Putting a Refurbished M4400 Motherboard in a Latitude E6500. Worth it?

I am very curious with this Frankenstein-ish upgrade. I have seen both the Precision M4400 and the Latitude E6500 up close before and I do realize that both laptops use pretty much the same lower chassis and other modular internals with the only difference is the screen and screen bezel and touchpad unit. With the exact port locations the same. Is it worth it to get a refurbished M4400 motherboard and swap it with a Latitude E6500 one and putting it in a fully working Latitude E6500?

The reason I ask about this is a friend of mine's mother works for a company that resells their ~1 year old Latitudes for a really cheap price (I think Latitude E6500's go around $250-$350 a piece!) and replace them with newer Latitudes and (rarely Precisions) from Dell the following year. Assuming that in the near future I can get my hand on one of these second-hand Latitudes and I want to add in some graphics grunt, there are several refurbished M4400 motherboards out in the internet selling for $300 a piece (FX 770 versions). From there with only spending around $700, I can turn the Latitude into a faux-Precision.

However hearing many problems with the M4400's motherboard from many people on the forum, I am uncertain if I should take this route and risk getting a refurbished M4400 motherboard and getting a secondhand Latitude to switch with. Therefore I come to you all for your input if this very feasible idea is a good one or I should consider getting a new laptop instead once I get the funds and such.

So a good idea to attempt or stay away from it?

 

That seems doable if you can do it at a good price. However, you'd probably also need a new/different heatsink to deal with the extra heat. I can't really think of any more differences between the two, but there is always a risk that something won't be intercompatible.

 

I completely forgot about the heatsink but it shouldn't be expensive to get and I will need some AS5 to re-grease the components. However do you think in general getting a refurbished M4400 Motherboard is a good idea since I heard many M4400's got problems locking up and the motherboards were the culprit. If it was or can be solved with an existing BIOS update then I think this might be a good route to go for next year for me.

 

Unless there is a need to have the better GPU, I would say that it's not worth the money when for the price of the motherboard you could get another E6500.

 

Well the thing is I kinda want to use it as a performance workstation/mobile gaming rig. Therefore this still is a good deal vs. getting a brand new laptop of a similar specification. I know that for a start I can get a working E6500 for a cheap price so the base machine itself is not expensive. Also if I look around carefully I can get a M4400 Motherboard for even around low $200 working. It is just a thought though right now as money is tight for the moment. Otherwise I am eying on a brand new Lenovo Ideapad Y550P if this isn't a brilliant idea instead once money is flowing again.

 

I wouldn't do it... if anything goes wrong you won't have a warranty.

You can get an M4400 for about $850 on the Dell outlet using the 15% off coupons that come out every once in a while.

 

I would like to point out that I am doing this with a SECONDHAND Latitude E6500. It will be brought from a (major) company who brought them from Dell to be used for their corporate co-workers, but they have have a habit of getting new replacements for their workers every year or so and they sell the previous year's stock out for ridiculous prices. So I won't get ANY warranty from their stock and they usually sell the whole unit at under at most $400 a piece.

Please keep in mind that if I am going to do this, it will be with a non-warrantied and corporate used Latitude E6500 and not buying one direct from Dell or it's Outlet. I am hoping to keep the total cost of this insane plan under $700 the most and by the looks I can keep well under $500 as well if I barter and find really good deals on refurbished M4400 parts via EBay Power Sellers.

The main concern is over the reliability of refurbished M4400 logic boards as I heard that M4400 motherboards loves to lock up a lot. I want to know if they mended the problem by a complete hardware revision of the logic board or they already solved it with the massive BIOS Revisions they keep churning out. Therefore with that in mind, getting the M4400 parts (which will be pricey for me to get than getting a complete E6500 in the first place) would be the risky part in spending my money, as I am unsure if refurbished units from Dell are truly mended or not.

 

I'm not sure if the M4400 continues to lock up. I don't really follow the Precision models since I don't have one, but I can't imagine that Dell would leave a problem like that unattended for a long time.

Now, look. If the M4400 mobo dies, worst case scenario, you swap in the E6500 one back in. Additionally, if you can convince the Dell rep that you can install any new parts yourself, they'll just send them to you (and you send your old ones back). So if you get a service tag # of the system where the mobo was pulled, and if it dies, you can always call Dell and beg for a new one.