Question about " How To Upgrade your 9300 with the Ultra or 7800 "Photo Guide"

Ok...I'll try to answer you and hope someone does not come in here and post before me (quick refresh: still no replies woot)
Anyway, I wouldn't flash the bios until I actually got the card...I mean really it doesnt matter as the system is gonna be unusable without a videocard but I would just wait until I got the card and flash the bios on battery power.
Also, these videocards typically have three performance levels: 2d/throttle/3d in that order. Typically you use 2d on desktop, 3d if 2d cannot handle the operation stably, and throttle if 3d is overdoing it. So you sit on your desktop and use 2d and when you open a video fullscreen it will use 3d but will likely throttle down and use the throttle clock to play the video after a short minute. With games, its typically 3d all the way. This is just one implementation, however. Anyway, whenever you have the xps bios without the power adaptor, 3d is disabled. So on battery, you will only be using the throttle clock as your max clock.

OK nukkuz, before answering you questions, let me make a suggestion that will get you better responses in the future. If after your initial post in the thread if you decide to add too or alter your original inquiry, just edit that post rather than continuing to respond to yourself. It wastes bandwidth and is extremely annoying to read. Also try to be clear and concise in what info you're seeking as this will give you better results.

In answer to your questions: yes you can flash to the XPS BIOS and run your machine w/ just a vanilla 6800 but doing so will give you no added benefit and actually hurt performance, because without the larger brick your CPU and GPU will throttle down and not work at their full potential. Also your battery uptime will be reduced because the fans will operate at different intervals than they do with the stock 9300 BIOS. This is because the 9300 is designed to operate at a different (cooler) thermal envelope then the XPS with its more powerful hotter running video card selections.

I hope this helps.

Ciao

I can't tell you the operating characteristics of all 130 watt laptops as I'm only familiar with the Dells and a few Toshibas I've worked on. Most of my expertise is with desktops. But it stands to reason that the only purpose for a laptop needing such a powerful brick in the first place is because of the extra power draw required by a high-end GPU and larger 17" screen. Most laptops use lower-end GPUs or onboard graphics built into the motherboard chipset requiring considerably less power and thus have smaller bricks. These laptops don't need to throttle-down as much on battery power since their power draw is easily handled by the output of their batteries. So their performance isn't as greatly effected by battery operation as the ones with higher-end GPUs.

Remember 17" notebooks with high-end GPUs aren't designed to be as portable as other machines, instead they're meant to be used more as semi-portable desktop replacements that spend most of their working lives plugged in. Smaller machines on the other hand are designed with compromises in their capabilities and performance in order to work equally as well plugged in or on on the go.

Now getting back to your question, even a stock i9300 with a vanilla 6800 will throttle down some on battery, but not nearly to the extent of an XPS with a 6800 Ultra or 7800 GTX. This is because a vanilla 6800 still draws quite a bit more power and operates at a higher temp than most laptop GPUs. My Mom for example, has an i6000 w/ an ATI GPU, since its 15" screen and GPU use so much less power than my i9300 w/ a 7800 GTX she can get double the up-time off of the same battery than I can with mine. And her machine only requires a 65 watt brick.

Do yourself a favor, until you install an Ultra or GTX use the stock BIOS and brick, you'll be happier you did.

I hope this helps.

Ciao