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General discussion

Video Card for my notebook

Jul 29, 2004 8:45AM PDT

I have a Toshiba P25-S507 (the big 17" laptop) It has a 32mb Nvidia GEForce FX Go5200. I believe it has a 8x AGP slot but Im not sure. I use my comp. for CAD/CAM and 3d architectural work and would like to replace my card with something faster. The 32mb isnt cutting it. I saw that ATI and Nvidia both sell cards for notebooks, but is this feasible for me to replace? I am very mechanically inclined and have replaced parts on my desktop and I'm willing to pay some money. Any help would be appreciated.

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Re: Video Card for my notebook
Jul 29, 2004 9:01AM PDT

The video card is the device that is the most difficult to upgrade. Getting dedicated graphics with 64mb at the start (about $50 more on custom HP, Dell, etc over 32mb dedicated video) is more important at purchase than the CPU speed as you can't throw in your own video card like on a desktop.

Also, only some notebooks so far have the ATI 9600/9700 with 128mb video ram dedicated.

At least on my X1000 Compaq series (Pentium M) I have read that the video card may be soldered or more permanently attached in some way.

At any rate, some people on my forum have had their video card fail and it has been replaced under warranty so they are replaceable by qualified personnel.

You may want to go to the upgrades section of my forum X1000forums.com and ask the question regarding the video card (or maybe you will get the answer here).

The key thing is to be sure the upgrade will work with the bios and your motherboard. For the X1000 only the ATI 9200 32mb or 64mb dedicated video cards will work at this point.

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Re: Video Card for my notebook
Jul 29, 2004 9:05AM PDT

Since you have a Toshiba you use the Nvidia video cards instead of ATI but they are very similar in performance with the same amount of dedicated RAM.

So, you will probably need a Nvidia video card with 64mb of dedicated video to upgrade (note this is the standard option on the excellent Toshiba M35S456 (Pentium 1.7 Dothan) now selling retail and on the Toshiba website with the new Trubrite LCD screens.

Next time, if you are really using applications that are stretching the video capabilities get an Acer, Dell, or HP model, etc with the option for the 9600 or 9700 video card with 128mb dedicated video (or Nvidia equivalent if on Toshiba, etc).