Dell does not sell or support video card upgrades. I do not know how soon the ATi 9600 cards will be available through Spare Parts (800-372-3355). It may take a few weeks, since most early stock will be allocated to new system sales. I have not worked on an Inspiron 8600 directly, but I believe that you should be able to replace the video card yourself.
Dell will not provide warranty coverage for a video card that is not sold with the system. In addition, if the system is damaged in anyway by the upgrade, that damage will not be covered under warranty.
I am also an i8600 owner who is very angry about this - I bought a laptop with 'Ultimate Multi-Media Performance' and the very item that was supposed to deliver that has been replaced. I think Dell are going to have a lot of calls to answer here
Wow... it never surprises me to hear this kind of stuff.. Look, its a LAPTOP. 7 years ago, I FIRST heard about a laptop that had modular bays, 3 years ago (or so), I saw a laptop that you could upgrade the CPU.. Now we're popping in hard drives, video cards, entire LCD's, and what-not.. These systems typically aren't engineered for upgrades.. I consider it a boon that there is any wiggle room at all! I've taken my venerable 8200 from a 1.7 / geforce 4mx to a 2.5ghz with a quadro, and it saved me from having to run out and buy the 8500 (so I could buy my new 8600, which I ordered today)...
If anything, $200 is a paltry sum compared to another couple thousand dollars on buying a new laptop..
And Dell Guy Rollie? If you're out there watching, all I can say is thanks for being as professional as you are about this kind of stuff.. I think it's pretty cool that they don't crack down on people upgrading their laptops to begin with.. It's obviously not in Dell's interest if you can upgrade your system at a cheaper price than buying a whole new system..
lighten up everyone.. they finally got the 9600 128 meg turbo!!!
Considering the current state of nVidia GPUs compared to ATI and Dells decision to change the i8600 128 MB card from the GeForce 5650 to the ATI 9600, It isnt too much to ask Dell to offer us with the 5650 a discounted upgrade on a computer that we spent $2500 freakin dollars on!
" I think it's pretty cool that they don't crack down on people upgrading their laptops to begin with"
Are you implying that you don't think people should be able to do what they want with the laptop they purchase? You must not live in America I take it....
Anyway, this is nice news and all, but if they dont make the card available for their faster laptop (I5150..who wants Centrino when you have HyperThreading...sheesh), then its of no use. Thanks anyway Dell! The new Sager model with the Mobility 9700 Pro is coming out next month anyway, so life will be good then.
@dextius wrote:
Wow... it never surprises me to hear this kind of stuff.. Look, its a LAPTOP. 7 years ago, I FIRST heard about a laptop that had modular bays, 3 years ago (or so), I saw a laptop that you could upgrade the CPU.. Now we're popping in hard drives, video cards, entire LCD's, and what-not.. These systems typically aren't engineered for upgrades.. I consider it a boon that there is any wiggle room at all! I've taken my venerable 8200 from a 1.7 / geforce 4mx to a 2.5ghz with a quadro, and it saved me from having to run out and buy the 8500 (so I could buy my new 8600, which I ordered today)...
If anything, $200 is a paltry sum compared to another couple thousand dollars on buying a new laptop..
And Dell Guy Rollie? If you're out there watching, all I can say is thanks for being as professional as you are about this kind of stuff.. I think it's pretty cool that they don't crack down on people upgrading their laptops to begin with.. It's obviously not in Dell's interest if you can upgrade your system at a cheaper price than buying a whole new system..
lighten up everyone.. they finally got the 9600 128 meg turbo!!!
cheers,
dextius
" I think it's pretty cool that they don't crack down on people upgrading their laptops to begin with"
Message Edited by leedgitar on 12-05-2003 09:14 AM
Message Edited by leedgitar on 12-05-2003 09:35 AM
Wow, that's pretty funny.. I think miss the point on the economics. Dell pays for this website, for support, for their customers. A Laptop, notorious for being HIGHLY specialized micro-electronics is probably the one product they really don't want their customers messing with to begin with (how many times do their tech support waste countless man hours trying to help a user fix a problem that the user really caused in the first place by invalidating their configuration).. They DO tolerate it to some point, otherwise you wouldn't even be able to post about it in the first place. So, what I'm saying is, yeah, it's cool that they don't crack down on the discussions of something that they know will invalidate their own warranties. They do this because they know we're enthusiasts, and we'll do what we want anyway. I take full responsibility in my actions when I make upgrades to my systems. I kept all my old equipment, so that if a DIFFERENT component happened to break, I could return it to the original configuration if I had to send it back.
