Which components of these are upgradeable?

Hello,

Can anyone please tell me which components are user upgradeable on these laptop models? Thinking adding RAM, upgrading GPU, or adding a hard drive.

Alienware m15 R1

Lenovo Y540 and Y740

Dell G5

Thank you!

 

Upgrading RAM and storage: all of them. Upgrading GPU or CPU: none of them.

 

Are you saying this with respect to these specific models or just laptops in general? For example, I know on some laptops RAM is soldered onto the motherboard.

And are there *any* laptops that allow the user to swap out the GPU? Reading conflicting things online.

 

GPU swapping only exists in a few laptops:
Alienware area 51m
Clevo p750 p775 p870.
There are a few more in other brands like HP and Lenovo, but I'm not sure which models.

 

Historically speaking:

• Clevo P750/P775/P870 series
• Alienware Area-51M (and v2)
• Older Alienware notebooks
• MSI 16L13 (Eurocom Tornado F5)
  
• Dell Precision M6 series and 7000-series (newer ones since the 7530/7730 use DGFF, but this can still be upgraded, but 7550/7750 use a different form factor)
• HP ZBook 15 (until G4), HP ZBook 17 (at least until G7, if it exists)

There are probably more than the notebooks in this list, but many of them use rather obscure formats of the MXM design.

 

Also you need modded drivers, sometimes modded BIOS, play around with VBIOS versions, not all laptops support all GPU's, some you can upgrade to eDP displays others you cant and have to rely on Optimus, then Nvidia can change their drivers and you wont be able to install drivers anymore or be stuck with error code 43 for ever..
Unless you already have a laptop that can be upgraded buying one expecting to get a bargain, dont be fooled, a 1070 mxm is still around 500€/$, plus another 500-800€ for a semi recent laptop(at least Haswell), be limited in most cases to m.2 SATA or mSATA interfaces, it doesn't pay off all that well unless you LIKE to thinker with your laptop.

 

As saturnotaku already mentioned, the CPU and GPU seem to be soldered onto the mobos on all of those units and cannot be upgraded.
What you will be able to upgrade are the RAM and storage though.

If you have any of these units, check their chipsets to see their maximum RAM support, and you can add an SSD to them.
Apart from that, the only other thing I could recommend for those laptops is a good dust removal/cleanup and replacement of thermal compound with a better one (such as GeLid GC extreme or Kryonaut).

See this is what never made sense to me.
If a laptop uses an iGP or a soldered dGPU then sure, I can understand the lack of support for other GPU's.
However, for laptops that have removable components, you'd think that the mobo would support other GPU's quite easily (like desktop mobos do).
I mean, desktop mobos virtually never require BIOS updates to support a new GPU... so why would people need to mess around with this for a mobile GPU?

 

Nvidia ties system ID to the GPUs that can be installed, seems a bit dumb on the surface, but then you think that different OEM's like to thinker with the GPU's and offer different power levels, even before the MaxQ thing, as well as incorporating Optimus functionality, thats why GPU drivers are a bit more "custom" regarding laptops, but I still think it could be made in a more universal way.

Well, MXM GPU's talk to the EC about things like temperature or fan speed request, because one laptop can use 5v fans and another uses 12v fans, and another uses 2 fans on the GPU, the other uses 1, and other uses a shared heatsink with the CPU, also, the laptop needs to tell the GPU that it is using battery or AC power so the GPU knows if it can run balls to the wall or not.
All that should be standard with the MXM format, but as usual, each OEM does it their own way so they can force you into their parts.

On a desktop all you have is a PCIe interface, the card manages its own fans and assumes that all the power it needs is provided(or monitor if at least all the connectors have voltage), the die and the VRAM can be the same, but the whole thing is different between a laptop and a desktop.