Question How Hard Is a Motherboard Swap On a Laptop?

[Gamefreaknet]

Currently I have a Dell Alienware M17x: Alienware 03R2RY - Intel HM370
i7 8750H enhanced - UHD 630
RTX 2070MQ 8GB GDDR6
(Upgraded) 32GB - 2x16GB DDR4 3200 - running at 2667mhz
(Upgraded) SSD 1TB SATA III, 2TB NVMe PCIE (not sure if 3.0 or 4.0 but suspect 3.0 due to mobo age) Kingston NV2

I have for a while been looking to upgrade this laptop as ANY form of undervolting is locked away and aside from tweaking BIOS settings (which I would prefer not to mess with to prevent bricking it) is out of the question. Aside from this however I have considered getting another mobo which supports a later gen CPU (preferably 12th Gen+) and I'd be fine with keeping my 2070mq since it has sufficient vram for a while and as of recent the CPU speed has been the bottleneck (checking task manager, under stress on the high performance power plan the CPU would go as low as 2.75Ghz although I have considered going to get the PC repasted).

I have a feeling my current case would have plenty of venting thermal room for a newer Gen CPU (and if it's not overly expensive CPU).

A few major questions:
How hard is it to find motherboards that fit similarly? Surely they wouldnt be too different to allow for similar cooling designs, RAM and storage placement and connection, etc...?
How much would a used 2070MQ go for (if swapping it for a 30/40 series laptop would be worth it... it can still hold up in demanding titles fine but the extra performance would still be a nice to have)?
Max supported storage per SSD and RAM kit? (My current mobo limits me to 2TB NVMEs per each slot and I either have to go 1 NVME + 1 SATA III or 2 NVME + 0 SATA III) and I've got mixed responses if it supports a maximum of 32GB or 64GB RAM...

 

[Lutfij]

I have for a while been looking to upgrade this laptop as ANY form of undervolting is locked away and aside from tweaking BIOS settings
You tried with ThrottleStop? Undervolt the CPU core, cache and iGPU, then the discrete GPU.

 

[punkncat]

Unless you can find the exact model of laptop you have with an option CPU in the same exact motherboard, then no.

The hardware in a laptop is rarely modular.

 

[Eximo]

Pretty much zero chance of jumping that many generations. Maybe one or two will share the same chassis, fan placement, screw holes, etc.

Besides, CPU modularity has basically gone away. And GPU modularity basically ended with that generation of hardware, so you aren't going to find 12-14th gen CPUs with room for an MXM GPU (assuming that is what you have, might be soldered to the board already, too lazy to go hunting for the right motherboard image)

On the plus side a mobile RTX4050 is roughly equivalent to an RTX2070MQ, so keeping that level of performance will be relatively cheap and a mobile 4070 is nearly double the performance.

 

[geofelt]

Swapping anything in a laptop other than ram and drives isimpractical if not impossible.
What is your objective by undervolting?

I might guess that gaming when plugged in creates enough heat to thermally throttle your cpu.
A common occurrence for gaming laptops.
Laptop coolers must, of necessity be small and light.
The coolers are also relatively underpowered.
If your fans are working and clear,
It is counter-intuitive, but, try changing the windows balanced power profile advanced functions to a max of 90% instead of the default of 100%
You may not notice the reduced cpu performance.

 

[USAFRet]

How hard is it to find motherboards that fit similarly?

Basically impossible.

Laptop cases and motherboards are not standardized in any way.
Even among the same manufacturer, the same "model" a couple years apart will not work.

 

[PEnns]

Dell is (in)famous for having proprietary everything in their PCs and laptops.

Essentially, unless you're buying a new one from Dell (at a cost that most likely equals 30-40% of a new laptop!), it would be almost impossible.

 

[DSzymborski]

Dell is (in)famous for having proprietary everything in their PCs and laptops.

Essentially, unless you're buying a new one from Dell (at a cost that most likely equals 30-40% of a new laptop!), it would be almost impossible.

In fairness, with laptops, almost *everyone* is this way.

 

[USAFRet]

Dell is (in)famous for having proprietary everything in their PCs and laptops.

Essentially, unless you're buying a new one from Dell (at a cost that most likely equals 30-40% of a new laptop!), it would be almost impossible.

For laptops, its not just Dell.

Virtually ALL of them are like this...totally non-standard.