replacing mobility radeon 3470 with mobility radeon 3650 in T400

Hi, I was wondering if this is possible. Can I replace my 3470 with a 3650? I found some sellers that have the 3650 on Ebay.

 

Anything's possible with enough skill. You'd have to desolder the 3470 card. Find a way to fit the new card in its place. Probably modify the cooling system because the T400 probably can't take the extra heat. You'll need to modify the BIOS and write a new driver, then you're in like Flynn.

 

The Radeon 3650 cards that you can find on eBay will likely not fit in the T400, which has a soldered graphics chipset. Even if you somehow got the 3650 to actually work with the T400 without destroying the motherboard (which won't be covered by the warranty, obviously), the T400 would not be able to handle the extra heat that the 3650 put out (which is quite significant).

In short, not possible.

 

if you have to ask, then no, it isn't possible for you

 

I suggest this read http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=41454

 

However, Lenovo did cram the neutered version of the Nvidia FX 570 (workstation version of the GeForce 8600) into the 14 inch T61p. It's possible, if the cooling system is supercharged to handle it. Even then, Lenovo mysteriously discontinued that model half way through the T61 lifespan (lack of 4:3 screens? dying graphics cards?). I'm posing this as idle speculation. Don't try it.

Have fun de-soldering the motherboard. Even if you could magically get the BIOS to recognize the the 3650 (which you can't), you would have to undervolt and underclock the GPU it would not be worth using. You would have to find a 3650 version equivalent to the (neutered) Nvidia 8600 G in the LG P300. Mid range graphics cards still draw too much power and disipate too much heat to use in 14 inch or smaller laptops. It compromises too much

Notice no OEM put a 3650 or 9600 in a laptop. Notice no one is planning to do the same with a 4600 or whatever the Hell Nvidia has in their lineup.

 

Lots of effort to do, questionable if it would be successful. Another way of getting a faster gpu would be a DIY ViDock. It uses the expressport to drive an external desktop video card. See here. Cost? US$50 - PE4 + US$70-HD4670 + US$15-12V PSU + external LCD. Just note that the HD4670 will run at x1 1.0 speeds.. good enough for ~33FPS in Resident Evil 5. See Crysis/RE5 pci-e scaling analysis here.

 

The FX 570 was underclocked in 14 inch T61p AFAIK.