Question on Upgrading the Dell XPS 1730

So I'm a really lucky guy right now.

I'm going to enter postgrad this fall and my old man decided to hook me up with a laptop. My current Acer is terribad but the old man came through and is buying this for me!!!

I'm planning on upgrading the bolded items, specifically the hard drive, the wireless card, and the productivity software.

How much would it cost to upgrade the hard drive to a 320GB HDD? Is that hard to do? I've opened up a laptop to clean the fans before but never replaced anything. Actually, could I just add one it and not actually replace it? That would be pretty good, too.

I'd also like to upgrade to the newest wireless card [I think the a/g/n one]... is that possible? Is it hard? How much would it cost?

Thanks and sorry if this is double posting.

 

the hard drive is easy enough, although i cant give you any help unless i was in the room with you. never seen th inside of that laptop before. as for the wireless though, im not sure.

i think the hard drive you have in it now is fine. I dont think you will be covered if you try and replace the wireless on your own.

as for cost, the 320HDD would be about 50euro if you could get a trade, but i would urge you to stay with the 7200rpm drive that you have now. otherwise you will lose a bit of performance.

 

Forget the other parts, and get the 8800GTX SLI.

 

How much would it cost to upgrade to the SLI 8800?

 

you should really just call dell and ask to get a proper figure.

 

Buying M1730 w/ 8800 is much cheaper than upgrading from lower end GPU.

8800M GTX SLI alone will cost around 900 bucks if you are lucky enough to get a sales rep w/ common sense from Dell Spare parts.

 

Yeah I know it would be cheaper on this end. However, that's not really possible at this point in time so it will have to be an upgrade...

So going from 1 8700M GT to SLI 8800M GTXs should be around $900?

 

If you are lucky that is.

Price @ dell spare parts for now is 2k, but like I said, if you get lucky, you can get one for around 900.

 

would you not just get a singles 8800m gtx if an sli version is too expensive?

 

No need to upgrade the 160gb hard drive. You can add another one if you need more space.

 

Yeah I forgot that there is space for more than one HD, I'll just add another.

I might just go to the 8800M GTX here in a few months... price is always the limiting factor! Gotta buy diapers before I can buy GPUs!

 

HDD and RAM are the easiest upgrades.
Take a look at my video guides (link in sig) - watch the review of the underside of the M1730, and you'll see where the HDD and RAM go,.....