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Inspiron 9300 Maximum Allowable Upgrade/ Mod

post #1 of 5
2/9/13 at 1:19pm
Thread Starter 

I am currently in the process of collecting info on the upgrades and mods I can do for my 9300.  So far I have done the memory from 1gb to 2gb and it made a substantial difference.  Currently this is the guts of my notebook:

 

Intel Pentium M 1.86

2gb RAM

ATI MOBILITY RADEON X300 128MB

100 gb HD

 

I have seen that there is a pin mod that can be done to certain processors for these motherboards.  I plan on obtaining a Pentium M 755 (2 gb) and modding it.  Also plan on upgrading to a 7800 GTX video card (I've read the procedure on this fourm).  Aside from that I'm wondering if anybody has made a "hotrod" out of one of these things.  I mean I know the cost would want to be kept down for such an old platform.  I didn't plan on spending anymore that $250-$300.  So far that looks very feasible.  If anyone has any coments, suggestions, or opinions please let me know.

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post #2 of 5
2/9/13 at 2:14pm
Good luck. Let us know how it works out smile.gif

cheers ...
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post #3 of 5
2/21/13 at 8:09am

Hi,I'll try to help a bit. Currently the limitations you have is based on your motherboard. You could update to any M socket CPU as long as you stay under 533 FSB, so that even includes some Intel dual core CPU's. The next Step up would be to use a motherboard from a 9400 / e1705 is a 800MHz FSB. The same case is also used for a XPS 1710 and continued on to a Dell Precision M6300. I have owned and still do own several of these units...... 

 

Do to the recent release of many precision laptops off of lease the market is flooded with these machines and so with all supply and demand has caused a huge price drop. You may be tempted to look for a XPS M1710, for this is a gaming laptop with lots of blinking lights, but the demand is higher, now having a higher price to a point that I believe is too costly for some blinking lights.....

 

My suggestion is to look on eBay for a Dell Precision M6300, this unit has so many more possibility's for you to expand. I just purchased an M6300 for less than $100.00, it did have a bad motherboard, I purchased a complete lower base / mobo for $49.00... The service manuals are available on line and will give you all of the needed information to enable you to work on the laptop yourself. I take it that if you were willing to pull your laptop apart, you should not have any problems... this is basically the same case you have now....

 

The unit I purchased, did not have any memory or hard drives installed. This laptop was turned in to a working machine for a lot less than the video card you want to upgrade to. Laptop Cost $75.00 + Base / Motherboard $49.00 = $124.00, now add a nice NEW 500GB HD for $60.00 and some memory 4gb of the max of 8gb for $40.00 brings my entire cost to $224.00.... I believe this was far below of what you where thing of spending and you wind up with a great laptop.....

PS Your HD will not work, you will need a SATA Style drive intruded in the Dell market with the 9400 / e1705, Stay away from video problems a cost of $50 - $150 can easily be seen. There are some complete working units out there for sale for the price of $250.00 up....

 

Luck to ya..... 

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post #4 of 5
2/21/13 at 11:37am
Thread Starter 

My goal is to get this 9300 running to its full potential.  I do realize that there are other good laptops out there that are more "upgrade-able" however I just want to work with what I have.  I am soon (within the next few months or so) going to get a new laptop with all the bells and whistles.  But the 9300 will be going into my workshop but I want it to be as good as it can be.  

 

On another note to "HDPARTMAN" on this 9300 I am having issues with the WiFi card (Intel 2200bg)... the long and short it stated randomly dropping connections then would not reconnect altogether.  It sees the networks great just does not want to connect (obtain IP). I have tried updating the drivers from the manufacturer as well as dell and windows update. I have even tried a clean wipe of the OS (windows XP) several times.  Even after a wipe still no luck.  I replaced the card with a brand new one from Ebay.  I was going to try a new set of antenna but as of yet I'm at a loss.  I have seen a lot of folks posting about the same issues however none that I've read have any solutions.     If you have any suggestions please throw them my way (mexisurfer66@gmail.com).  I would love to get this thing running to its full potential.  After all I spent about $2500 o this thing when I bought it from Dell back in 05'... 

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post #5 of 5
2/23/13 at 9:32pm
I believe the Pentium M 735 was the best at overclocking.
That's the one that runs at 1.7Ghz w/ a 400MHz FSB, and it overclocked incredibly reliably to 2.26Ghz.
There were some that had good luck with the 745s (1.8GHz, overclockede to 2.4GHz), but I also know a lot of people had problems with stability.

Best of luck! I still remember my 9300 very fondly :-)
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