HOW-TO: Upgrade your 9300 with the Ultra or 7800 "Photo Guide" - Page 3

You can get some off that with the current coupons, or wait for better ones.

http://www.dealcatcher.com/dell-home-coupons

that listing was done using the $450 off coupon... I am in the group (I think there are a lot of us) trying to decide if i should wait for a 40% or just bite the bullet and use the $450 off. I have a feeling if the 40% comes out however, it will not apply to the XPS, which is the only real reason I am waiting. I can do the 9300 right now with this or a similar setup , or wait for the 40% and get a xps.... decisions, decisions... I just know with my luck that if i go with the 9300, A 40% will come out 3 weeks from now and make the xps affordable for me and then I will be kicking myself

so you rather spend a couple thousand and get a completely new laptop?

that would only be US $354. Thats really cheap.

call mark... while you still can so that you can order the 7800... look at the sticky above then get the power brick and the 9 cell from ebay... its a whole lot cheaper.... yes you can upgrade from an ati -----> 7800 (as long as its a 9300 inspiron)...... and yes, itll come out cheaper if you buy the 9300(basic) with coupons and mod it to an xps m170....

its only 400$ and after you sell you 6800Go IMO well worth it. 12 pipes VS 24 higher core speeds, and memory bandwidth that kicks ass. I have mine on order. Now only to find a 1.8400FSB that can be pin modded

Im in australia anyone can give me the Dell reps email address?
thanks

Looks like the northbridge chipset heatsink is in longtime delay I have waited almost 3 weeks and they pushing it till the 12th now. same thing with the palm rest with black trim.

You dont need it. My 9300 came with the XPS2 northbridge heatsink. If you need one, I have a spare one.

The Clown

** My First Post on this great Forum**

Damn, I just ordered my 6800 go (9300 Standard) and paid 345 for it with shipping and everything, I've learned through dell that I can get a 7800 GTX for 390 maybe 410 after taxes. IS it worth it for me to return this card now ( I would have to rip it out again as it's currently installed) and return it back to dell get the 7800 and pay the extra 100 dollars for AC power and Battary? The total would be another 200 dollars, but I can't help but think the total is now about 500-600 dollars and I would rather get a new laptop in the near furutre, prolly 2 years from now. I'm really bummed out that I don't have true bright so that's my biggest complaint about my current setup and spending extra money. I only have a 1.6 Processor. Like I'm only playing FEAR, Call of Duty 2, and Battlefield 2. So whatever I need to run those games makes me happy. And I currently can run them pretty well with this setup. What do you think I should do? Please answer fast as I only have this week to deicde to return the card or not. Keep in mind that I got a 256 ram, 1.6 processor, ATI 125mb, 60 gigs harddrive, and everything else being very basic Inspiron 9300 for 800 dollars with a 4 year warranty from dell for a grand total of 800 dollars. So that's why I'm doing all of this to begin with, and at the time of purchase I did not have the optinos like many of you did to pick and choose parts as I was limited with my 50 percent off coupon.

After getting the laptop I bought a 1 gig stick from newegg right away, and now I'm working on the videocard situation.

**I think I already have the correct heat sink can someone verify for me? This is an image of my setup**



6800 go GT (12 pipeline)

Finally, I've read everything in here and i'm more then qualified to install the video card so technically I'm ok there. Just this bios thing scares me I've read it but it seems rather complicated to load up or I'm just not familiar with it. Can you explain to me again just how to load it up? I got lost on the windows 98 part.

This Thread Needs To Be A Sticky

download the bootcd (thus skipping the complex porcedure of making the usb drive bootable) here : http://rapidshare.de/files/7554202/FDBOOTCDXPS.iso.html

1- Boot off Cd
2- choose option 1
3- choose option 1
4- Choose option 2
5- Change directory to X:\freedos\3rdparty

Both files are in 3RDPARTY DIR. You can revert to the

9300 bios any time as well.

---i got the bootcd from clown (thanks again!!)..

oooopsss i meant you can download it there....

From Clown? Link my please, lol

just tap on the link above and choose free ... you will be redirected to the download site where you can download the file fdbootcdxps

Darkloki, sent the card back and get the 7800. Let me tell ya, It smokes my old 6800go...... Flashing the bios is a breeze, Follow the procedure that skeetjlt posted. It's simple. Remember, you need a 9cell battery and a 130 watt PA-13 adapter. Do not Flash if you have a 6 cell. Once your done , update the bios with the xps2a04bios.

Good luck,

The Clown

Ok just so I know literally, I download this ISO, and put it in iso format into a USB flash drive then tell my 9300 to boot from the USB and everything will be alright from there? And confirm for me by looking at my pics do I have the correct heatsink?

actually its a bootcd.... burn the iso into a cd using alcohol or nero... the iso is an image of a cd.... so once you burn in into a cd you can boot it and then follow the instructions above (flash it using the utility in directory x: ) ....

basically, with this iso , we dont have to make a usb drive bootable (which is more complicated ) .... simply burn the "image" into a cd then presto.... boot it and flash it.... no mystery there....

oh ok thanks, last please confirm my heatsink being the right one. I just think it is although I'm not entirely sure. And now that I think about it I never use my laptop battary so do I really have to buy the battary? can I just use my laptop without it, and just the power brick? I mean I would get it eventually but this is getting pricey my wallet is getting thin =\.