I be able to do this? I have heard laptops are very difficult to upgrade and not only that I have looked at the requirements and it names pentium, athlon, and celeron but not Centrino would a centrino support that kind of card? The same question applies to RAM would I be able to put another 512 in there?

3. What is the difference between a centrino processor compared to the other processors such as pentium and celeron?


Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[Dark_Sniper*]

1. yes its a good card and it will last for awhile.

2.well you can upgrade but as you said its hard. and the ram no you can only have 1 stick of ram in there.

3. Centrino as far as i know only diff. is that they are built in woreless thats the only thing i know dude.

 

[crazyb8ss]

centrino is a mobo classification. It supposedly takes up less power, runs cooler, and as sniper said, built in wireless. Also, the only laptops that I know of that let you upgrade video cards are Alienwares high end ones.

 

[Dark_Sniper*]

yea thats true but i think you still can.

 

[aliasaid]

this is what i heard from other ppl.. no idea how accurate it is.

pentium M + wireless = centrino

celeron M = 1mb L2 Cache
centrino = 2mb L2 Cache + it only runs as fast as it needs for wutever its processing.. unlike celeron, where it would run full speed all the time, making it run hotter, and use up more battery power. in terms of performance, other than the 1mb L2 cache difference b/w centrino and celeron M, the difference in performance is negligible. i don't know much about the regular celeron processors.. this is just b/w celeron M and centrino.

if your laptop is running your games pretty well, then why are you concerned about upgrading? wait until you get a game that you really want to play comes out and you can't play, then think about upgrading. if you're satisfied now, no point in wasting money. oh and you're gonna be in school... should concentrate on school, not games! i wish i had someone tell me that in school..hehe.. all them Ds are haunting me now.

 

[Causey842]

Would it possible to replace the 512 then with a gig if i ever need it? Right now its a 512 Dual channel.

 

[Dark_Sniper*]

yea but find out first how much your labtop supports as far as memory.

 

[aliasaid]

what do you need a gig for? 512 is fine... im pretty sure.. hehe

 

[grego]

Man, people still don't know. *cries inside*

No processor exists named Centrino. End of story.

Unfortunately, people often refer to the "Pentium M" as "Centrino." Centrino is a technology... or perhaps several grouped together depending on how you want to look at it. In order for a laptop to be Centrino-badged it must have a Pentium M processor, a certain chipset, and built-in wireless. I don't think Celeron M equiped lappys are considered Centrino.

Centrino is not a processor......


EDIT: Oh, and as for Centrino's (as in, Centrino badged laptops) running cooler... well perhaps they do at idle. Start doing the simplest of tasks and you will have a personal lap toaster. Start doing some light gaming.... prepare to burn... just ask my quadriceps. Unless you crank the A/C this really blows any time besides the winter... "laptop" my ass.

 

[alecjahn]

You hit the nail on the head, grego. Thanks for saving me some typing.

Anyways, a new laptop should have another RAM expansion slot... there is a little panel on the bottom of it that can be unscrewed and removed to access the ram. You might have two slots and 256 in each.

It's not that laptops are dificult to upgrade, (though, it is a real pain and can be dangerous to the computer if you do not know what you are doing when you open it up) but most parts are made for the specific company or even model. What brand of laptop did you get? Some of them, the non-mainstream computer companies, can be upgraded to some degree.
-There is no modular graphics card, except in select Alienwares. It's usually right under the keyboard, and has a special connector to both the motherboard and display.
-Even if you find an upgrade, that happens to fit, you must make sure it is right for your display, because in my experience, certain displays only work with some cards.

This isn't a comphrehensive guide or anything, just some things to keep in mind. Good luck. :bald:

EDIT: Oh, and as for Centrino's (as in, Centrino badged laptops) running cooler... well perhaps they do at idle. Start doing the simplest of tasks and you will have a personal lap toaster. Start doing some light gaming.... prepare to burn... just ask my quadriceps. Unless you crank the A/C this really blows any time besides the winter... "laptop" my ass.

For the rest, they can burn away. For you, you have http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=839