Is this video card compatible?

[king123456]

Is a hd 3650 compatible with my compal fl90? They are both MXM II, but I want to make sure.

 

[corkyg]

No way! The referenced Radeon cards are full size designed for desktops, etc. They are probably bigger than your notebook's mobo. Notebooks do not use full size video cards. Most have video chipsets on the mobo. Some are changeable, many are not.

 

[king123456]

There's a mobility hd 3650 for laptops.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/A...on-HD-3650.8839.0.html

Here's also my notebook.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/R...0-Notebook.4209.0.html

 

[TheStu]

If they are both MXM II, then I suppose they would be.

What is the existing card?

 

[king123456]

It's a 8600m gt 256mb, but I read that not all MXMII cards and laptops work together so I'm not totally sure.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: king123456
It's a 8600m gt 256mb, but I read that not all MXMII cards and laptops work together so I'm not totally sure.

Upgrading video cards in a laptop is a huge gamble. I'd search around google to see if anyone else performed such an upgrade.

Personally, I'd avoid it just because upgrading a lot of hardware in notebooks (outside of RAM/HDD) is more trouble than it is worth. Too many non-standard components, having to dismantle the entire device to get what you want out, BIOS support might not exist for components that technically could be changed out, etc...

 

[IlllI]

3650 probably isnt much better than what you have. unless the one you have now is broken i would not bother with it

 

[king123456]

Yeah, it's broken. I searched around and saw that a compal IFL90 works with hd3650 but I'm not too sure how different is a FL90 because I couldn't find anything on it. And I don't really know much about BIOS, so if I don't get support for it, will the card work at all?

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: king123456
Yeah, it's broken. I searched around and saw that a compal IFL90 works with hd3650 but I'm not too sure how different is a FL90 because I couldn't find anything on it. And I don't really know much about BIOS, so if I don't get support for it, will the card work at all?

It would be a matter of the motherboard recognizing the card. Some manufacturers lock the bios to only certain video cards (usually the ones that are sold with the machine), so even if another card fits, the computer will just reject it and not work with it. I'm not saying that is the case here, but it could be a problem you might encounter should you carry this out.

You could try asking them on Notebookforums.com, they have specific forums for various brands, so someone there might know more about your situation.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: king123456
There's a mobility hd 3650 for laptops.

OK - that was not apparent. The question really is, does your laptop's broken GPU (NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT - 256 MB GDDR2 400MHz) come on a removable PC board or is it soldered to the mobo. If it is a removable card, you can probably replace it - but to avoid unforeseen problems, then why not replace it with the same NVIDIA?

Supposedly the MXM designation indicates a replaceable card. Maybe this one?

Nvidia

 

[king123456]

I could but the price is about the same for both of the cards on ebay, and from what I've seen, the hd 3650 is better.