The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
If the 702x is/was sold with a quad then yes you can upgrade yours from the i5 to a quad in the future. If it's not, then it might as it might not be able to recognise a quad core CPU.
The power adapter only depends on the GPU as I recall. You get a 130W unless you get the 555m card, in which case you get a 150W.
Yes, you can upgrade the CPU to one of the same socket, but you will not be able to put chips that currently are not made in (Intel changes the socket type pretty much every year it seems). Getting the plain CPU isn't cheap or easy though, you are looking at several hundred dollars easily. You might be better served by just getting the quad now.
Any reason for not getting the 2630QM now aside from the added price? Depending on the i5 I don't think it is that much of a price increase to get it anyway. Of course, if you can't do it now, then you can't. But it will most likely cost you way more money in the long run.
Pretty much the only place you can get a decent selection of laptop CPUs is off of ebay, and most of the time they're either engineering samples or used. RAM is easy to upgrade later on a laptop, but you should get the CPU (and especially the GPU) you want right off the bat.
Yup GPU has to be bought up front unless you have a Dell proprietary version or MXM. CPU upgrades really depends. Sometimes they give you a good deal (i3 to i5 for 50 bucks) but if you bought an Alienware they may charge 500 to go to an i7...generally the XPS line and Inspiron give you more fair deals. As for the specific boards not support XX processor, you may want to get in more XPS 17 R2 owners in here who have done the swap, they would know better. Chipset may support all the new processor but Dell might whitelist the CPU in BIOS (they did for the last generation Studio XPS's).
I know this is a little devious in relation to the original post but do you have any more info on the BIOS whitelist in the studio XPS? I took mine apart yesterday in search of the PLL (couldn't find it anywhere, only 1 obvious clock crystal and that was for an ethernet chip), instead I found what looks to be a PCIe pad without a connector. I would assume that dell put it there with the intention of possibly using it on a later revision for MXM or something along the lines. Anyway, I was thinking that should I ever aquie a new computer in the near future, I could possibly swap out the processor for a quad, solder on a PCIe connector and stick in a decent graphics card.
You wont notice the difference in size between the 130 or the 150 watt power supplies. They look roughly the same size. I had both of them here at the same time and if not for the label you wouldn't be able to tell them apart.
The way I understand the whitelist works is only for the 1645 and the 1647. If you had one configured with an i7 then you can upgrade to a higher end i7 (720QM to say a 840QM) but if you had one with an i5 then you can't upgrade up to an i7 even though the chipset supports the processor. Perhaps not a whitelist, maybe processor TDP.
I read somewhere on here a few weeks back that someone took an XPS 17 (l702x) that came with a i7-2630QM (I think it was that one) and swapped it out for a 2920 (the extreme one) and it worked fine. Dell offers the 2630, 2720, and 2820 on the XPS line (at least on the 17), and apparently the 2920 works too. I'll try to find the post.
2920XM shouldn't be a problem though it would run hot and the XPS 17 cooling system is quite poor. Dell traditionally have never restricted CPU's in the BIOS, in fact Dell typically has some of the most lenient BIOS options out there.
I couldn't find the post, but the guy that did it also did a repaste (well he kinda had to now didn't he...) and removed the fan intake screen, and in the end his temps were lower than most people get with the 2630. I'm tempted to pull my intake screen too as the thing has already gotten clogged decently after only 2 months of light use...but maybe I'll just shoot some canned air in there...
I would think so, they should be the same socket type. Though the HS+fan may not be up to the extra load, idk. I didn't know the i3 was offered on the XPS 17??? Thought it was only i5/i7.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
