Graphics Upgrade

Can I upgrade the Mobility RadeonX1400 graphics card in my Dell Inspiron 9400 Laptop?

My Laptop is only 2 years old but can I upgrade the graphics card?

Public Comments

1. No, laptops besides a very few select models, can NOT be upgraded normaly, other than RAM, and Hard drives. Graphics Cards are almost never upgradable in laptops.
2. depends what you mean by upgrade, Upgrade as in software - yes go to the radeon website and check for video card driver updates If you mean get a whole ner driver - then hmm lets just put it this way no. it is possible but you kind off need to take your whole computer apart and you need to be a preety big computer genious
3. Not yet.... But Asus is coming out with an external video card for laptops. It should be out within the next 6 months or so. http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/08/hands-on-with-the-asus-xg-station-external-gpu Other than that they stopped making PCMCIA graphics cards about 4 years ago.
4. Upgrading anything but memory on a laptop is virtually impossible unless you know what you are doing and are lucky. It would probably be best to contact Dell and see what they suggest.
5. No. To make things small all the parts of the laptop are basically stuck together, only way to upgrade the card itself would be to send it off and get the chips upgraded which would just be stupid since you could probably get a whole new laptop for the price of the upgrade
6. Yes you can , You can upgrade up to 7800 or 7900 series I've done it myself on a 9300 (same as the 9400 but only Centrino single core) I went from a ATI x300 to a Geforce 7800 Its requires you to open up your Dell and go into the motherboard section.. If you dont want to Do it yourself, you can get Dell to do it... Although they will charge you for fitting... Also Dell Notebook Graphics Cards are really expensive compared to Desktop Cards £200 + notebook Geforce 7900 £80 + Desktop Geforce 7900 just take your time if you do it yourself, don't lose the screws and don't force the card in...Earth yourself regularly, Heres a Step-by-step guide http://www.legitreviews.com/article/349/1/ .