Lenovo motherboard swap?

BulldogsRUs · Apr 2, 2015

I just bought a Lenovo H50-55 (90BG001KUS) which comes with I think a Radeon HD 8670D grafx card and a measly 280 watt PSU. So I bought a Rosewill 650w and a Radeon R9 3gb card. Lo and behold I open up the Lenovo and the PSU is a 16 pin which is bad news for a 20/4 pin PSU upgrade.
My question is this: is it just easier to buy a decent motherboard and swap everything over? Am I oversimplifying this?

DonkeyOatie · Apr 3, 2015

You are trying to make a race-car out of a mini-van.

The Lenovo H50-55 is a low end student/office system with run by a good general purpose APU. It is not built to be expanded significantly and so, although all the parts are matched, you will start a 'domino effect' if you attempt a significant upgrade.

You want a much better GPU. The system is not intended to support it.
You get a much more powerful PSU to run the GPU. The motherboard is not intended to support it and your case an cooling is probably not intended to support the greatly increased heat either.
You replace the motherboard, but the CPU limits your GPU, so you plan to replace it.
The heat from all the components is causing throttling problems. You replace the case and get some fans. Apart from storage and RAM, where is your computer?

If you have an OEM version of the Operating System, it may be good ONLY for the motherboard it was installed on. You may need to get a new copy of the OS if you replace the motherboard.

I'd be selling off your old (new?) Lenovo and building a new gaming system from scratch, or another starting place.

BulldogsRUs · Apr 3, 2015

DonkeyOatie :

You are trying to make a race-car out of a mini-van.

The Lenovo H50-55 is a low end student/office system with run by a good general purpose APU. It is not built to be expanded significantly and so, although all the parts are matched, you will start a 'domino effect' if you attempt a significant upgrade.

You want a much better GPU. The system is not intended to support it.
You get a much more powerful PSU to run the GPU. The motherboard is not intended to support it and your case an cooling is probably not intended to support the greatly increased heat either.
You replace the motherboard, but the CPU limits your GPU, so you plan to replace it.
The heat from all the components is causing throttling problems. You replace the case and get some fans. Apart from storage and RAM, where is your computer?

If you have an OEM version of the Operating System, it may be good ONLY for the motherboard it was installed on. You may need to get a new copy of the OS if you replace the motherboard.

I'd be selling off your old (new?) Lenovo and building a new gaming system from scratch, or another starting place.

Thank you! Do you know if there are any decent cards better than my onboard one that will run ok with a 280 watt fan?

DonkeyOatie · Apr 3, 2015

Yes. The GTX 750ti uses only 60 watts and gets it all from the pcie-slot on the motherboard. It is made for this purpose; upgrading graphics in old machines. You will see from my signature that I use one.

You just need to be sure to get one of the ones that requires no external power (like mine and many others) If you have concerns, post the one you intend to buy and we can confirm that it will work.

BulldogsRUs · Apr 3, 2015

DonkeyOatie :

I appreciate the quick responses btw! Is there a diff. between an onboard Radeon HD 8670 vs. an add-in HD 8670 card? Is the below a valid comparison then?

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-HD-8670-vs-GeForce-GTX-750-Ti

DonkeyOatie · Apr 3, 2015

I need to go out. I will respond when I return.

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