External Graphics For Dell Vostro 1510 Laptop

[Judan_Arch]

I want help choosing an external graphics for my Dell Vostro 1510 Laptop so that it performs well with the CPU and mostly doesn't bottleneck. Am open to any advice

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

I'm sorry, but that model does not support external GPU's.

 

[k1114]

It does support egpus as it has mpcie but those specs are too weak and old to even try. It's almost 10 years old.

 

[Judan_Arch]

It does support egpus as it has mpcie but those specs are too weak and old to even try. It's almost 10 years old.

I just need to use an graphics on it for sometime any old but a little better card will do ...........I was thinking of 750Ti

 

[k1114]

You could literally buy an entire pc for that price that will be good for using graphics, whatever that means.

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

It does support egpus as it has mpcie but those specs are too weak and old to even try. It's almost 10 years old.

I don't think there are any GPU's he could use with the expresscard slot. A decade ago, Dell had their hardware locked down even tighter than they do now. No chance the BIOS would support anything other than oem options.

 

[k1114]

I didn't see it does have expresscard. Google is showing successful attempts. Do not assume anything when giving support. It will cause you way too many issues, not to mention cause the spread of misinformation. It still doesn't change my suggestion.

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

I didn't see it does have expresscard. Google is showing successful attempts. Do not assume anything when giving support. It will cause you way too many issues, not to mention cause the spread of misinformation. It still doesn't change my suggestion.

Can you post the links of people who got it working? All I could find was an OEM Geforce 8600m on Amazon for the slot. But according to half the specs I saw, 1510's that came with the 8600m had it soldered in, not using the slot. Of course, the seller wants $198 + $35 shipping for it, refurbished no less.

 

[k1114]

I think you are confusing mxm which are internal not external. Those slots are known to be limited by the oem. Expresscard is not used for gpus by oems. Just to clarify, egpus are just desktop gpus in an adapter. The only exception I know of was a dock by msi or products that never made it to production. I don't want to give the op the wrong idea by showing him ways he could use an egpu on his laptop.

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

I think you're right that we may be talking about two different things. When I was looking up specs, I saw several reviews that stated it had an expresscard 54 slot.

https://www.cnet.com/products/dell-vostro-1510-laptop-computer-intel-core-2-duo-t5670-250gb-3gb-series/specs/

https://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/review/dell/vostro_1510/222023/

But some of the reviews indicate it came with an Nvidia 8400m or 8600m, while others did not. That's not unusual, if it was an optional feature. But every mention of a GPU indicated it was soldered to the board, usually in reference to the GPU dying and needing a full mobo replacement rather than just the GPU. But then I saw this:

https://www.amazon.com/Genuine-Dell-GeForce-Graphics-Inspiron/dp/B002N7IX5M

Which does in fact appear to be a Dell OEM internal GPU that fits the express card slot. As opposed to a product like this:

http://www.hwtools.net/Adapter/PE4C%20V3.0.html

But to get that to work, you're looking at >$100 just for the adapter, then however much the GPU costs, and as I mentioned, the high likelihood that an old Dell laptop's BIOS won't recognize the card. So I'm with you on it not being worth the cost. I just can't say for certain it would even work in the first place. It was only seeing that card on Amazon that made me think upgrading the GPU on that laptop might actually be possible, albeit ridiculously priced.

When people talk about egpu's now, it's usually because they heard about Thunderbolt equipped laptops that support the feature.

 

[k1114]

That's a proprietary internal daughterboard which is rare. That's a whole lot bigger than expresscard and looks similar to mxm without the pins. Take a look at a disassembly vid. https://youtu.be/Zv52YR-T_mI?t=3m47s For size comparison, at the top you see the ram sticks: that's about the size of expresscard that's typically used. You don't seem to know what expresscard is but now you should see how small it is and why anything you said about it being used for a gpu makes no sense at all. Not to mention the power limit of it.

But that could actually be a worthwhile upgrade. There are plenty of places that sell it for cheap, here's ebay for $13. https://www.ebay.com/i/182837457997?chn=ps&dispItem=1 Some research would need to be done to see if it would work but it's cheap and probably covers whatever light graphics he's talking about.

The pe4c has long been obsolete and overpriced. We've had $30 adapters for many years. Plus I never said it was costly to do an egpu. The bios not recognizing an egpu isn't an issue. Upgrading the gpu on that laptop is actually possible without even knowing about that rare daughterboard. That's the point of egpus. But the same goes for a desktop, you don't want to spend more on upgrades than what the pc costs and you don't want to be getting parts that would be seriously bottlenecked. If parts are going to be re-used, it could be worthwhile and eating just $30 for the adapter isn't so bad.

 

[TMTOWTSAC]

You're right, I was mistaken about how the GPU was connecting. After seeing no mention of any GPU connectors and complaints about soldered boards, I made the assumption (despite warnings) that the add in cards must be using the only other available connection, the expresscard slot. I never even thought about how it would find space or access the external slot at that angle.

I'm still confused about whether or not the BIOS will recognize any card though. Is there something about egpu's that makes them different? It's essentially just a PCI extension and power supply right? Dell's, especially older ones, are well known for internal GPU incompatibilities. They usually require disabling UEFI for any board that hasn't been validated, and it still seems to be hit and miss from what I can tell.

 

[Judan_Arch]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP_8EYQ-2RA
This is a link on which an even older version of dell runs tomb raider on external GPU

 

[k1114]

Uefi wasn't there back then so saying they require disabling it means you are talking about new ones. Still that's a uefi compatibility issue and not related to locking of any kind. Those kinds of issues happen on any newer pcs with secure bios and uefi but is usually not an issue once disabled. There's also gpus needing uefi but that's another story. In general prebuilts including dells have worked with gpu upgrades. They are not well known for what you say. Prebuilts may get a bad reputation for it but over the many years of helping people upgrade prebuilts, it's uncommon.