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    Upgrade Alienware m7700 GFX Card help needed

    Discussion in 'Alienware' started by mithandra, Aug 13, 2008.

  1. mithandra

    mithandra Newbie

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    Hello Everyone,

    I currently have the following alienware laptop:

    Model: Alienware Area 51 m7700
    Processor: AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 at 2.6 Mhz
    Memory: 2gig
    Screen: 1920 x 1200 display
    Graphics Card: Nvidia Quadro FX 2500M 512MB

    I am currently running XP still on this machine, tried to install Vista Pro but could not get the GFX card drivers for Vista, after some tech calls with Alienware they told me that NVIDIA has stopped work on the drivers and they are not available for Vista.

    This leads me with one option that I can see, upgrade the Graphics Card, Alienware haqve quoted me £350 for a replacement GFX card which (from memory) is something like a Nvidia 6800 gtx ot possible a 7800 gtx cannot remember off of the top of my head.

    What i would like to know is does anyone know were i could but a new graphics card for a cheaper price? As Dell now own Alienware would a Dell GFX card fit?

    Thanks in Advance for the help here.

    Thanks Mithandra
     
    mithandra, Aug 13, 2008
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  2. whizzo

    whizzo Notebook Prophet

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    isn't the m7700 just a rebranded Clevo D900? if so, you should be able to fit the 7900GS or something like that. for the card, you could contact either clevo, or try www.mxm-upgrade.com.
     
    whizzo, Aug 13, 2008
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  3. jah2323

    jah2323 Notebook Consultant

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    The Quadro 2500 is a 7900gtx. so its pretty much at the top of the line for that series of laptop. the 7950 is not that much of an upgrade. i believe the 7900gs would be a downgrade.

    You need to try going to Laptopvideo2go.com and download the drivers there and then make sure you download the modded '.inf' file as well.

    Not sure if the normal forceware drivers will work with quadro cards as i haven't done anything to the drivers on my boss's new precision, but you might just need to download the quadro driver, then either download or modify the .inf file yourself that is contained within the driver and that should do it.

    Worse case?!?!? if you're not needing the cad ability of the vid card would be to flash the bios to make it forget its a quaddro and think its a normal geforce card. you can use googolio to find that info out!
     
    jah2323, Aug 13, 2008
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  4. whizzo

    whizzo Notebook Prophet

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    yeah but the quadro's optimized for CAD stuff... the 7900 for gaming. i think you'd see a big difference in gaming performance.
     
    whizzo, Aug 13, 2008
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  5. Gophn

    Gophn NBR Resident Assistant

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    That D900K tops out at 7950GTX (Clevo proprietary module, NOT MXM).

    The Quadro 2500M in there already performs as well as a Geforce 7900 GTX.... so getting the 7950GTX may not give you more than 10-15% of performance.

    You can contact the following for the videocard module:
    - www.rjtech.com
    - www.eurocom.com
     
    Gophn, Aug 13, 2008
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