*HP HDX 9000 DRAGON Owners Lounge, Part 2*

[Dominick_7]

Finally managed to do a proper mod to heatsink and perform a 3DMark 6 test. Here the results.

Wow impressive! Awesome work here eugene! The only obsticle is the internal LCD it seems.

[Dominick_7]

Hi, I own an HDX9494NR.

I am new here so I have not had a chance to read through all this. But I was just wondering if anyone had every succeeded in finding an alternative motherboard / cpu/ gpu that could upgrade this machine. IE something that had similar hole spacing and some how could work. I know it is a long shot but I really love this laptop, however it is simply too old now and only a new semi modern CPU / GPU could save it for me. I have already started my search for a new laptop but there is just nothing cool or big out there these days. Kind of sad.

That would be amazing as there are no real worthy upgrades that are in the same category of glorious design as the Dragon unfortunately. IF the internal LCD issue can be overcome, then we can at least push the performance of the Dragon up a few more years. Though I'm still looking forward to seeing no techs write up for the NVIDIA 280, and now eugenes.

[eugene2878]

A proper congratulations for you

Were there any issues with temps? Please show us your heatsink mod

Thank you for that. The temperature did not go higher than 60. Here the photo of the card and heatsink mod.

[Dominick_7]

Was thinking.. is there a way to internally add something like an adapter to the wiring set up to trick the bios into thinking its an external monitor?

[2.0™]

No, that's not really possible or feasible. That was sort of no-tech's original idea. Attach the HDMI out to an LCD controller card and plug the internal screen into the LCD controller card.

Besides, where would you put the LCD controller card? It won't fit inside other than perhaps the Optical bay if you remove the optical drive and substitute it for a drive caddy. But even then, you'd have to get a ribbon cable to mate with the LCD's cable and somehow feed it back into the HDX... forget it.

[Kirrr]

Is it possible, to swap the 8800m GTS for a 9800m GTS/GTS160m? Move the original bios to the new card, with the adjusted clocks.

[eugene2878]

Is it possible, to swap the 8800m GTS for a 9800m GTS/GTS160m? Move the original bios to the new card, with the adjusted clocks.

No. Not gonna work.

[Dominick_7]

Is it possible, to swap the 8800m GTS for a 9800m GTS/GTS160m? Move the original bios to the new card, with the adjusted clocks.

One person claimed to do it, and posted video I believe and or pics, but didn't explain exactly how they did it. Think it was ziptek. He kinda dissapeared after he posted it. But then again, I believe hes from another country, speaks a different language and may not have been up for the whole back and forth on the topic. The main obsticle isn't the switching out the 9800 or 280 or what not, really, I believe you just have to cut the heatsink/set up he cooling there so it touches. The obsticle if I recall is getting the right vbios, using the bios tools I believe that are posted on the first page, and getting it to play nice with the internal monitor. At best so far its posted, but the refresh rates and colors are off, and or the performance isn't fully there. no tech modded it where he replaced the internal HDX monitor with a Phillips one and got it to work that way via the HDMI input, but he hasn't posted a write up and I'm thinking its quite a bit more involving than just switching out a card.

[Dominick_7]

No, that's not really possible or feasible. That was sort of no-tech's original idea. Attach the HDMI out to an LCD controller card and plug the internal screen into the LCD controller card.

Besides, where would you put the LCD controller card? It won't fit inside other than perhaps the Optical bay if you remove the optical drive and substitute it for a drive caddy. But even then, you'd have to get a ribbon cable to mate with the LCD's cable and somehow feed it back into the HDX... forget it.

I mean some other smaller contraption that would just mess with the stupid code besides how he got it done with using a totally different screen to replace the HDXs screen and or the approach of an LCD controller card. Every now and again either Kindheart or no tech will post new things like ways to get a hard drive to work in the dvd drive using newer tech, newer blu ray drives, like the one recently posted that's a lot faster than the one posted on the first page *hint hint* etc. Hmm.

[Dominick_7]

In regards to SSDs anyone have any personal experience with this Corsair Force Series 3?

Newegg.com - Corsair Force Series 3 CSSD-F180GB3-BK 2.5" 180GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

I know some have the Intel 520, some having good experiences with them others not, but how would you say this card fairs in comparison? I'm new to SSDs and am seriously considering getting one.. but I'm still a bit unsure. Wanted to see if anyone could add anything else to what I've read in reviews on newegg and elsewhere.