can the gfx be updated?

TheCenturion · 22 Sep 2008 at 21:47

My mate recently bought a laptop, he wanted to play games. so i told him to make sure to buy one with a standalone gpu, but the one he bought has a "sgi graphics accelerator" or something, also, don't know what the mobo is, cpu-z won't tell me. Is it possible to put a proper gfx card in there for him to play his games? also can you buy a laptop gpu, cos i've never seen them sold alone

beermonster · 22 Sep 2008 at 22:32

i would hazard a guess at theres a 99.9999% chance of the gpu being fixed to the board and not upgradable, make and model would help.

BlairH · 23 Sep 2008 at 16:59

Sounds like he bought a lemon. Something not fit for his intended purpose.

sja360 · 23 Sep 2008 at 17:21

sgi graphics accelerator will probably mean its a SIS chipset. probably the worst choice of graphics chipset. even a Intel or Ati onboard graphics chipset is better for compatibility and also power i'd imagine

Farore · 23 Sep 2008 at 19:54

Probably not in your case.

TheCenturion · 23 Sep 2008 at 20:52

it's the brand advent, his grandparents didn't want to spend over £400 and it was £350. i told him he wouldn't be able to game at that budget very well

Alexrose1uk · 23 Sep 2008 at 20:53

Ah if its Advent at £350 it'll be SIS.
If all he wanted to do was game; he might as well not have bothered.

TheCenturion · 23 Sep 2008 at 21:48

so it's the worst choice in terms of graphics? nothing could be worse? with 2gb of ram and a 1.83ghz dual core, could he play cod 4 on low?

apeZ · 23 Sep 2008 at 22:49

anant_shah94 said:
so it's the worst choice in terms of graphics? nothing could be worse? with 2gb of ram and a 1.83ghz dual core, could he play cod 4 on low?

Play, yes. Play without stuttering - I doubt it

Emlyn_Dewar · 24 Sep 2008 at 13:47

Yeah, with that GPU, he can throw gaming out the window.

Kristoph · 24 Sep 2008 at 14:51

One day there will be external GPU's.

There's one being made at the moment but for a specific laptop, I forget which.

Behemoth · 24 Sep 2008 at 21:40

Advent, thats a Sis Mirage 3 onboard muck in that, have got an Advent Laptop myself and well it won't even handle geometry wars, so COD4, may aswell take the laptop back and ask for a refund.

richyb_safc · 3 Oct 2008 at 15:36

How about a HP tx2000 series? anyone know much about these? I have one and I dont

I was just wondering the same thing about a graphics upgrade, would be pretty sweet if it was possible but I somehow doubt it! - if it helps device manager says I have a GeForce Go 6150, I'm assuming this is a chip on the mobo rather than something I can change?

the shadow · 3 Oct 2008 at 21:44

apeZ said:
Play, yes. Play without stuttering - I doubt it

Shadows1990 · 4 Oct 2008 at 15:53

richyb_safc said:
How about a HP tx2000 series? anyone know much about these? I have one and I dont

I was just wondering the same thing about a graphics upgrade, would be pretty sweet if it was possible but I somehow doubt it! - if it helps device manager says I have a GeForce Go 6150, I'm assuming this is a chip on the mobo rather than something I can change?

You'd be very lucky to find yourself in a position that you were able to change the GPU in a laptop.
From the looks of things, it is on the motherboard, so changing it would be a pain I'm afraid.