Dell C640 Video Card

For those who want to know, You DO NOT have to desolder the ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 video graphics card from the Dell latitude C640. I know this for a fact because I have 3 of these laptops, 1 of which was cannibalized as a snap in replacement. After removing the heat sync cover and the power button board, it unplugs directly from the ribbon, then the mother board. This makes me wonder if it's possible to snap in a card with a little more capacity like maybe a mobility 9600 or something.....any ideas?

 

Nope. Those are Dell specific designed parts, so unless Dell made a better card for the C640 there is no option.

 

I have had some c640's in the past and the gpu is removable, but dell only manufactured one which fit the board.
Thus their are no upgrades in the gpu section for it.

You may want to consider something newer since it is on the older side.

K-TRON

 

Oh well,.....was worth a try I suppose. I have a Gateway MX7515 with a half decent ati x600 video card. The problem is that the C640s can't run network games that require pixel shading support, and sometimes it's fun to have sort of portable mini LAN parties with friends. ...Guess I'll have to stick with the older LAN games like Starcraft or maybe Tribes in low res.

 

the c640 was a business laptop about 7 yrs ago, so it wasnt really designed for gaming.
Its a good reliable system, its major downfall is its usb 1.1 and fairly bad graphics card.

K-TRON

 

Correctomundo, you sure can. Now for the Latitude C640 though, the Radeon 7500 mobility is pretty much the best part available for it. Other cards that will fit include the Geforce 2 32mb DDR, Radeon M6 (7000 based) with 16mb DDR, then finally lower end ATI Radeons with only 8mb RAM. No more powerful cards were made in that form factor unfortunately. i'd stick with what you have now with a mild overclock, as stock it is already better than a Geforce Go2 with 32mb DDR (I am assuming your 7500 has 32mb DDR).