bcs350z

I am somewhat familiar with desktop computers but not laptops. I recently purchased a HP Pavilion DV9720us and had a few questions. I looked up the memory ram specs but could not determine if the notebook has a dual channel or single channel memory ram?? My other question is the notebook comes with a NVIDIA GeForcce 7150m graphics card... what does it take to upgrade this if that is even possible or for notebooks, what it comes with is what your stuck with?

The_Other_One

Most any new laptop probably has dual channel memory. If you want to know, there's software such as CPUz or PCWizard that will tell you.

As for the GPU, that one's intergrated into the chipset and isn't upgradable.

__________________
Primary- i7 920 | 6GB RAM | 9800GT | 160+160+500GB
Secondary- Athlon X2 4200 | 2GB RAM | 7600GT | 80+250GB
Netbook - Atom N280 | 2GB RAM | GMA945| 160GB

bcs350z

could i swap out the gpu? or would i lose windows, etc?

voyagerfan99

Swapping the GPU would mean swapping the entire motherboard (Thats why it's called Integrated graphics ) and the only thing that we would recommend is trying not to do that. Laptop mobo replacements are extremely annoying, and that is why you don't see custom built laptops.

If you want something you can game on, or something for extreme performance, go with something like an Alienware or a Rock. Both, however, will burn a very large hole in your pocket.

bcs350z

i have one more question. I stated what notebook i had. it comes with 2 1gb 200 pin 533mhz ram. It is upgradeable to 4 gb max. I was going to purchase 2 2gb rams but i was wondering if i could upgrade to 667 mhz instead of the 533 mhz.

HumanMage

I want to say no you can't go up to 667mhz because the 533mhz is the one your motherboard will recognize. As for going with the full 4gb of RAM, I wonder if you have a 32-bit Windows (or whatever OS you have)? If I'm not mistaken 32 bit OS's only recognize up to 3gb of RAM, so if you go for the full 4gb you're wasting money. Thats what I found out for my laptop, I could be wrong however.

__________________
-----Laptop: Asus G1-----
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3403

bcs350z

ok i just installed my new corsair 2 gb ram. My notebook originally came with two 1gb 667 200 pin so-dim ddr2 memory. My score on Vista for memory was a 5.7. It also said i had 1938mb of ram installed. I then swapped out one of the original rams for this new corsair 2gb chip. It is a 667 200 pin so-dim ddr2 ram (exact same). Now my computer saids i have 3007 mb or ram installed but my score on vista went down to a 4.8 down from the original 5.7. Anyone have any idea as to why it went down but recognizes more ram?

bcs350z

any ideas?