"Upgrading" the video card in a Dell Precision M90

[CrackRabbit]

My father was given two Dell Precision M90 laptops from a friend. Both have Quadro FX 1500ms that are dying from what looks to be overheating / bad solder, as was common of Nvidia cards of that era.
I'm looking to get at least one of them up and running with a new video card and I don't want to simply replace it with another Quadro 15/25/3500 series card that will overheat and die again.
I've read that the ATI x1300 and 1400 cards from the 9400/E1705 and the Quadro 16/26/3600 cards from the Precision M6300 are physically compatible but I can't seem to find anything if the cards actually work properly with the M90 once installed.

If anyone here has any experince with it, please reply before I go off on ebay and buy something that might not work.

 

[paul878]

Don't wast you time trying to upgrade laptop video cards, not going to work.
Nvidia chip have a very high failure rate during that era, don't wast money trying to fix it.

 

[imagoon]

Dell M90 uses a proprietary slot. There is only a couple of cards that work in it. It is fairly simple to swap out if you have a replacement however.

Supported GPUs:

ATI X1400
FX1500M
7900 Go GS
FX2500M
7900 Go GTX
FX3500M
7950 Go GTX

They all come from Dell and likely are available on ebay / the web.

 

[TerryMathews]

I had a similar issue with a similar laptop: HP nw9440. Too nice to pitch, but the Quadro 1500M was bad. Replaced with an X1400 from eBay and runs like a charm.

You will lose a little performance, but not a lot. You will however gain the piece of mind that ATi chips from the same generation don't suffer from the same sudden death issues.

 

[CrackRabbit]

I've managed to "bake" one of the GPUs in them back to life, at least for a time.
That should hold my father over for a few months, at least long enough for me to secure an x1400 cheaply.
Though these laptops are getting to the age where a $3-400 one will beat it on performance.
Thanks guys.