FW Graphic question?? any advice would be great

So, this is my questions... fairly sure the answer is no, but never hurts to ask

I bought my sony FW 140D the week they were released and therefore was stuck with the ATI 3470 graphics card.

Since i bought the laptop, there have been numerous new graphics cards available for the FW model Sony... i was wondering if it is possible at all to switch my 3470 to something like the 4650 or 4670 (i think those are the numbers)

Or is it still "impossible" to switch graphics cards in laptops?

Thanks for any and all advice

 

Its impossible because the graphic "cards" in notebooks are not actual cards like you see in a desktop. They are actually GPUs that are solder onto the motherboard.

In order to get a new GPU, you need a new motherboard, which is essentially the cost of a new computer.

 

Finally someone with the same FW model as me. How does the laptop run for you after a year of usage?

 

actually i remember talking to you through messaging about buying the laptop a year ago

i LOVE this laptop, dont regret my purchase for even a second i would just upgrade for the future if it was easy

How about you? liking the laptop?

 

Ah yes, I remember! Sorry, your name completely slipped my brain.

I love the laptop. I've run into a few problems over the year (needed to change the screen and right-click button stopped working and had to reformat Vista, TWICE -_-) but the hardware problems were fixed by Sony through the warranty and I'm hoping to update to Win 7 soon. So far, so good, hopefully I won't be running in any more problems.

Laptop still runs amazing, it's fast and I've been monitoring temperatures and they haven't increased, still runs cool. And it doesn't feel outdated (in terms of general, day-to-day usage), especially considering how much I paid for it.

 

I have the same laptop and I have gotten a weird mouse button problem as well, just randomly either the left or right mouse button will act as either a middle click or as the opposite mouse button, i have checked the touch pad software and the buttons are configured correctly, sometimes it goes away after a few days and starts working again but another time it happened for weeks and only a system restore would fix it, I'm guessing its either a vista problem or a malfunction, did you have a similar experience? I'm just hoping it won't happen again.

I was also wondering if i could upgrade this 3470 card, are you sure it isn't a card, it just seems silly for sony to have make different motherboards for different cards

 

Nope, never had that problem with the mouse buttons. Basically for me, the right click just stopped working, no response or I had to press it really, really hard to get a response but the Sony Service Center fixed it and it's back to normal now.

Sony doesn't have different motherboards for different cards. The graphics chip is SOLDERED onto the motherboard (chances are that the motherboard itself is the exact same) so if you want to change your graphics chip, you have to replace the whole motherboard. For example, if your HD3470 graphics would fry tomorrow, Sony would have to replace the whole motherboard.

 

not possible at all to just solder a new graphics card onto the existing motherboard?

or different connector locations / numbers i suppose?

 

Well...you can...but you would need a machine to do all the soldering for you as the connections are microscopic...you would also need to obtain the actual ATI GPU (notice how I said GPU, and not card) to do so.

1.) You'll never get the ATI GPU by itself without a motherboard attached to it.
2.) You will not have the skills to solder the GPU on there by hand,
2a.)or have access to a machine that can with the same precision,
2b.)and if you do, it will literally be impossible for you to program the machine to do the soldering since you don't have any specs to feed the machine.

 

Just to add on to what MegaManX has said, I (THINK) that the machines use a heat gun oppose to a soldering iron, and with that heat gun the machine has a high temperature and it cools it down at the same time to get the perfect pinpoint mark that needs to be soldered, which is impossible to to by hand, plus i dont think that heat guns are easy to find. and not very cheap either.
So its literally impossible to change a GPU card on a laptop without having your motherboard changed. there are quite a very small handful of laptops that do have upgradable GPU's to only those which the company provides itself
Example your computer has GPU card A the company only has A, B, and C as choices to upgrade to. Hope this helps you out