My vostro 1500 needs a upgrade

I got this vostro 1500 last year for $349 dollars after rebates. It's a base model with a minor upgrade. I opted for the Intel centrino core2 duo t5270 1.4ghz so as not to be stuck with a celeron processor. I was on a budget so to do that i had to compromise on my gpu and go with a nividia geforce 8400m gs. I just upgraded to 4gb DDR2 ram, but its still not performing as good as I'd like. I read the manual and found that replacing the gpu and cpu doesn't require any soldering. So I'm looking to upgrade my processor to a Intel centrino core2 duo t9500 2.6ghz and my gpu to a nividia geforce 9600m gt if possible. I need a few words of wisdom first from some one who has really dissected one of these baby's open. Are these upgrades possible? If not what are the best gpu and cpu that I can put in there? .....Thanks for reading all this

 

I have the same Model Vostro 1500 Laptop. I installed a Hitachi 7200 rpm, Sata II 320 gb hard drive, the Intel 4965 wireless, 4 gb of OCZ PC2-6400 Ram and an (ES) T9500 CPU, that I bought from Zfactor. It's a great running Laptop now, but due not having a discrete graphics card, I will not be using it for gaming. I do use it for some image processing...

The discrete graphics Laptop has a totally different Motherboard than the integrated style. So going from one to the other is not a practical option, as it involves a complete Motherboard swap.

Upgrading the CPU is definitely possible, but is not a really simple task. So some people discourage the effort. I personally did two complete CPU swaps in the same day on my 1500, due to a better processor becoming available...

There have been postings regarding CPU upgrade on this site, including one from me under the Inspiron 1520 section. I found no difference in the process of upgrading the Vostro 1500 and a Inspiron 1520 EXCEPT that my 1520 has a discrete graphics card, while my 1500 has the Intel integrated graphics. The integrated graphics is a slightly easier Laptop to upgrade the CPU into.

Look up the existing postings and PM me with any questions.

 

Thanks for the enlightenment I appreciate it. I"m probably gonna order the t9500 later today. But I'm still hung up on the gpu though. I saw some old threads about swapping the video card in one of these. Luckily I have a dedicated video slot, but unfortunately dell are some greedy a**holes and use a daughter board style gpu slot. I'm begining to come to the sad realization that I will only upgrade to to a geforce 8600m gt. Is there any chance of something better that would fit in the slot??? Also, did swapping in the t9500 cause any heat issues, did you need a bigger heat sync.

 

If you currently have an 8400M, you will be able to upgrade to an 8600M. No further. You will need to find the proprietary Dell 8600M module for the Vostro 1500 or Inspiron 1520 as well. You may also have to mess around with the heatsink(s), but I'm not totally sure about that one; I think it's only relevant if you're doing a motherboard swap from an IGP to a discrete GPU.