Upgrading a Dell Inspiron 8600

[jsbush]

Ive got this laptop sitting here, and it needs some upgrades to keep me busy. 😉.

Im not quite sure what can be upgraded,

Its got a 1.4 ghz P-M (centrino), 512 of ram (2dims), WUXA screen, and the tiny little Geforce Go 5200 32megs.

Ideally Id like to upgrade the cpu, and video. I know you could order these laptops with a ATI card with 128megs, but can it be upgraded after words.

If I upgrade the CPU, what should I go with, and whats the fastest this laptop can take. Can it handel a 533FSB?


Thanks

 

[cheesehead]

The GPU and video are both upgradeable, if I'm not mistaken.
The laptop cannot handle 533mhz FSB (Sonoma) P-M's. Only 400mhz FSB P-M's.
The video card takes model-specific modules, so they'll likely not be cheap.
The RAM is also upgradeable.
Be warned, however, that this is not an easy thing to do. A tweezers is required in some cases. (I kid you not; I repair laptops on a regular basis.) And you'll likely have to sand the original crap off the CPU/GPU heatsink, and replace it with something decent. (I.E, Arctic Silver Ceramique, my preferred thermal compound for laptops.)

I have 1GB of DDR266 (I think the 8600 runs 333, making this a dumb purchase, but I'm not sure), a 1.6 ghz Pentium-M, and a 60GB HDD if you're intersted.

 

[jsbush]

Dont know if it runs 333 or not, but the ram currently in it is 333.

A jump from 1.4ghz to 1.6 would be that much of a difference I dont think. Can this handel a 2ghz?

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: jsbush
Dont know if it runs 333 or not, but the ram currently in it is 333.

A jump from 1.4ghz to 1.6 would be that much of a difference I dont think. Can this handel a 2ghz?

Yes. The TDP for a Banias is 24W. The TDP for a 400FSB Dothan is 21W. The design specifications indicate that it should handle a 2Ghz Dothan/400 without an issue.

The highest videocard is a Radeon 9600 pro. But they are laptop specific and rather expensive. Another option is the GF4-go.

 

[cheesehead]

That thing will handle a 2.0 ghz P-M with ease. With good thermal paste, your temps will likely decrease from what they are now.
I'm pretty sure that the GF4-Go was never an option for the 8600. If I recall, there were three options: A 32mb GEforce 5200, A 128mb 5200, and the 9600 Pro Turbo. (There may have been a 9600 at some point in time.

 

[deathwalker]

Despite any of the opinions you get on this thread to the contrary..Laptops are "not" designed with upgrade in mind..with the expception of the most common things such as memory and Hard Drives. Thus almost all other upgrades that users persue general turn out to be quite lacking from a cost benifit point of view. Laptops should be bought "with" want you want for long term use. Buying lesser equipment with the idea of "I'll" just upgrade it later is simply foolish.

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: Cheesehead
That thing will handle a 2.0 ghz P-M with ease. With good thermal paste, your temps will likely decrease from what they are now.
I'm pretty sure that the GF4-Go was never an option for the 8600. If I recall, there were three options: A 32mb GEforce 5200, A 128mb 5200, and the 9600 Pro Turbo. (There may have been a 9600 at some point in time.

That was teh later models.

The earlier models had a base of 32MB Radeon 9000 and 64MB GF4-go

Originally posted by: deathwalker
Despite any of the opinions you get on this thread to the contrary..Laptops are "not" designed with upgrade in mind..with the expception of the most common things such as memory and Hard Drives. Thus almost all other upgrades that users persue general turn out to be quite lacking from a cost benifit point of view. Laptops should be bought "with" want you want for long term use. Buying lesser equipment with the idea of "I'll" just upgrade it later is simply foolish.

Right... same thing can be said about desktops a few years back.

Looking on eBay, a low end Dothan/400FSB can be had for less than $50. Higher end ones are $100-150, which compared to my 1.3Ghz Banias, would be as pretty good upgrade if I needed it.

 

[deathwalker]

Originally posted by: dexvx

Originally posted by: Cheesehead
That thing will handle a 2.0 ghz P-M with ease. With good thermal paste, your temps will likely decrease from what they are now.
I'm pretty sure that the GF4-Go was never an option for the 8600. If I recall, there were three options: A 32mb GEforce 5200, A 128mb 5200, and the 9600 Pro Turbo. (There may have been a 9600 at some point in time.

That was teh later models.

The earlier models had a base of 32MB Radeon 9000 and 64MB GF4-go

Originally posted by: deathwalker
Despite any of the opinions you get on this thread to the contrary..Laptops are "not" designed with upgrade in mind..with the expception of the most common things such as memory and Hard Drives. Thus almost all other upgrades that users persue general turn out to be quite lacking from a cost benifit point of view. Laptops should be bought "with" want you want for long term use. Buying lesser equipment with the idea of "I'll" just upgrade it later is simply foolish.

Right... same thing can be said about desktops a few years back.

Looking on eBay, a low end Dothan/400FSB can be had for less than $50. Higher end ones are $100-150, which compared to my 1.3Ghz Banias, would be as pretty good upgrade if I needed it.

I do agree that CPU upgrades are far more cost effective than they use to be. In reality the focus on my opinion was directed a bit more towards Graphics upgrades.