Tech Idea (maybe impossible)

Hello Ben,

My name is Andrew and I have an idea for you. This idea may not be original and might even be impossible (depending on how you tackle it).

I have a Toshiba laptop with an Intel 4th gen I5 Processor. Now that might seem like it's good but the problem is, The Graphics is integrated.

Gaming isn't impossible but a pain when trying to find the Quality / Frame rate sweet spot.

I would like to know if there is a way to either make an external solution or an easy internal solution to adding graphics power to my laptop.

I'm not worried about a budget, (unless it's too expensive to do, making more sense to buy a better laptop).

I'm a newbie when it comes to hardware, I could use a lot of work. In fact I just found your channel last week and I am hooked! Anyway, excuse my ignorance.

This is what I am thinking:

There are three ways of entry, HDMI out, Optical Bay, or opening it up (which I really don't want to do, cause i'm afraid of breaking something).

Though it's HDMI out i'm sure theres a way to make it HDMI input, right? With the Optical Bay, I'm not sure if the connection is fast enough, but it would be cool to see an Optical Graphics Card.

Then, there's internally, which I have little to no experience besides random access memory. Though there should be some way to wire in a Graphic's Card, I hope.

Here's the Information:

Toshiba Satellite P55-A5312

Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4200U CPU @ 1.60GHz 2.30GHz

6 GB RAM Upgradable to 16 GB I believe

64 Bit OS

Intel(HD) Graphics Family 4400 (Computer says 0mb Deticated Video memory but systemrequirementlabs.com states 16mb) with 1792mb total/shared Video Memory

750 GB Hard Drive Memory

YouTube Video showing the exact model: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MOBPIoc7R4&list=TL3TzYP8Q6r5Kk4OnjsQ4crg9JY3-VJBw1

If you are interested, so am I.

Email: yamigenesis@yahoo.com

Skype: live:yamigenesis_1 (or search 'YamiGenesis', should be a blue picture)

Thank You for your time,

Sincerely, Andrew Oughterson A.K.A. Yami Genesis

Message was edited by: Andrew Oughterson Phone Number was a bad idea to add, glad i caught it early.

Parents

e14 Contributor over 11 years ago

There are devices you can buy that use a spare mini pcie slot in your laptop, and allow you to connect a desktop graphics card. I can't remember the name nor price point, but searching for something like that on Google should find it pretty quick.
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e14 Contributor over 11 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

If you put more effort into reading my post. there's a link to a youtube video and in it, it shows that there's no pcie card slot to do that sort of thing.
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e14 Contributor over 11 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

My bad for not wanting to watch a video about a laptop. Most modern laptops have two mini pcie slots, but if your laptop has only one (and it should, unless its old enough to use mini PCI instead), it'd be occupied by the WLAN card. You could sacrifice that for your video card, and use a USB WiFi dongle for your internet connectivity.

As for using the HDMI port for an input, if its an output its an output, its not cost effective nor very sensible to make it an input, so your graphics device is only capable of outputting HDMI video.
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e14 Contributor over 11 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

was the larger font necessary? i'm just tired of half arsed answers from random people trying to act smart. and a short answer that you gave me, showing that you didn't look into my question before answering. gave me the impression that you read the first couple sentences and give an "answer".. my apologies.
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e14 Contributor over 11 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

My bad on that larger font.. When you copy the text because the site logged you out and paste it in again apparently my phone enlarged the text. Totally an accident on that one.

I've looked into much the same idea as you have asked about, and the best option is that expansion card that I was talking about, if you want to increase your graphics capability on your laptop. It makes it less portable, but that's the trade off. Alas, laptops are very different from desktops in that they are not made to be very upgradable aside from the hard drive, ram, processor or maybe the WiFi card if you wanted one with integrated Bluetooth.

Some higher end/more powerful laptops have dedicated graphics cards much like many desktop computers do, but its a proprietary connector (only used in laptops as far as I know) so you can't just stick in a desktop variant. I imagine there's a conversion board out there somewhere to use a desktop card in place of that one, but I'm not sure.
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royston02 over 11 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

The best bet is to try to buy a reasonable laptop with two PCIE slots and an external graphics card
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deames over 11 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

With that attitude, I bet people just can't wait to help you.
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deames over 11 years ago in reply to e14 Contributor

With that attitude, I bet people just can't wait to help you.
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