I think you should be able to do whatever you want with your laptop (to include the end of drivel post to message boards like this). I also think that any lee-way that Dell gives us on laptops in terms of extending their life is a welcome change from the accepted norm.
And to address your last point, yeah, go buy that silly sager .. That has no docking station, a chincy LCD, and battery life that will buy you about a half hour playing any high end video games.. I'll happily take the centrino, nearly matching desktop performance with reduced power consumption.
cheers (no really, go get what you want and be happy, please!)
Get a grip. If you can't be bothered to find out that the fx5650 isn't terribly good before you bought it then that I am afraid is your own funeral. Dell never made any promises about not releasing a different video card when you bought your 8600 with fx5650 and it was the best or 'ultimate' mobile video card dell had on offer when you bought your system.
Check out sager laptops they are compleatly upgradeable they even encurage you to put parts in your self and it still covered under your warrenty. hum i thinki might cancel my order and buy one.
Actually, I can play high end video games for hours and hours on end, because I am always plugged into a wall whilst doing so. I don't see why anyone would want to play games while running on a battery since everything is running at a lower speed to save power. I bought a "max performance" laptop, so I always want to run it at max performance. As far as the dockin station, I would never need that either. There is a handy keyboard built right into the laptop itself (see photos of the various laptop models for evidence), a screen, and I have a optical mouse, thats all that is required. Sorry if its just me, but only having the Radeon 9600 available in the 8600 while the I5150 gets a FX5200, is like Mercedes limiting stereo options to an 8-track while the new Honda hybrid car gets an Alpine. Just seems backwards....
Message Edited by leedgitar on 12-05-2003 11:28 AM
I have to say that one of the reasons I bought Dell was for the ability to buy replacement parts at a later stage as new technology was released for the system as a means to upgrading. This is one excellent advantage that Dell notebooks haver over there competitors. Thank you Dell.
I also appreciate the use of these forums and the people who use them to find information. They are excellent, again thank you.
With regards to my situation, to tell you the truth, I couldn't wait any longer than I did before purchasing the notebook in the first place (I won't go into this its way long), and I knew that at the time it was the best that Dell could offer, so I shouldn't whinge. However its never pleasant to see a newer better version of that same product available less than 3 weeks after you make a purchase...but hey thats computing and honestly we/I could see it comming. Ideally i would have liked to have waited ;-) ahh well...thems the breaks right!
And I do hear alot of people whinging about the expected cost of the replacement, well to me cost is not a factor it's more the time and effort involved in getting the replacement part and then installing it (again my situation...so don't ask, and please don't judge). So thats why there is a sense of feeling that I got "ripped" I guess.
P.S If cost is a factor to you its a simple choice, live with what you have got - really it ain't that bad.
hmmm...well the info was that they were never gonna offer ati cards, now they do but do not allow upgrade on older models. we can order the spare part but there goes that 3 or 4 year warranty we paid extra for/got as a free upgrade. Why not allow for shipping in of the laptop for a replacement by the dell staff? Are they changing the case to accommodate the new card? The possiblity of upgrading could cost us the entire laptop if it damages the unit because an unknown design change. I haven't had any problem running all the latest games at max resolutions 32bpp color with all settings maxed out on my 5650, however half life 2 and doom 3 aren't out yet either(officially) and we all know they are the games driving the desire for us to upgrade. I think the fact that the 5650 isn't even an option on the 8600 anymore is justification for allowing us to upgrade, I got my unit replaced once within the first 30 days because of lock-up issues that existed from day 1 and I fully believe it was video card related.
