Please help me upgrade my laptop video card [dedicated]

Computer Forum Video Cards, Displays and TV Tuners
1

HP Pavilion dv7 (custom, 8 months old)
Intel i5
8GB ram
Windows 7
ATI sound device of some sort
not sure what the motherboard is

ATI Mobility Radeon 5470 (512MB)
^I want to replace that because it is not working well for my needs^

I’ve replaced some laptop hardware before, but never a graphics card… so assume I’m fairly tech ignorant.

  1. How do I know which graphics cards will physically fit in my laptop?
  2. How do I know which cards are compatable?
  3. What is a good card, say $50-$150, that would be a noticeable upgrade? Where do you buy them?
  4. Tips on installation? Are there info resources anywhere?

Many of forums online suggest this sort of thing can’t be done. I don’t mind a complex/lengthy installation (could be fun) if I know that it will be compatable and will improve performance.

Thanks for your help. Feel free to answer any of my questions even if you can’t help with the others.

2

Hi,
I looked at the service manual for your laptop and it looks like the video is a chip on the motherboard for this model. That is how it is on most laptops, so if you want to change the graphics on it, you will probably have to change the whole motherboard. I looked around and since its hp, most of the parts like that are proprietary so there are not a lot of resellers. The only video card vendor I found for laptops only sold ones for dell machines, I couldnt find any HP. If you do a search for the hp pavilion DV7 laptop service manual, it shows how to take the whole laptop apart so you can replace just about anything, however, not the video as it appears to be just a chip on the board, which is odd because the call it a discrete card which usually means a removeable one…