Aspire 7720G major upgrade

Sure.

 

Hi all!
A simple question
I've just bought a new VGA card and I'll manage to swap with the broken one.
I'm wondering if I could use a copper shim between GPU and radiator instead of thermal pad, and speculate over its thikness. This could help heat transfer but if too thick, it will be stress the chip, if too less it would not able to dissipate, regardless of the presence of thermal paste.

Or is it better to substitute the thermal pad with a new one? And if yes, which thickness should I use?
I noticed that the VGA card is enveloped into a thick aluminium sheet, over which there are 3 thermal pads, and other 3 pads are glued on the dissipator.
I'll check if that pads are corrispondant to some hot component on the board, but I suppose that aluminium sheet contributes to the overall cooling of these cards, so heat can be easily transferred to radiator. Is it correct?
Thank you in advance

 

OK. Can you be a little more specific? Will the machine run much faster, or a little faster?

Oh, I would use high quality paste.

 

Downloading 2004 via windows update right now to see how the old beast likes it.

 

Sorry, just got this. Yes, I have the GM965. Not sure if that would make a difference or not on if my machine will take 8gb of ram or not. I am going to buy it from a place where I can return it.

 

Just wanted to chime in and ask if it's worth getting one of those. I just found one that looks okay-ish and I have enough money for it.

Is it worth dropping a T8300, Intel 4965AGN WiFi, 9600M GT 512M (assuming I can find a patched BIOS in that regard, I have the icl50_1.45_black_edition_40 file on HDD but IDK if it's patched for 9600M GT), 4GB of DDR2 and 2 HDDs inside it? Or should I pass?
I have lots of leftovers from other laptops so sourcing all stuff shouldn't be an issue.

 

Honestly, after a few weeks of work on a younger system with i3 2nd generation and 8gb I rebooted my 7720g and... no, it isn't worth enough. The only thing I'm liking a lot it's the display, for me the right dimension with the right resolution.
But it's my humble opinion.

 

Noted. Will prolly just get that one then, drop a generic Core 2 Duo from the T6xxx range and maybe a 9500M GS (since it's just 8600M GT at that point, which is a PnP combo with the 7720G) and call it a day lol. Just needed a interim lappy to fiddle with until I can source a LCD for an Aspire 2930 I got for cheap.

 

Yeah, they are getting long in the tooth now. I use mine for taking DV videos off my camera. Other than that, it sits in the corner. It is still quite usable, but not near as speedy as my dell at this point.

 

I've tried to boot from an Ubuntu USB key. Well, it remains very usable and quite fast.
I should try to install on a ssd device in order to verify if a Linux installation could extend its life.
BTW, some of the devices (ie, internal BT) are not recognized even by Ubuntu installer.
More in the next days.