M6300 Questions

Howdy -

I've been looking at picking up a Precision M6300 laptop since I'm a rather broke person and it's built like a tank and had a few questions about it before I bit the bullet.

First off, is it possible to use M6400 video cards in the M6300? It is extremely hard from what I can see to find FX3600M graphics card for the M6300 that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Or the M1730?

Secondly, is it possible to reflash the Quadro's BIOS to make it work as a GeForce 8800m GTX? I know the Quadro's BIOS is a bit more formulated to support CAD better than gaming, but I'd mainly be using this for games. I remember some time ago you could easily swap a GeForce card to a Quadro by really just reflashing the BIOS and maybe moving a jumper or two.

Third, the max is what, an 800MHz FSB CPU right? No 1066MHz? I'm kind of confused at this one.

If anyone has any advice or knows of anywhere to get this laptop for cheap, please let me know. I need to replace my dv9500, which the GPU failed again and unfortunately I used a heatgun because I was on vacation to fix it, and I guess overheated the board in the process. Shoulda just waited until I got back from vacation. Hopefully I can find a broken board to limp it back up until I can get something better.

Anyhoo, thanks all! Happy Holidays!

 

1) Fairly certain you can't use M6400 or M1730 graphics cards in the M6300. Maybe M90 cards, but even that I think is unlikely.

2) This probably has a better chance of happening than the above, but I still haven't actually read of anyone doing it.

3) Only 800MHz FSB processors.

4) eBay? Wait for a coupon and hit up the Dell Outlet? Or check your local Craigslist? I'd say the former two are probably better bets, though. I would personally vote for Outlet because you get the three-year warranty, and with that generation of Nvidia GPU, you never know...

 

Its actually a better choice than normal conumer lines, as although they have a high initial cost they dont hold their value very well, as I know to my cost - being a fan of precisions

If you can get an FX3600 model its worth the extra as (as you said) the individual cards are rare and expensive. You dont need to flash it as its great stock for gaming.

mine has an 2.8 extreme and the fx3600 (not selling, Im haging onto it to eventually replace the wifes 9300 when it breaks) and I don't game with it much. I also have an E6400 with a 2.53 and there is no appreciable difference between the two systems in speed for 99% of the work I do, ironically, but the large truelife screen is first class

If you can afford to be patient, ebay and outlet for fx3600 and truelife (the lower res panels can be bad for viewing angles and quality) and don't worry about the CPU too much as 2.X will be fast enough, the extreme processors cant be overlocked in the precision anyway, so bit of a waste

If fx1600, its good, but for gaming you'd notice the difference

 

I'm not too worried about the screen, CPU speed, hard drives, optical drives, etc, as on my dv9535nr I have a 1920x1200 LCD, T8300, 2 500GB 7200RPM drives, a 320GB 5400RPM drive in an optical drive adapter, as well as 4GB of DDR2800 waiting for either it to be back up or to buy a new one.

With that series of nVidia cards, if it does happen to unsolder itself, I have access to a professional reball/reflow soldering station, so it's not my primary concern.

I can find M6300s on eBay easily for under 450. Geeks had them a week or two ago refurbished, 2 GHz, 4GB RAM, 1920x1200 LCD and 80GB HD for 320. Figure I can pull out the screen/CPU/ODD/HDDs/Memory and make easily back 100-200 depending on what comes inside of it. I guess with the part of finding one for cheap, I guess ideally I'd love to find a barebones one. lol

Unfortunately only at the Dell Outlet their M6300s are about 2-3 times that much. Unless they're going to have a huge sale with a coupon that drops it down to near used prices, thats a ton extra to pay for a warranty.