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My m9700 needs a gaming boost!

post #1 of 8
5/18/08 at 12:48am
Thread Starter 
Hi all, well I purchased my M9700 in Nov '06 and aside from a few initial problems its been pretty solid through BF2142, hardcore WoWing, and COD4... But now I am trying Age of Conan and even on the lowest settings I am having alot of choppiness and performance lag...

Maybe it has to do with various drivers issues... I'm using 167.51 graphics drivers, and when I start AoC I get an initial warning saying to update it... Hmmm... I also noticed my laptop takes quite a while to startup and shut down now, maybe it's time for a format? (been about a year since I have..)

These are my m9700 specs:
AMD Turion™ 64 Mobile ML44 2.4GHz
17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD
2GB Dual Channel DDR SO-DIMM
100GB Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s 7,200 RPM
Dual 256MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS - SLI Enabled


Any thoughts or help would be appreciated, thanks!
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post #2 of 8
5/18/08 at 2:40am
Well you I thought you had a great upgrade path!!!!

Switching to 4gb ram (100$) can help for sure
Getting the m7950(?)512mb SLI will almost certainly help (500$+ best guess)
I think your lappy supports raid, 2x 100gb SATA in Raid 0 can help (100$ Im guessing)

But.....

I thought youd have a great upgrade path on your proc to a 50 or 60 series chip featuring dual 64 cores with much larger l2 cache(very important) but even if they are socket compatible(not sure) I dont know if your MB can support the better chips.... (If you can prolly 2-500$)

so you *could possibly throw another 1000-1500$ into this computer, but thats like giving a rich fat chick a face lift, sure she'll have a prettier face but she's still got a huge ass.

I would recomend reselling!!! and combining those proceeds with that 1000-1500$ and get a 17x. There really is no way around the fact that intels platform has and still is destroying amd's mobile offering. Dump the fat(but rich) chick and pick yourself up a sexy young hot rich brunette 17x that even at a bare build will blow the doors off what you have and possibly even smoke what u got even if you implemented all my above upgrades.
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post #3 of 8
5/18/08 at 5:23am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by archalien View Post
Well you I thought you had a great upgrade path!!!!

Switching to 4gb ram (100$) can help for sure
Getting the m7950(?)512mb SLI will almost certainly help (500$+ best guess)
I think your lappy supports raid, 2x 100gb SATA in Raid 0 can help (100$ Im guessing)

But.....

I thought youd have a great upgrade path on your proc to a 50 or 60 series chip featuring dual 64 cores with much larger l2 cache(very important) but even if they are socket compatible(not sure) I dont know if your MB can support the better chips.... (If you can prolly 2-500$)

so you *could possibly throw another 1000-1500$ into this computer, but thats like giving a rich fat chick a face lift, sure she'll have a prettier face but she's still got a huge ass.

I would recomend reselling!!! and combining those proceeds with that 1000-1500$ and get a 17x. There really is no way around the fact that intels platform has and still is destroying amd's mobile offering. Dump the fat(but rich) chick and pick yourself up a sexy young hot rich brunette 17x that even at a bare build will blow the doors off what you have and possibly even smoke what u got even if you implemented all my above upgrades.
Haha thanks!, but I don't really plan on spending $1000-1500. I would probably prefer building a desktop for that price while also keeping this solid laptop... But I am interested in the cheaper upgrades... Like maybe more RAM? I use Windows XP, not sure if that matters much, but what I mean is I'm not sure if extra RAM will make any difference... Also, I would have to buy 2gig sticks? (if those are even out there..) since I have 2x 1gb... Hmm, would probably cost alot...
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post #4 of 8
5/18/08 at 12:44pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by archalien View Post
Well you I thought you had a great upgrade path!!!!

Switching to 4gb ram (100$) can help for sure
Getting the m7950(?)512mb SLI will almost certainly help (500$+ best guess)
I think your lappy supports raid, 2x 100gb SATA in Raid 0 can help (100$ Im guessing)

But.....

I thought youd have a great upgrade path on your proc to a 50 or 60 series chip featuring dual 64 cores with much larger l2 cache(very important) but even if they are socket compatible(not sure) I dont know if your MB can support the better chips.... (If you can prolly 2-500$)

so you *could possibly throw another 1000-1500$ into this computer, but thats like giving a rich fat chick a face lift, sure she'll have a prettier face but she's still got a huge ass.

I would recomend reselling!!! and combining those proceeds with that 1000-1500$ and get a 17x. There really is no way around the fact that intels platform has and still is destroying amd's mobile offering. Dump the fat(but rich) chick and pick yourself up a sexy young hot rich brunette 17x that even at a bare build will blow the doors off what you have and possibly even smoke what u got even if you implemented all my above upgrades.
I think you are pretty much out of luck on the m9700. I bought one about 6 months ago. They discontinued it before I even received mine. I didn't get SLI, and now they are not willing to sell cards as an upgrade. They said they are holding them for in warranty customers that may need replacements.

2GB of RAM is the max on this machine, so no upgrade there. I did get a second 100 GB hard drive from Newegg and set up my own RAID, but that is probably the only upgrade you can do at this point. You already have the fastest CPU that will fit that socket. The mx17x looks interesting, but I am not buying another machine when this is only 6 months old. I am finding the upgradeability of these things still stinks, and will hesitate to buy another until that changes.
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post #5 of 8
5/18/08 at 1:52pm
You may see a bigger improvement if you upgrade to the 512 SLI cards (If you can find them.) 256 may not be enough to cache all the textures and you may be experiencing lag as textures are being loaded in and out.
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post #6 of 8
5/18/08 at 3:32pm
None of the hardware arch suggested will work in the m9700 with the exception of RAIDing a second hd, but that won't help with gaming...

I'm not sure it would be worth the money to get 512 cards for your system either, you would see better frame rates at high resolutions but it would be more expensive than worth it IMO.

Best bet for you would be just to optimize your setup by defragging the hd's, or doing a clean install, cleaning the system with driver cleaners, and getting the latest drivers installed.

I think it's becoming pretty clear that buying a laptop with the intent of upgrading in the future is huge speculation at best... I only buy laptops with the intention of using them as-is until it's time for a new one...
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post #7 of 8
5/18/08 at 3:55pm
Again, good luck even finding video cards for this thing. Alienware won't sell you any. If there is another way to get one, I would be interested myself, but haven't found it yet.
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post #8 of 8
5/18/08 at 4:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hammerhead View Post
None of the hardware arch suggested will work in the m9700 with the exception of RAIDing a second hd, but that won't help with gaming...

I'm not sure it would be worth the money to get 512 cards for your system either, you would see better frame rates at high resolutions but it would be more expensive than worth it IMO.

Best bet for you would be just to optimize your setup by defragging the hd's, or doing a clean install, cleaning the system with driver cleaners, and getting the latest drivers installed.

I think it's becoming pretty clear that buying a laptop with the intent of upgrading in the future is huge speculation at best... I only buy laptops with the intention of using them as-is until it's time for a new one...
I was afraid of this, hence my later recommendation.

I still think the 17x is a better choice than a desktop, imo
If Asus ever comes out w/ the Xgamerstation, it will remove the biggest bottleneck laptops have in being neck truly competitive w/ desktops in gaming.
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