Which mobo/processor combo to run?

[Marvelicious]

OK, deleted my other post, and well try this as a poll:

I have a Toshiba p30 laptop, that I've had for a few years. Its been good to me and serves my purposes. I've replaced a few parts over the years, and recently due to a screen that was going out, I purchased another (this one was a p35, but they run many of the same parts...) off ebay as a parts machine.

So, my original machine is a 2.8 mobile pentium 4, The new machine is a 3.2 gig, so I had hoped to swap processors, but not motherboards, because the original had a 64mb Radeon 9600 graphics processor, while the new one just has the integrated 9200.

Well, I've been trying to run the machine with the 3.2 and the better mobo, but they don't seem to be compatable. I've got horrible graphics issues - kind of overexposed and shimmering. I had hoped a bios update might work, but there doesn't seem to be anything, also tried to find updated graphics drivers... no luck.

So my questions are: Anybody have any ideas to make these parts play nice together? Failing that, which combo would you use 2.8ghz with a seperate gpu or 3.2ghz with integrated graphics. I've got 1.5gb ram if that makes any difference.

Thanks in advance for any help, and feel free to point out potential stupid mistakes, as I really don't know much about this stuff- just enough to be dangerous!:eek:

 

[thomas234]

What will you be using the laptop for? Gaming or general office stuff and interwebnet browsing?

 

[Marvelicious]

Its pretty much wide range for use. Its too old to use for really heavy gaming, and the lack of driver updates for the mobile processors doesn't help. Generally the programs I use the most are:

1 Opera
2 Google Earth
3 Exact Audio Copy - at least until my huge collection finally all migrates to mp3...
4 iTunes
5 Google Sketchup (3d modeling, etc...)

My assumption would be that this is a less graphics intensive list, because there aren't any games, but do Earth and Sketchup have heavier graphics demands as well? How do I find out? Like I said, I know enough to be dangerous...

 

[thomas234]

[QUOTE="SketchUp FAQ]3D class Video Card with 128 MB of memory or higher. Please ensure that the video card driver supports OpenGL version 1.5 or higher and up to date.[/QUOTE]

So based on that I'd go for the configuration witht the better graphics chip.

 

[Marvelicious]

Huh, go figure... It didn't even occurr to me to check the published requirements for the programs I use. :doh: I truly apprecciate the help.

It always ran well with that processor before. The sad end result is that I never should have torn the thing all the way down in the first place! :D Oh well, at least I got a chance to clean the heat sinks which did need to be done.

Thats all for now, though I plan to build a new desktop this winter, so I'm sure I'll be back with a -few- questions!