What parts of the Asus G50-vt are upgradable?

Hello, does anyone know what parts of the Asus G50-vt are upgradable?

I saw someone in this forum has stuffed 8gb of RAM in there, that is cool.

but does anyone have a clue if I can upgrade that 9800GS or the 9400 Intel processor?

thanks.

 

CPU yes, but it would void your warranty for CPU at least.

 

The GPU is NOT upgradable at the moment.

RAM, hard drive, DVD drive, wifi card, battery: all are easily upgradable.

The CPU should be upgradable. I don't think that a quad core would work though, so you're limited to a core 2 duo T9800. For the record, I don't think that there will be enough improvement over the T9400 to warrant the extra cost.

 

I'd also like to know if the screen is upgradable at all for the X1's 15.6" 16:9 display...

The 9400 can be replaced with any P or T series processor, and I've heard some things about possibly a X9x00 series in there. Not sure about quadcores, though.

Also around the forums, the 9800m GS can be flashed to a 9800m GT, can't find the thread though.

And as you said, 8GB is fully recognizable by the Cantiga motherboard.

 

I don't remember the exact thread but someone did test the Quad core on this laptop and it ran it just fine. Ill see if I can find the thread.

 

Really? That would be schweet having a quad core in a 15" laptop, without having to pay 5000000 bucks.

 

The thread is here. This was a theoretical discussion about whether this would be possible on the current BIOS etc if the parts were obtained, but it was never actually done or accomplished by anybody.

 

Does that "flashing" somehow activate the extra pipelines / stream processors? If so, I'd be very interested to find that thread. If not, won't it basically just underclock it. (?) I'm basing my comments / questions on the notebook check descriptions of the video cards 9800m GT vs 9800m GS

Let me know if you find that thread. Thanks!

 

Whoa sorry, I got confused with the GTS. It basically made the GS overclock to GTS clocks. Found the thread here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=336013&page=6
Sorry about that lettering error.

 

Let me know when someone does that for real...

 

anyone tried adding Bluetooth to an X1 ? or any other vt model which doesnt have BT ?

 

No, it won't. With regards with the screen, you probably could, but the problem with 15.6 screens is that there aren't many replacements available yet.

 

Are the 15.6" Screens the lower res models?

I was kind of wondering about swapping them. I know it can be done and if you talk to Asus right they will actually send you a screen only. On my last G50v I sent before doing so I had talked them into letting me replace the screen myself as I am certified repair tech for the major manufactures. They normally wont do it because they said its too high of a value item but they will still..

I did not go through with it because they ended up just replacing my entire notebook with a new one...

But I thought the 15.6" screens had bad res.

 

Thanks for the clarification and link to the thread. I was reading parts of that thread but didn't want to push the card. I figured if it flashed to a GT that would be safer since it was basically an underclock. I guess I can always dream.

 

Not all will run the GTS speeds though because these are not the same as the older GTS cards but are similar. Most will handle it fine but some wont.

You will have to test to see.

Anyway the video card IS replaceable if you are willing to spend the money but to get a better one single is half the price of a new notebook...

Also other things you can do to upgrade the notebook are:

8GB of RAM DDR2 800Mhz you can get for about $500 (Yea its a lot but the 667Mhz 8GB kits are about half that price but hey you pay to have fastest...)

You can install intel Turbo Memory (this only works with raid disabled.)

You can upgrade wireless card to 5300 instead of 5100
If you dont have bluetooth it CAN be added.
You can upgrade CPU
You can upgrade hard drives to solid state which would remove the need to raid them which gives you intel turbo bost option and also sold states run much faster now.
Screen is upgradeable but of course that is a little more work...
DVD Drive is changeable
Only thing I have yet to find a way to add which it should support is the darn internal TV tuner... lol

Anyway hope that helps answer some more.

In a nut shell EVERYTHING can be replaced or upgraded on this bad boy just about. Except the case and MoBo of course

 

I really want to use the TV tuner option. That would be sweet.

 

The flashing to GTS is showing around an 80% success rate at the moment. Mine and a few others flashed perfectly, but there are unfortunately some cards that do not.

 

Are you left with a bricked card if the flashing fails? Or is there a way to revert it?

 

It wont brick, it is fine in windows, its if you get it working hard it will crash or flicker and than you just flash it back.

Boot/Dos dont run the GPU at its max speed.
Depending on your windows driver it may downclock in windows also..

So unless you up the voltage crazy or jump the speed up super high you are good.

 

I thought you could only install Turbo memory in a notebook if you had an Intel Centrino processor.

 

Intel Centrino is a brand platform that signifies the pairing of an Intel mobile processor, an Intel mobile chipset (with or without Intel's graphics chipset), and an Intel wireless card.

The G50Vt has all three, so it is based on the Intel Centrino platform, but the processor itself is an Intel Core 2 Duo.

You can only install TurboMemory if you have a notebook based on the Santa Rosa or Montevina computing platforms, which are the last two generations of the Centrino platform. However, it doesn't add much in the way of performance.

 

Yea it wont give much preformance, and really wont give any if you load 8gb of RAM and/or solid state drives... but it has the third pci-e slot for it...

Wonder if its a standard slot and I could toss an internal cellular card in it.. Of course than I have the antenna problem...

Boy would the TV tuner be better, lol darn Asus...

 

Okay cool, thanks for the info. Maybe in the future I'll think about doing this...

Out of curiosity, where are the pci-e slots located? I did a quick skim of the disassembly guide here but didn't see anything other than the turbomemory+wifi slots. Maybe I missed them...

 

I may have made a mistake when I said 3 slots, not 100% now... You see I do notebook/pc/server/network repair for a living and I have tore so many notebooks apart this last week I may be remembering the wrong stuff, haha.

anyway the wifi and turbo memory slot are PCI-e slots... I honestly want to say they are identical and that turbo memory would work in the wifi and vice versa. Of course wifi wire wouldnt reach but you get the idea... So anything PCI-e should work in the so called turbo memory slot...

 

All good, no worries

I think Turbomemory is generally a reserved slot, though I could be wrong. I know it is a PCI-e interface though. I'm just wondering if there was any room for an expansion card other than the ExpressCard slot, because the turbomemory module seems to be a real pain to get to.

 

Is the graphix card just replaceable, or is it upgradeable? If upgradeable, then upgrade to what??? I would be fine if i had the same 9700m gt but with 1gig or maybe even 816.