Actually, I can play high end video games for hours and hours on end, because I am always plugged into a wall whilst doing so. I don't see why anyone would want to play games while running on a battery since everything is running at a lower speed to save power. I bought a "max performance" laptop, so I always want to run it at max performance. As far as the dockin station, I would never need that either. There is a handy keyboard built right into the laptop itself (see photos of the various laptop models for evidence), a screen, and I have a optical mouse, thats all that is required. Sorry if its just me, but only having the Radeon 9600 available in the 8600 while the I5150 gets a FX5200, is like Mercedes limiting stereo options to an 8-track while the new Honda hybrid car gets an Alpine. Just seems backwards....
Message Edited by leedgitar on 12-05-2003 11:28 AM
There are very very very few games for which a 3.2GHz P4 would give a significant over 1.7GHz P-M. For the vast majority of games on laptops the bottleneck is the video card. I don't think the marginal performance advantage of having the 3.2GHz P4 is remotely worth the downside of having a big ugly brick. What's more, if the new radeon 9600 in the Dell 8600 has higher clock speeds than the Sager machines (which I believe it will) then the 8600 will actually be faster for gaming, thereby completely defeating the object of those gaming notebooks which use a desktop P4.
leedgitar...having a "desktop" CPU build into a notebook chassis is not the ideal solution.
The BIGGEST problem a laptop builder is faced with is "HEAT GENERATION"...you can not push it too far or the laptop will auto ignite after a few hours of intensive gaming.
THUS, they search different ways when designing and building it.
That 5150 with it's HT processor is generating huge amount of heat...put in the equation the heat generated by the memories, HDD and/or CD...at one moment you will reach a critical temp (even with the cooler spinning madly), point from which certain features will be run with less power/lower heat production...usually at heat the RAM works slower, the CPU will dethrotle itself, same for GPU...
So, I prefer a computer with TWICE cache, running cooler, consuming less power (you never know when you will have to use your laptop AS A LAPTOP, AKA PORTABLE COMPUTER). Running cooler allows it to run full specs.
Just for fun, go see on zdnet some test, especially 3d Mark and some office productivity benchmarks. Eurocom has 10500 or so in 3D Mark 2001, but running Radeon 9600, 3.2s GHz HT, 400MHz memories, 1GB of RAM, etc. The SECOND SCORE (9980) belongs to an INSPIRON 8600, with slower memories (333MHz), with the FX5650 card and ONLY 512MB RAM...I am REALY curious what that score looks like with 1GB RAM and the new 9600 Pro Turbo in the Inspiron....
I had a dell for 4 years (PII, 400MHz, 128MB RAM, 8MB video, 6GB HDD, infrared, two batteries, CD, FDD, 15 inch)...4 years ago it was the monster. Well, IT NEVER GAVE ME ANY TROUBLES...choosing between a Sager and a Dell...well, I will go with the later one.
leedgitar.. You got me confused.. again.. You want an uber "plugged in" portable computer, but you don't mind that the sager's are devoid of a docking station? I don't know what I'd do with a 15 inch lcd all the time..
I looked at Sager, Winbook, Alienware, VoodooPC (nice system).. but the battery time, the massive amount of heat, weight, and reports from certain websites complaining about stabilty issues, there really is no comparison ..
Rollie_R
2 Intern
•
2.2K Posts
0
December 4th, 2003 20:00
Spartan,
Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.
Dell does not sell or support video card upgrades. I do not know how soon the ATi 9600 cards will be available through Spare Parts (800-372-3355). It may take a few weeks, since most early stock will be allocated to new system sales. I have not worked on an Inspiron 8600 directly, but I believe that you should be able to replace the video card yourself.
Dell will not provide warranty coverage for a video card that is not sold with the system. In addition, if the system is damaged in anyway by the upgrade, that damage will not be covered under warranty.
justlfc
34 Posts
0
December 4th, 2003 20:00
dextius
23 Posts
0
December 4th, 2003 22:00
Wow... it never surprises me to hear this kind of stuff.. Look, its a LAPTOP. 7 years ago, I FIRST heard about a laptop that had modular bays, 3 years ago (or so), I saw a laptop that you could upgrade the CPU.. Now we're popping in hard drives, video cards, entire LCD's, and what-not.. These systems typically aren't engineered for upgrades.. I consider it a boon that there is any wiggle room at all! I've taken my venerable 8200 from a 1.7 / geforce 4mx to a 2.5ghz with a quadro, and it saved me from having to run out and buy the 8500 (so I could buy my new 8600, which I ordered today)...
