Graphics card upgrade for Mobile station

[jpersinger]

I currently possess an Evo N800c 1.69 gHz P4, 512 mb Ram, and ATI Radeon Mobility 64mb card(PCI port). I need to know what I can do along the lines of upgrading my graphics card. I would like to go with a Radeon 9200 mobile card, however I'm not sure if this is even possible. Any info is appreciated.

[HeadBand]

i am confused how do you have a PCI card in a laptop i looked this up to see if it was just one of those teeny computers but its a laptop

[jpersinger]

I won't claim to know alot about computers so I may be the one slightly confused, but the ATI Mobility card is located on PCI bus 1. However it supports 4xAGP so it must be AGP, so nevermind the aforementioned info on it being PCI.

Onboard cards are usually AGP. AGP is a protocol, not a port type. And AGP uses the PCI bus. It's kind of confusing, but it works.

I'd venture to say that you can't upgrade your video. You can't in most laptops.

[jpersinger]

As for graphics card advice, I need something Directx 9.0 compatible and something that is Hardware Transform and Lighting capable. My main gripe with the Radeon Mobility is its lack of T & L. I really like the Radeon Mobile 9200, so I guess what I am really asking is will it be as simple as just plug and play or will I have issues. I have been told that it will be difficult to upgrade my card, if not impossible, because its a laptop. That source might be an idiot though...

I am not.

[jpersinger]

I thought that the two represented differing types of ports, oh well. Why is it impossible to upgrade the graphics card...? I don't have the money to purchase a new system, and it would be really impractical when a new card would cost less than $200. There has to be something I can do right?

Most laptops have integrated graphics processors. That means they're soldered right to the board. There have been some in the past that were upgradeable by popping the chip out, but that isn't standard practice.

[jpersinger]

I knew that most have integrated graphics processors, but the Radeon mobility is supposed to be a stand alone product. Hopefully I lucked out and it is just removeable, because the ATI integrated product line consists of the 320M, 340M, 7000 IGP, and 9100 IGP so I am assuming that the mobility should be a removeable model.
Say its not though, what exactly is stopping someone from removing an integrated processor?

A lot of soldering.