Dell Inspiron 6000 Video

[ranc1d]

Hey all...I'm new to this forum, just not to the forum genre. So, hopefully I can nail everything about my question to it's fullest to limit confusion.

Anyhow...

I recently just purchased a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop. Packed with a 80GB 5400rpm hd, a gig of ram (ddr2 400mhz) A 15.4 WXGA screen which I've read is OK...8x DVD-RW...and a 6 hour 9cell battery. Now, I won this sucker off of ebay, as it was a referb so I hope I dont get canned with a sketchy laptop...but I won it for $516...just hope it isnt in crappy condition.

Comes with all of the stuff that it came from dell with...yadda yadda...


My question is, I know in this series they packed some ATI dedicated cards in these...however mine unfortunatley has the integrated video option (you can get the ATI card as an option)...which is fine due to, I wont be using this for gaming...just a little graphic work here and there. I'm just wondering if sinse this lappy has integrated video (soldered into the board I believe) if I can get on ebay and buy a dedicated card (the X300 128MB ATI card) for this, rip it a part and if it will work (e.g, will there be any issues between the integrated and the ATI)...and does anyone know the full specs for the integrated video? 64MB? 32MB? speeds? Thanks

 

[ozzlo]

there are two vid cards you can buy a 64meg and a 128meg version. the 128 meg version is a frigging joke. I'll show why...

the 64 and 128 meg x300's have the same amount of dedicated memmory 32mb... the difference is that the 64 meg version can only use an additional 32 megs of shared system memmory while the 128meg version can use 96megs of shared system memmory. when the cards where being sold by dell, dell was charging $100 xtra for video memmory that was really system memmory.


ok off my little rant there... my memmory is kinda sketchy but I do beleive that there was a chipset that did not have a pci express upgrade slot, again my memmory is a little fuzzy. I would open it up and see if it has a pci express graphics slot and if it does... your all good for upgrading... there should be an option in the bios to enable/disable integrated video and if not plugging in the dedicated card will disable the integrated automatically...

 

[gangaskan]

hey ozzlo do you know where to get the pci e video cards? i cant seem to find a site that carry's them


sorry if i'm thread jacking

 

[ozzlo]

there's only like 2 places that I know where to get em... directly through dell and on ebay(every now and then).


I haven't really been keeping tabs on this stuff since I decided I won't be upgrading my laptop for a couple years...

 

[ranc1d]

damn ozzlo, thanks for that info man.


What kind of pci-e cards are even available for the 6000?

 

[gangaskan]

i was lookin on the ebay and saw a 6800GO those pci express ? can i do that ?

 

[Mr. Roboto]

I'm sorry to inform you, but if you got the laptop with integrated video, you cannot add a card, there's not slot for it

 

[gangaskan]

mines not the intergreated x300

 

[DeadSmiley]

there are two vid cards you can buy a 64meg and a 128meg version. the 128 meg version is a frigging joke. I'll show why...

the 64 and 128 meg x300's have the same amount of dedicated memmory 32mb... the difference is that the 64 meg version can only use an additional 32 megs of shared system memmory while the 128meg version can use 96megs of shared system memmory. when the cards where being sold by dell, dell was charging $100 xtra for video memmory that was really system memmory.

I don't believe this is correct. I just bought a 6000 with the ATI 128MB video. When I open up "My Computer" on it it shows the full 512MB of RAM, unlike other laptops that have used that have shared system/video memory.