If anything, $200 is a paltry sum compared to another couple thousand dollars on buying a new laptop..
And Dell Guy Rollie? If you're out there watching, all I can say is thanks for being as professional as you are about this kind of stuff.. I think it's pretty cool that they don't crack down on people upgrading their laptops to begin with.. It's obviously not in Dell's interest if you can upgrade your system at a cheaper price than buying a whole new system..
lighten up everyone.. they finally got the 9600 128 meg turbo!!!
cheers,
dextius
VanDraegon
16 Posts
0
December 4th, 2003 22:00
Considering the current state of nVidia GPUs compared to ATI and Dells decision to change the i8600 128 MB card from the GeForce 5650 to the ATI 9600, It isnt too much to ask Dell to offer us with the 5650 a discounted upgrade on a computer that we spent $2500 freakin dollars on!
Come on Dell, do the right thing.
leedgitar
22 Posts
0
December 5th, 2003 13:00
" I think it's pretty cool that they don't crack down on people upgrading their laptops to begin with"
Are you implying that you don't think people should be able to do what they want with the laptop they purchase? You must not live in America I take it....
Anyway, this is nice news and all, but if they dont make the card available for their faster laptop (I5150..who wants Centrino when you have HyperThreading...sheesh), then its of no use. Thanks anyway Dell! The new Sager model with the Mobility 9700 Pro is coming out next month anyway, so life will be good then.
" I think it's pretty cool that they don't crack down on people upgrading their laptops to begin with"
Message Edited by leedgitar on 12-05-2003 09:14 AM
Message Edited by leedgitar on 12-05-2003 09:35 AM
dextius
23 Posts
0
December 5th, 2003 13:00
Wow, that's pretty funny.. I think miss the point on the economics. Dell pays for this website, for support, for their customers. A Laptop, notorious for being HIGHLY specialized micro-electronics is probably the one product they really don't want their customers messing with to begin with (how many times do their tech support waste countless man hours trying to help a user fix a problem that the user really caused in the first place by invalidating their configuration).. They DO tolerate it to some point, otherwise you wouldn't even be able to post about it in the first place. So, what I'm saying is, yeah, it's cool that they don't crack down on the discussions of something that they know will invalidate their own warranties. They do this because they know we're enthusiasts, and we'll do what we want anyway. I take full responsibility in my actions when I make upgrades to my systems. I kept all my old equipment, so that if a DIFFERENT component happened to break, I could return it to the original configuration if I had to send it back.
I think you should be able to do whatever you want with your laptop (to include the end of drivel post to message boards like this). I also think that any lee-way that Dell gives us on laptops in terms of extending their life is a welcome change from the accepted norm.
And to address your last point, yeah, go buy that silly sager .. That has no docking station, a chincy LCD, and battery life that will buy you about a half hour playing any high end video games.. I'll happily take the centrino, nearly matching desktop performance with reduced power consumption.
cheers (no really, go get what you want and be happy, please!)
dextius
caboosemoose
240 Posts
0
December 5th, 2003 13:00
Temptin
3 Posts
0
December 5th, 2003 15:00
leedgitar
22 Posts
0
December 5th, 2003 15:00
Actually, I can play high end video games for hours and hours on end, because I am always plugged into a wall whilst doing so. I don't see why anyone would want to play games while running on a battery since everything is running at a lower speed to save power. I bought a "max performance" laptop, so I always want to run it at max performance. As far as the dockin station, I would never need that either. There is a handy keyboard built right into the laptop itself (see photos of the various laptop models for evidence), a screen, and I have a optical mouse, thats all that is required. Sorry if its just me, but only having the Radeon 9600 available in the 8600 while the I5150 gets a FX5200, is like Mercedes limiting stereo options to an 8-track while the new Honda hybrid car gets an Alpine. Just seems backwards....
Message Edited by leedgitar on 12-05-2003 11:28 AM
Spartan79
2 Posts
0
December 5th, 2003 15:00
I also appreciate the use of these forums and the people who use them to find information. They are excellent, again thank you.
