m17x upgrades.. i want some

hey everyone!! i know i should have does this when i got my m17x , but now i want to make some upgrades to this demon. I have the last style of the 17x with 32 bit version of vista. I need to get a 64 bit version i know. Anyways, i have dual 256mb 8600m GT's and 4G of ram in my comp. I know that they are compatible with dual 9800 GT's and up to 8 g of ram. Does anyone know what sort of ram i will need?? i know its DDR3 but what brand. and i assume the computer probably has dual 2 gig sticks so to get 8 g i'm sure ill have to get dual 4 g sticks. And where the hell would i find the 9800 cards. I assume there is different types of cards for laptops and towers. This is my first laptop so i'm sort of new to the laptop scene. Any input would be very appreciated. Thanks a lot guys.

 

the best upgrades you can do is try to find two hd3870's with the crossfire cable and any kind of ram should be good just get 1066mhz

 

No! Your system do not support ddr3, you need drr2 800 mhgs i think

 

The brand doesn't matter (I have 2 different brands and it works fine). You just need laptop ram (so dont buy those huge desktop ram bards) with the same amount of mhz (667 or 800 or 1064 or 1333) and the right ddr (ddr2, ddr3,)type.

 

Yeah your computer uses DDR2. Don't get DDR3, or you'll feel a fool when it doesn't fit.

 

he says he has a m17x.it supports ddr3 ..why would you say ddr2...

 

the m17x supports ddr3...


or you'll feel a fool when it doesn't fit

 

The 8600M GTs use different heatsinks to any other cards for it meaning you would also need to get new heatsinks for whatever card you buy, which are going to be near impossible to buy. That's if you can even find the graphics cards themselves, laptop graphics cards are very hard to buy aftermarket.

As said below in my post, your m17x does NOT support DDR3, the max it will take is 667MHz DDR2 if I remember rightly.

For the RAM you need to look for 667MHz DDR2 SO-DIMM 200 pin sticks.

I would not recommend upgrading the RAM however, as 4GB sticks (which you need to get any more than 4GB in your machine) are VERY, VERY expensive (I'm talking hundreds of $ a stick) and will give you NO performance boost unless you are already filling up your current 4GB.

Check how much RAM you use when gaming because unless it's completely filling the RAM then buying more RAM will do absolutely nothing to speed up your system.

The OLD, Area-51 m17x (which is the one he has) supports DDR2 667MHz max. Not sure if it supports 800MHz even.

 

my bad ..oops ...sorry..

 

You could put 800MHz DDR2 RAM in it, but the motherboard would downclock the RAM to operate at 667MHz, so it would be a waste to spend money on 800MHz.

 

Don't worry about it

One of the reasons why many of us think that Alienware shouldn't have used the same name on two different laptops.

Loads of people do get confused between the two.

 

Yeah what tipped me off was the Nvidia 8xxx series GPU. DDR3 definitely did not exist when those were still being shipped in AW laptops.

 

I will have to say it depends on the motherboard. I had the same laptop m17x and they wanted to charge me $$ or a new Motherboard so it could use the 9800gt gpu. You need to open the area where the gpu are and look up the serial number If it show A01 or A02 the laptop will NOT support the geforce 9800gt. If the laptop has A06 next to the serial number it will Support the geforce 9800gt. The A02 motherboard do not have the power to run the 9800gt and the fan will not run.