Upgrading Dell Inspiron 9300

Hi there everyone!
Please could someone help me?

I bought my Inspiron 9300 over three years ago and it really needs upgrading. It currently has a Pentium M740 1.73GHz processor; 512(2x256) 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM; ATI MobilityRadeon X300 64MB Hypermemory video card.

i want to upgrade these aspects myself but I should say that i am a novice.

I live in France and am having difficulty in identifying what upgrades I could buy for this older laptop. For example i have read on the forums that a NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 256MB PCI express X16 would be the best upgrade but I can't find this for sale anywhere.

Could someone please explain to me what upgrades i need to be looking for and where I might find them? Would it be advisable or even possible to change the processor? Although I definately want to upgrade the memory and graphics.

Also, does anyone know of where I could get hold of a 'how to?' for this particular model?

Thanks in anticipation
Karen

 

Here is the service manual for the Inspiron 9300: http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins9300/sm/index.htm

You can upgrade your processor up to the Pentium M 780, but this is a disproportionately expensive part and may not be worthwhile. You can upgrade your memory up to 2GB of DDR2 memory. The replaceable graphics cards in Dell laptops are all proprietary and therefore hard to find. There's a few on eBay, but I don't know how many will ship to France:

http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=m38&_nkw=dell+9300+video&_sacat=See-All-Categories

 

For the video card, it's either from Dell themselves, or from eBay or any private seller. And yes, you can upgrade it to the 6800 256mb max.


As for the processor, you can go up anywhere on the Pentium M socket 479, up to Pentium M 2.26ghz (M780 IIRC).

 

What do you do on this system?
The only thing I really think could be worthwhile for you to upgrade would be the memory - if you're a gamer, it's time to get a new system - if you're not, the 6800 won't help you at all anyway, and will just cost you an arm and a leg.
Maybe a slightly fast CPU if you can find one for relatively cheap, but even then the performance gains likely won't outweigh the costs.

 

hi there thanks for the quick responses...

Okay, i want to use it for mainly photographic work, surf the net and play the odd older game. At the moment the graphics card is useless for that so it would be nice to play the games I've got and maybe some of the older ones.

I've found a couple of upgrades and want to know if they'd be okay...

PointofView GeForce 6800 512 Mo DDR2 (web site in France)
Crucial 1GB 200-pin SODIMM DDR2-PC2-5300

Thanks again for all the help. The link to dell is great!
Karen

 

That video card won't work. You need a specific 6800, not just any 6800, like those in Commander Wolf's link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-9300-XPS-M170-nVidia-6800-256MB-Video-Card-W5373_W0QQitemZ370185478825QQcmdZViewItemQQptZPCC_Video_TV_Cards?hash=item370185478825&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50


At 200 dollars I don't think I'd even consider this upgrade, a new laptop for 500 bucks with a Radeon 3450 would outperform it anyway.

 

Thanks for the help everyone.
Basically it would be easier and cheaper to buy a new laptop!
Oh well.... it was worth a shot
Thanks again
Karen

 

You should get more 2nd opinion on what type of card is appropriate with your board. Try tracking down your current card's model predecessors.