Nox A15 Gpu Replacement. Hard Drive questions

Hi,

I'm looking to buy this gpu due to a change of jobs which means that I could do with some improved performance using 3D CAD applications (not that the nox doesnt already handle them well). My question is, would there be anything to stop me from doing this, For example, would the BIOS recognise the card. I think essentially it is exactley the same card that I have now, its just for more professional applications instead of gaming. (Anyone after a second hand 9600m GT?)

Next question is about the heat of the hard drive, the laptop gets stupidly hot and if I take the cover off the bottom of the laptop, the hard drive is almost too hot to touch, even when just browsing the internet etc. Now is this heat mostly coming from the hard drive itself, or from the laptop. I ask this because if I knew getting an ssd would derease the heat of the laptop I would definetly go for it. Anyone tried it?

I also plan on trying out one of these and a pci ssd in the spare slot to see what options I have, could help for backing up or extra storage space, anything to stop me before I buy them?

Cheers

 

I have replaced the original hdd with a 500GB scorpio blue hdd. No heat problems here. But I did not have any heat problems before either. My heat issues originate from the cpu and the gpu.

 

I think the FX 770M and the 9600M GT are essentially the same. They are at #79 and #81 in notebookcheck's mobile CPU list.

I also thought that the difference is largely a matter of drivers with the Quadro driver being optimised for workstation applications whereas the GeForce is for gaming. I doubt if you would see enough performance benefit from changing the GPU to justify the cost. First you should try to impose the Quadro driver on your current hardware.

As for the HDD heat, which HDD do you have? You can see the maximum power consumptions for most 2.5" HDDs at Tom's Hardware (there are also a couple of other power consumption charts). However, HDD temperature will also depend on the environment within the computer. You can see the HDD temperature using a program such as HD Tune. See how the temperature varies with HDD activity (such as an in-depth virus scan) or CPU or GPU benchmarking.

If the HDD is near to the CPU / GPU then it will tend to be warmed up by those components unless there is an air vent nearby which allow air to be drawn in past the HDD before being blown through the heatsink by the cooling fan.

John

 

Well, like John says, there isn't much difference between the Quadro and the 9600. You can probably get the 9600 to perform slightly better using Nvidia's nTune utility. You'd probably see a noticable improvement with a GT 240m if you can find one. Should be compatible but don't know for sure.

 

Thanks for the input.

I have tried to use the quadro driver and also softmod the card which used to work with previous versions. Neither have worked out.

Even if its just certified drivers which are the difference, You'd be surprised at how much of an improvement there is, especially for Solidworks. My collegue has a Dell with an fx370m and that flies in large assembly mode compared to mine, and thats with the real time rendering turned on (which i cant access with my card). The rest of the laptops' specs are essentially the same so i cant see the performance gap being due to anything else.

As for the hard drive, its a Samsung Spinpoint M6, and maybe that chart you linked helps explain some of my heat issues. I'm going to do some spring cleaning like cleaning the vent and fan and replacing the thermal paste as ive been told this will all help.

What are your thoughts on replacing the DVD drive with another hard drive. Ive probably used the thing about twice since I got this laptop about 18 months ago so its worth a shot

 

What is the model of the DVD drive? If it has an SATA connector then see this thread. You might want to put a small SSD into the main HDD bay as the boot drive with the main HDD going into the optical drive bay as the bulk storage.

John

 

The model is - TSSTcorp CDDVDW SN-S083A ATA Device. Thanks for the link.

Thats exactly what I was planning to do, and then hopefully a small pci ssd like you get in netbooks for backing up as I have about 3GB of files that I need to keep safe, it would hopefully mean I could still backup these files when im not at home.

 

Just remember regarding the graphics card that the cooling unit/heat spreader was designed for the 9600M GT / 9650M GT / GT 130M, as they have about the same TPD. You can't expect one with a higher TPD to work or not overheat the notebook.

 

As I mentioned earlier, the GT 240m MXM II is a viable alternative since it draws the same current as the above cards. This is because it uses 40nm production process vs 55nm for GT 130m. Does anybody know where to pick one up?