Hello there!
Unfortunately I don't think the trusty 3790 is exactly capable of the upgrades you speak of.
I know exactly what you mean with Video and it would be great to upgrade - the Mobility 9700 just doesn't cut it with the latest games and is really starting to show it's age. Sadly, there isn't much you can do about this. The 9700 is essentially integrated into the motherboard and cannot be replaced. Unless you are prepared to rip your 3790 to pieces and try some sort of risky highly custom graphics card install, but on top of that you'd be limited by the 3790's AGP bus because most new GFX are now all PCI-Express and have hefty power requirements. Basically you cannot do anything in the Video department. To squeeze out maybe another 1 FPS
you can maybe overclock your card.
That being said I did hear once ages ago of someone who customized their 3790 and somehow got it to work with a with a P4 Processor, New MSI Motherboard and A Geforce 6600GT. Don't ask me how or where, I just pulled it from the darkest reaches of my brain
so I could be wrong. But to do sort of thing you either have to have a lot of money for trial and error or know completely what you are doing and be able to resolder parts. Count me out on that one
As for the Sound, the Realtek Sound is also Integrated Into the motherboard. However, you can upgrade if you want. You've got two options: You get a USB based external sound upgrade like the Soundblaster Audigy 2 USB NX or similar, or you can go for the PCMCIA Card version (Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS PCMCIA). I've been considering the PCMCIA , mainly because I've heard good things about it, the PCMCIA provides more bandwith and grunt, and it is the more compact of the two. You can then disable the Realtek.
And If you want good speakers, not the crappy, 1 Watt, 3790 ones
I gotta recommend Logitech (Go the Z-5500
). They've got great 5.1 and 2.1 systems, depending on what you are after.
I'll shut my face now.
dont ask). Memory was, of course a snap. Bluetooth was easy enough once I identified the antenna...
