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milomouse

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Registered: 2009-03-24

Posts: 940

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Lenovo ThinkPad Y450: Upgrade CPU and/or Graphic Card?

NOTE: I posted this on the Lenovo forum board but they're not very active so I thought I'd post it here as well, if that's ok.

I know this will void the warranty but I'm wanting to upgrade the CPU and/or the graphics card on my Lenovo Y450. I'm not wholly experienced with working on laptops but have done hardware upgrades on desktops, though laptops scare me a little if only because they're more expensive to fix. My current laptop is the Lenovo Y450 - 418936U ( Specs ) I'm pretty sure 418936U's the model since it has all the same specs mine had when I first got it. The only things I've upgraded so far were the RAM (Upgraded to 4GB Mushkin, maybe 6 or 8 if I need it later) and the hard-drive (Upgraded to 640GB). Anyway, with that in mind, the questions still remain:

>> 1. >> If I'm able to upgrade the CPU, what compatiblity issues am I facing? Currently I have an Intel T4200 2.0GHz dual core processor ( Details ) Am I limited to the Intel T4000 series and if so, may I upgrade to a T4300 or the T4500 when it's released? If NOT, what other series may I use with my laptop model? EDIT: That specs website earlier says it has T6400 processor but the owner said it has T4500, hm.

>> 2. >> If I'm able to upgrade the graphic card, what compatibility issues am I facing? Currently I have an Intel GMA 4500MHD onboard graphics card ( Details: Specs & Details: Chipset ) Am I limited the the Intel GMA family and if NOT, may I upgrade to something else like nVidia ION? Or is that not compatible.. Other choices? If I'm stuck with the Intel GMA family then I guess it's not worth upgrading.

Again, I know this isn't a good practice to manually work on your laptop but I'm wanting to get the most out of what I have and am able to do within the limits of my Lenovo Y450 build. If I need to explore the inner workings on my laptop for further information or pictures please let me know. Thanks.

EDIT: here's a gallery of pictures: My Lenovo Y450 pictures There's pictures of every view I could get, including a snap of the lspci output on-screen, and all the hardware I could free up.

Last edited by milomouse (2010-01-04 00:36:07)