E1705 Upgrade Options

Ok just got off chat with dell support and a little skeptical as far as what I was advised. I am looking at upgrading my current hard drive and basically starting from scratch. If i am not mistaken it has an 100gb 5400 fujitsu 1.5 sata drive in it now and looking at what I could use to upgrade to.

Can I use a drive that is 3.0 sata?
Dell advised that max capacity of HDD for this system is 100gb I am thinking she possibly misunderstood I was wanting to know what the largest drive i could install was.

 

There won't be a [realistically limiting] size limit on it. You can use a 500GB SATA drive. SATA 3.0 is fully backwards compatible with SATA 150, it will just run at the SATA 150 speed.

 

Yeah I understood that it would run at 150 speed but still surprised with the info I got through I am sure there are probably tons of stories here about what they have been told.

 

Dell staff are paid to tell you that you can not upgrade your laptop. They do this because they do not want the consumer taking their system apart.
The Dell Inspiron E1705 supports 500GB SATA 2 drives.
I just installed a WD5000BEVT in my friends E1705. This is a 500gb sata 2 drive.
The drive registered as the full 500gb and runs flawlessly.

You can upgrade to any 2.5" SATA 9.5mm thick drive that you want.

If you want a 500gb, i recommend the WD5000BEVT or the Hitachi 5K500.B

K-TRON

 

I must say, K-TRON is right. They don't want you going out and buying the product from other companies for cheaper and installing it yourself. They want you to pay double or even triple so they can get one in for you. Rip Offs .

 

You can upgrade the gpu in this laptop.

 

Yes, true but...
I'm sorry... who asked though?

 

Anybody used an SSD Disk in a E1705. Can get a 60gb for under $100 and I just got a network hard drive so thinking of using it for music files etc so could go with the smaller hard drive. I am primarily looking to speed up my laptop as much as possible which is one reason thinking of just wiping everything clean with it.

 

I was just trying to help and you topic does SAY E1705 UPGRADE OPTIONS

 

have you upgraded the video card in your laptop? any specific thread that would be a good place to start for that. for a 17 inch laptop the more i can update the better it will be to prolong the chassis.

 

The E1705 is compatible with the 7900GS, 7900GTX, 7950GTX and quadro fx2500M.
Here is a very helpful guide which shows you how to upgrade your graphics card

http://eduncan911.com/archive/2007/12/11/why-the-inspiron-is-a-king.aspx

The memory on your system is also upgradeable to 4GB (2 x 2GB) Pc5300 memory

K-TRON

 

Thanks K-TRON,

I've seen this guide before and others like it on the web. As far as memory, I've already upgraded to 4 gigs and after reading several of your threads I am planning on upgrading my hard drive again since my 200gb seagate died after 6 months and I had to go back to the original 80gig.

 

ok next question I have integrated graphics am i SOL or able to upgrade?

 

If you currently have an IGP, you will probably not be able to upgrade the GPU on your current board. Only motherboards without an IGP will have the connector for a discrete video card. You will probably need to buy a new board to upgrade the GPU.

I'm actually not 100% sure about this as I can't find a picture of an E1705 board with an IGP, but if the trends indicated by other Dell machines hold true, this should be the case.

 

The weakest card the E1705 shipped with was the geforce go 7900GS

The E1705/I9400 was one of the most upgradeable laptops. Just about everything can be upgraded on it.

K-TRON

 

It is also because upgrading components in your laptop may violate your warranty if something were to happen, ie, the new hard drive you install shells out and for some reason, fries your entire notebook. It's a liability issue more than anything.

 

Actually the weakest card it shipped with was the ATI X1400. It is also compatible with the 7800GTX.

 

^^ I didnt know that. I never heard of a E1705 with either a X1400 or a 7800GTX

either way all of the choices are dedicated cards, so the gpu is upgradeable.

K-TRON

 

Here's a 7800:
http://cgi.ebay.com/DELL-INSPIRON-9400-E1705-Video-256MB-GeFORCE-Go-7800_W0QQitemZ270346624708QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLaptops_Nov05?hash=item270346624708&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50


Here's an X1400:
http://cgi.ebay.com/CG108-Inspiron-9400-E1705-XPS-Radeon-X1400-128Mb-Video_W0QQitemZ170302354494QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPCC_Video_TV_Cards?hash=item170302354494&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50


I doubt I'd dump the money into a video card upgrade unless I scored an awesome deal somehow. An 8600M GT GDDR3 is going to outperform most of the cards this thing can take - so selling the current system and buying a new one not only gets you a new system with a warranty, all new technology, etc, but you can score a system equivalent to a maxed out E1705 today for less than 1000 bucks - just over what it would cost to max out the E1705 in the first place.