Just wondering if there is anyway to change a Laptop graphics chip?

Question

Hi guys,
I know that laptops have built in graphics chips that normally are extremely hard to change and are not meant to be changed.....but is there any way to change them!? I have a relatively new sony vaio laptop (about 5 months old) and I was hoping to slightly up the graphics...I know I should have got a laptop with the amount I wanted first time but things didn't quite pan out as planned first time!
So lets whittle this down... Is there a graphics chip I can buy to replace my current one?
If so, could you tell me what it is?
Thanks alot in advance ^_^

Answer 1

Unless you have the skill and patience to spend several hours very very carefully unsoldering all the dozens of connections that run between a system board and the chip, I would not even think about it. No mistake or one broken path on the board and the laptop bcomes a paperweight.

That is even assuming you can find a replacement chip which will exactly match the wiring pattern of the original chip (in which case it would be a duplicate of the original chip and pointless to do).

So there is no realistic way of replacing the chip on the system board. HOWEVER....

They are now making some external video cards which attach by USB or the laptops PC card slot. I have not worked with any, but it is something you might want to research. It might be able to do what you want without having to replace the original chip.

Answer 2

Sorry the answer is no unless there is a higher end version of your model with more powerful graphics card on the mother board. If you find a higher end version for parts on ebay or on the internet in general and it has the mother board in tact you can have the mother board swiched out. That is the only way I can think of it happening.

Answer 3

No. Almost without exception, the CPU is soldered onto the motherboard.

Answer 4

No, he's right, it's usually soldered to the motherboard/logic board.