Upgrade Dell XPS Laptop Motherboard?

I have a 6 year old Dell XPS 17" laptop with a fantastic 1920 x
1280 display. Because it doesn't support newer standards (SATA,
USB 3.0 or 3.1, 802.11 AC, etc.), I would like to upgrade it.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find a new laptop on the Dell site that
had all the new capabilities in a 17" (or a 15") footprint.
Given that Dell uses custom motherboard designs, does anyone know
if it is possible to install a new Dell motherboard, CPU, and
memory into my older laptop?

Regards, Dan

On Friday, August 28, 2015 at 12:18:01 PM UTC-5, Dan Schumacher wrote:
I have a 6 year old Dell XPS 17" laptop with a fantastic 1920 x
1280 display. Because it doesn't support newer standards (SATA,
USB 3.0 or 3.1, 802.11 AC, etc.), I would like to upgrade it.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find a new laptop on the Dell site that
had all the new capabilities in a 17" (or a 15") footprint.
Given that Dell uses custom motherboard designs, does anyone know
if it is possible to install a new Dell motherboard, CPU, and
memory into my older laptop?

Regards, Dan

If you keep that one you could (most likely): Update the CPU; add memory; install an SSD. You must have SATA II, and III won't do much of anything. Be sure to re-flash the BIOS to the newest version.

Disclaimer- I personally have *never* done these things to a notebook PC.

On Friday, August 28, 2015 at 1:18:01 PM UTC-4, Dan Schumacher wrote:
I checked the specs on an XPS 17 reviewed in 2010. If your system has an Intel i7 processor like the review unit, leave the processor as-is. For other processors, maybe an upgrade. If the system uses DDR3 SODIMM memory, max it out to 8GB. Memory is cheap and usually easy to install. As Bob says, cloning the drive onto an SSD gives a big performance boost. The SSD capacity must be the same or more than the current hard drive. I suspect that it does use a SATA drive. For 802.11ac, there are inexpensive USB wifi adapters, with and without an antenna, your choice.

For more exacting choices of upgrades, post the service tag of the system, found on the sticker on the bottom... Ben Myers

I have a 6 year old Dell XPS 17" laptop with a fantastic 1920 x
1280 display. Because it doesn't support newer standards (SATA,
USB 3.0 or 3.1, 802.11 AC, etc.), I would like to upgrade it.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find a new laptop on the Dell site that
had all the new capabilities in a 17" (or a 15") footprint.
Given that Dell uses custom motherboard designs, does anyone know
if it is possible to install a new Dell motherboard, CPU, and
memory into my older laptop?

Regards, Dan