With regards to my situation, to tell you the truth, I couldn't wait any longer than I did before purchasing the notebook in the first place (I won't go into this its way long), and I knew that at the time it was the best that Dell could offer, so I shouldn't whinge. However its never pleasant to see a newer better version of that same product available less than 3 weeks after you make a purchase...but hey thats computing and honestly we/I could see it comming. Ideally i would have liked to have waited ;-) ahh well...thems the breaks right!
And I do hear alot of people whinging about the expected cost of the replacement, well to me cost is not a factor it's more the time and effort involved in getting the replacement part and then installing it (again my situation...so don't ask, and please don't judge). So thats why there is a sense of feeling that I got "ripped" I guess.
P.S If cost is a factor to you its a simple choice, live with what you have got - really it ain't that bad.
Spartan
Johnnythm
10 Posts
0
December 5th, 2003 16:00
caboosemoose
240 Posts
0
December 5th, 2003 20:00
There are very very very few games for which a 3.2GHz P4 would give a significant over 1.7GHz P-M. For the vast majority of games on laptops the bottleneck is the video card. I don't think the marginal performance advantage of having the 3.2GHz P4 is remotely worth the downside of having a big ugly brick. What's more, if the new radeon 9600 in the Dell 8600 has higher clock speeds than the Sager machines (which I believe it will) then the 8600 will actually be faster for gaming, thereby completely defeating the object of those gaming notebooks which use a desktop P4.
sobolan
10 Posts
0
December 5th, 2003 23:00
The BIGGEST problem a laptop builder is faced with is "HEAT GENERATION"...you can not push it too far or the laptop will auto ignite after a few hours of intensive gaming.
THUS, they search different ways when designing and building it.
That 5150 with it's HT processor is generating huge amount of heat...put in the equation the heat generated by the memories, HDD and/or CD...at one moment you will reach a critical temp (even with the cooler spinning madly), point from which certain features will be run with less power/lower heat production...usually at heat the RAM works slower, the CPU will dethrotle itself, same for GPU...
So, I prefer a computer with TWICE cache, running cooler, consuming less power (you never know when you will have to use your laptop AS A LAPTOP, AKA PORTABLE COMPUTER). Running cooler allows it to run full specs.
Just for fun, go see on zdnet some test, especially 3d Mark and some office productivity benchmarks. Eurocom has 10500 or so in 3D Mark 2001, but running Radeon 9600, 3.2s GHz HT, 400MHz memories, 1GB of RAM, etc. The SECOND SCORE (9980) belongs to an INSPIRON 8600, with slower memories (333MHz), with the FX5650 card and ONLY 512MB RAM...I am REALY curious what that score looks like with 1GB RAM and the new 9600 Pro Turbo in the Inspiron....
I had a dell for 4 years (PII, 400MHz, 128MB RAM, 8MB video, 6GB HDD, infrared, two batteries, CD, FDD, 15 inch)...4 years ago it was the monster. Well, IT NEVER GAVE ME ANY TROUBLES...choosing between a Sager and a Dell...well, I will go with the later one.
ROTC
1 Rookie
•
50 Posts
0
December 6th, 2003 00:00
I support video card upgrades!
Caboosemoose, the bottleneck on laptops is actually the ram and the motherboard, not the GPU.
Anyways, this argument about Dell not allowing supported upgradability is not achieving much.
Just drop this issue, because the people that do not support upgrades will never be convinced that Dell should allow upgrades.
I've read that it is possible to put a geforce fx5650 go in an 8500, but has anyone tried putting the NEW ATI mobility Radeon 9600 in the 8500?
dextius
23 Posts
0
December 6th, 2003 01:00
leedgitar.. You got me confused.. again.. You want an uber "plugged in" portable computer, but you don't mind that the sager's are devoid of a docking station? I don't know what I'd do with a 15 inch lcd all the time..
I looked at Sager, Winbook, Alienware, VoodooPC (nice system).. but the battery time, the massive amount of heat, weight, and reports from certain websites complaining about stabilty issues, there really is no comparison ..
cheers,
dextius