Great Upgrades for Dell Latitude D630

Heya guys and gals, I just bought a Latitude D630 and I was wondering, what would be some awesome upgrades for it? I bought this several weeks ago, and it came with these specs (only RAM has been changed as of time typing this):

Latitude D630
2 GB RAM (Now 4GB)
80 GB 7200 RPM HD (Was Formatted, but I installed Win 7 HP 64-bit)
t9300 Core2Duo @ 2.5 Ghz
1440x900 Display w/ Intel graphics X3100
Initial OS was Windows Vista Business


Now, the RAM in total for 4 GB was $42. I just bought a SSD for about $50, and the SSD is:
Kingston Technology SSDNow V+ Series 128 GB - SNVP325-S2

Also, I bought an Intel wifi card with N support for $10 because the stock one in this only supports a/b/g 54 mbps.
So are there anything you all can suggest I look at? Any concerns or input with what I've got?

Also, when installing the RAM under the keyboard, I noticed the WWAN slot had nothing in it. Is there anything I can substitute for that?

 

Hey

I don't think there's much you could do with this laptop... I've seen it go for $50 on eBay so this means upgrading it would cost most than what you paid for it initially... Upgrading the RAM was nice. As for the wifi, I would've just bought an external USB adapter.
Getting an SSD is the max you could (should) do with this system IMO. Is 128Gb enough though? You'll need some external storage to compensate with this smaller hdd.

 

4GB with an SSD and a T9300 is pretty much the best you can do on these... but if you're happy with the screen resolution and form factor, it's already a perfectly serviceable machine with those specs for just about any normal home/office workload. I guess W7 is an upgrade you could do, but Vista should also be perfectly serviceable on those specs.

 

You could replace the screen with one from an ATG so you have keyboard lighting.

You could go to 8GB of RAM.

You could swap the optical drive with a modular unit to hold a HDD or 2nd SSD.

You could add a Broadcom HD decoder card.

You could run Linux on it and grow a beard.

You could add an awesome skin to it.

You could paint all the key caps black and type like a real programmer.

But other than that, yours looks pretty good too.

 

Hahaha, this made my morning.

 

Hmm, I'm working on the beard! So far so good, I think the ladies'll love it and I can hide my third fist in it! LOL

So, I did initially install Windows 7 HP 64-bit when it had 2 GB of RAM. So I thought it was going okay for the most part, but then I bought my first 2 GB stick for it and when it was upgraded to 3 GB, wow, I noticed a dramatic improvement in speed. Everything seemed much snappier, like your morning after a nice cup of coffee. 4 GB was added in total, and I saw a little more improvements in speed, but nowhere near as much as the 3 GB change. So, now I'm just waiting on the SSD, the wifi card, annnnnnnd.....hmmm. What will the Broadcom HD Decoder do for it? Does it make HD videos playable (judging by the name)? Also, can I fit a latitude D830 mobo in it so that I can get it's Nvidia graphics rather than the faulty quadro 135m?

Hmmm, decisions, decisions

 

Huh? The Quadro NVS 135M is Nvidia! Also I highly doubt a D830 board would fit in there and it only offered either NVS 135M itself, or NVS 140M as a second upgrade/step-up. The problem with the Quadro video on the D-series laptops is that they overheat and eventually fail. By overheat in this case they are actually usually still running within spec but that's still too high.

What I would suggest for both better cooling of the CPU and for longevity of the GPU is to remove the HSF assembly and remove the thermal pads that contact the CPU and GPU. Replace these with copper shims (you can find them easily on eBay, just type in "dell copper shims" or something like that) and good thermal compound like AS5, MX-2, MX-4, NT-H1, or similar. Use programs like i8kfangui, SpeedFan, or RealTemp, to check before and after temps of the CPU (the GPU probably doesn't report but if the CPU temps are better you can rest assured the GPU temps will be too).

Also I'm pretty sure Quadro NVS 135M will accelerate HD video though support in programs for DXVA and this chip might be "broken" or unsupported. I would try it out anyway before buying additional hardware.

 

Avoid Nvidia GPU's in this machine.

Copper shimming could be useful to mitigate additional heat produced by the GPU. However this is not necessary for the Intel GPU machines.

No, you cannot fit a D830 motherboard in a D630.

Here is the info on the Broadcom HD Decoder: AVC/VC-1/MPEG PCI Express® HD Decoder Chipset for Netbooks/Nettops - BCM70012 | Broadcom

 

Good advice but since the OP already has the laptop, nothing he can do now but make the best of it--hence why I suggested the copper shims. You are right this is not necessary for Intel GPU versions but it is a very good idea for Nvidia ones.

Both me and a friend of mine had D620s, his was slightly better with the higher res LCD; both had NVS 110Ms. His Nvidia GPU went earlier so I sold him my D620 (I moved on to an E6320 thereafter), and I swapped the LCDs for him so he's have the better image. I was going to copper shim mine but never ended up doing so and funny enough within 6-8 months, the one I sold him, the Nvidia GPU failed on it too! Seems the higher res LCD only makes it run hotter and burn out faster. Another interesting thing was his first one could still output video externally fine for some time, so he used it as a desktop with a monitor; however eventually that stopped working as well.

The D630 retains the same basic design as the D620 and just has newer Nvidia chips, but cooling is still inadequate. The Nvidia chips are doomed to fail, particularly if you're using them at higher resolutions and leave the cooling stock/as-is. Before investing too much into all kinds of upgrades I would definitely try to do the copper shim mod because no point in putting $$$ into upgrades on a laptop which might become dead not too far down the road.

 

I just re-read OP's post.

He claims to have an Intel GPU.