GPU Upgrade P-6860fx

Know this is an old laptop, but I was wondering if there were any compatible video cards other than the nvidia 8800gts which comes stock.

 

sadly, gpu and video ram are the part of the motherboard and don't come separately as mxm card

 

The best you can do is update your whole motherboard to a p79* board. That will give you an updated graphics card and capability with quad core processors.

 

The P68xx to P79 is a much more onvolved proccess than from a P78xx, so be prepaired to spend a bit more.

 

Is it a matter of just disassembling and then reassembling it with the different motherboard or is it more involved than that? I've taken it apart completely to clean it before. Where would be the best place to get a p79 motherboard ?

 

There's seller on ebay selling brand new p79 motherboards. As far as I remember it's gonna cost you about $260-300.
Changing mb in p68 series is like you said more involving process because you'll have to buy p78-p79 power button panel, dvd drive and ram sticks...
there's detailed thread on this forum about swapping motherboadrs.

 

So from my understanding I will need the following: p79 motherboard, new cpu (is the P8800 CPU compatible?), GPU Heatsink + fan (although the p6 is compatible it is inferior from my reading?), Media Bar with all boards and ribbons, and compatible ram. Should I get a new CPU Heatsink and fan or is it the same between models?

Another question is are there any other compatible keyboards (that don't have to be modified to fit) as I just really hate the stock keyboard.

 

Also a new DVD. Haven't seen a keyboard yet............

 

your old cpu heatsink should work fine and as for dvd drive you could upgrade for blue ray.

 

I don't know which you will choose but I put a T9300 into my gateway and would've gotten a T9500 but that was quite a price hike but the T9300 works fine for me but I haven't gone gaming yet so not sure but at least I got a higher then T5758 processor that was in there when I bought it used. But also do a good dust cleaning of both the CPU and GPU and redo the thermal paste to improve your cooling if you decide to go gaming to help keep heat down. But so far I am happy with my used Gateway P-6860FX rig. I most likely will keep this for some time to come til it reaches it's end of life span usage. I think 512MB is pretty big myself for that gateway but if you wanting more I think you might want to get a newer laptop with more GPU RAM but that will be a expensive unit that much of RAM would be good for gaming.

 

Is the T9600 compatible with the p79* motherboard. I searched around and was looking at this list
Mobile Intel® PM45 Express Chipset with 82801IBM I/O Controller Hub (ICH9M)

If so from searching around I think the T9600 is the best processor under $100. Also if anyone has parts I'm looking to buy for the right price, else I'm probably hitting Ebay in the next few days.

 

as for the cpu I've just bought E8435 for $90 including shipping from ebay. the seller is from Japan and he's got a few more in stock. this cpu is the same perfomance as T9900 and X9100 non OC'ed but costs much less because of the heat issue which is easily solved by undervolting it with throttlestop software.

 

The T9600 is fine and the TDP should be handled easily by the P68xx CPU sink and fan. As mentioned the Exxx series CPU's tend to have a higher TDP but will work as well. With those CPU's do expect possible undervolting to obtain stable clocks................