Graphics Card Upgrade

Twentymac · 31 Jan 2009 at 00:38

My brother wants a graphics card upgrade on his laptop but i wasnt so sure about if this was possible.

His laptop is the Sony Viao PCG-GRT816S

Specs

# Intel Pentium 4 2.8 Gigahertz
# Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
# 80 Gigabytes of Hard Disk Storage
# 512 Megabytes Fast DDR RAM (Low cost double memory Offer - call for details)
# NVIDIA 64MB Geforce FX G5600 Graphics

A Fairly old , yet reasonable spec.

I've found a few graphics cards that have come out of other sony laptops on ebay.

Just wondering can it be done ?

jak731 · 31 Jan 2009 at 00:40

highly doubt it

have you opened the laptop up before to expose the MB?

Twentymac · 31 Jan 2009 at 00:53

Nope not yet. i wantted to try and find out as much as i could before i start to do anything

ShaolinDreams · 31 Jan 2009 at 00:56

open to see or you could be wasting your time

ShakenNstirred · 31 Jan 2009 at 06:48

Twentymac said:
My brother wants a graphics card upgrade on his laptop but i wasnt so sure about if this was possible.

His laptop is the Sony Viao PCG-GRT816S

A Fairly old , yet reasonable spec.

I've found a few graphics cards that have come out of other sony laptops on ebay.

Just wondering can it be done ?

i`d say highly unlikely, very few laptops let you swap out the graphic cards.
your best bet is to email sony about it
if sony dont do an upgraded graphic card for said laptop, then you wont get a card to fit
there not like desktop PC`s were everything is a set standard, ie pci/agp etc

memyselfandi · 31 Jan 2009 at 08:06

I would say the best bet would be to try and get hold of a copy of the service manual for that model. It should not only indicate if the graphics card is a separate part and what sort of connection it uses but should also show the correct sequence for disassembling the laptop without knackering it in the process.

I'd have thought that Sony will just tell you they don't do an upgrade as its in their best interests if you buy a new laptop if you want fast graphics instead of trying to upgrade your existing one.

Ice Tea · 31 Jan 2009 at 09:18

http://www.mxm-upgrade.com

The guy in the above link has spent a lot of time and money trying to get a list together of upgradable laptops but nearly all manufacturers are of no help as they want you to buy a new laptop so he has had to resort to a try it and see method and from what he has found even if the laptop has a MXM graphics card upgrade slot a lot of manufacturers alter the MXM standard of the slot so only their own proprietary cards work and even when they just use a standard Generic MXM slot they still often lock the slot via the bios to only work with cards that they choose for that model line.

To make things even worse the MXM slot standard has changed over the past few years and they are now up too the fourth generation of the slot and the cards are very expensive to buy as your pay £150 just for a 8600gt MXM card and you also have to consider if the laptop has sufficient cooling for the faster card.

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