Alienware Area-51 M17x Upgrade?

Hey guys. I already own an Alienware m15x but for my little brothers birthday, I was thinking about getting him http://huntsville.craigslist.org/sys/2654536764.html

I understand its old and the specs are quite low but he enjoys working on computers. I was wondering if I could purchase this then purchase Ram/Video Card/HDD for him to upgrade and if so, what would be the specifications?

Please stay on topic.

 

RAM/HDD are easy changes. Video card on the other hand might be a bit of a challenge if it's even possible (limited knowledge on laptops). Even if it is possible, I imagine that the parts would be a lot more expensive than their desktop counterparts. Purely speculation on my part though. CPUs are also usually a fairly easy swap, but that socket doesn't have that great of CPUs anyway. Tbh, I don't think it's a very good deal. It would have been awesome tech like 3-4 years ago.

You could build him an average home desktop for that price that could also do some light gaming. He'd get to work on the computer as you said he likes doing and it leaves more room for newer tech/future upgrades. Best route IMO.

 

I don't think you can add a video card, pretty sure its integrated.

 

It's not intergrated, but could be soldered to the mobo anyway.

CPU upgrades on laptops can be difficult, and the procs are expensive(again same with the gpu, could be soldered.)

 

I'd just go grab myself a new beast instead of getting a used one. Ya never know how many times someones dropped it.

 

Meh, I would stray away from buying computers on craig's list. You don't know what's happened with that computer or if it's going to break a few days after you get home. I would suggest getting a new computer or building him one. That could be a fun thing you could do together as well.

 

Thank you all for the replies, he wanted it still so I got it for him. Ran it and tested it out and it runs really good. Now if I want to upgrade the RAM I know it has to be either DDR3 1600 or 1333 but how else can I be sure? Is it even possible for this model to exceed 4Gb?