Acer 5251-1513 Cpu Uprading

Ok I know I can upgrade the CPU but am I stuck with using a 25w CPU, or can a push it a little and go with a 35w?

Also, does anyone have any information about how to open the case properly and the Mobo ? For example, does it have a Express Card slot? I have a picture of the motherboard that I found off ebay, but I can't really tell because the picture isn't very big.

I really want to put this Phenom II in this laptop but its a higher wattage than the Original CPU.


Thanks in advance!

 

Hi there Astrozombie138,

First of all welcome to the forums! Hope you enjoy it.

Upgrading your 5251-1513 laptop with a 35W cpu is possible as long as you have enough power supply. ( don't know how much you have ). The biggest problem will be the cooling system. Because 25W gerenate less heat than a 35W cpu, your cooling system will be tested to the limit.

About opening your laptop, I don't know the acer 5251 myself. But it is never hard to open a laptop. Most of the time you just have to turn over your laptop and unscrew the (4) screws. Pop the plate out with care and there you go!

Maybe other members can give any additional information!

 

OK, the Acer 5251-1513 uses an AMD V Series CPU on Socket S1G4; theoretically, you can swap in another CPU, such as an Athlon II or Phenom II on Socket S1G4, but I can't be certain because I don't know what BIOS restrictions your system might have.

 

I Called Acer Customer support, they claim that if I put a new processor in the Motherboard the Bios should already have support for it. I'm not too sure if their information is correct, because they speak garbled english.

I'm also very dissapointed that I can't even watch a video without seeing skipped frames.

 

What kind of video are you trying to watch (H.264, WMV, Xvid), and with what software?
Your CPU shouldn't be doing any of the decoding of the more demanding video types available - that's what your ATi Radeon HD 4250 is for.

 

I have this laptop, just got it last week. I've ordered a Phenom II x920 BE to install in this plus upgrade ram to fastest allowable, also 500gb 7200rpm sata hd. Should make this a solid laptop with four cores plus 4x512 l2cache. Trick will be cooling it Will post when hardware is installed and running, should be a few weeks. The service manual is available. [LINK REMOVED]

 

Fperez, please be advised that sharing Acer service manuals is not allowed on NBR as it breaks the EULA contained within said service manuals. Please read the forum rules for more information.

 

Had no idea, wont happen again. My intention was to post web address not manual. MY Bad.

 

@fperez
I am trying to figure out the best way to upgrade my cpu as I have the same model (ASPIRE 5251-1513) If you were successful please respond or email me at "[email protected]" and please give me some info on how to do this.

Thanks,
Hozi

 

You should really think twice about putting a 45W TDP into a laptop designed to cool a 25W TDP CPU. I had a machine that came with a 2650e single core 15W cpu and put in a 45W 4650e dual 2.4 and had to downclock it to 1.8GHz just to keep it from going into thermal shutdown.

The x920 scores approx 2930 on PassMark - CPU Benchmarks - List of Benchmarked CPUs. The P940 scores 2202 and only pulls 25W so won't likely overwhelm your laptop's cooling system. The P840 scores a respectable 1850, may be cheaper per unit, and is likely to be as fast or faster since it has a slight advantage in clock rate (1.9GHz versus 1.7 in the P940)

Moving into dual core range, we get dual 2.4GHz cores in the N540 which is also 25W TDP. While the total performance of the N540 is not near the q920 or q840, individual cores are much faster, and for modern gaming that may well beat both the triple and quad core cpus.

All the CPUs I mentioned here are 25W TDP, and a much safer bet. If you have to get more horsepower, there are 35W TDP cpus that might not overwhelm your laptop's cooling system, but you'll still be pushing things.

Here's a short list of most of the new Turion II cpus from AMD: New AMD Laptop Processors

 

Thanks Sxooter, check my posts. I am still using my D620 emachines and temps run great, same power supply, 4gb of ddr2 6400 ram. I have done some homework before ordering my cpu and am pretty sure this will work. Acer has several models of laptops with what appears to be same m/b, chipset, and heatsink combination with higher wattage cpu. If necessary, I may try case mod. I use thermal gun to check actual temps at heatsink with case open until I get temps where I see are safe to close things up, I dont mind the gamble. I will post again when the hardware is installed.

 

The Phenom II X920 Black Edition CPU is installed and running. No issues that I can report as of this moment. Havent checked temps except with my fluke temp meter at vent area, which is steady 86 degrees farenheit after running for one hour. Never checked to see what it was before but guessing this isnt much of a difference. Bios is original v1.05, installed 4gb ram module DDr 1333 10666 cl9. would have tried cl7 but noticed alot of people were having issues with cl7 memory modules. NOTE. the die area of the PHII X920 BE is larger than that of the V120. you have to remove some of the black protective tape on heatsink area. I always use thermal pads for my laptop cpu, i wont enter into debate as of what is best, I just use what works for me on a consistant basis.

These are screenshots from the acer, for the moment this is all I can offer. I will try to post again soon. I also have a 500gb 7200 rpm hd to install on this beast. By the way I havent updated Windows experience score as of yet.

 

Pretty remarkable, fperez! I'd get HWmonitor open and see what your idle and full-load temps are, just to be safe.

 

idle temps between 42c- 46c. When running multiple apps, netflix movie, media center with dvd from drive, 12 other apps, plus running full virus scan, temps maxed at 61c-62c after 20 minutes runtime. thats 15 applications open, no lag. I'm pretty much awed, and the power supply is a balmy 78f. I'll have to run down battery to see how hot power supply gets when recharging and running a few apps. I know the battery wont last long on its own but I usually have my laptops plugged in.

 

ACER ASPIRE 5251 CPU UPGRADE, final entry, ran battery only, netflix HD movie for 1hr45mins with 22% battery life left. self power adjustments of system for cpu usage seem to keep this laptop running without any issues of heat, with just a slight loss of battery life, well worth the trade off. 48c right now. I'd say any 45w or lower s1g4 cpu would work as long as it is set up properly. The way this heatsink is made anything with higher wattage could result in a burnt GPU chip, CPU and Gpu share the same pipe. Possible case mod could solve that problem. There is room on bottom of case to make vent slots with a dremel tool under critical areas to relieve heat buildup. Also, a Phenom II x940 BE is out there. Dont know where anyone could get one just yet. I'm pretty much done with my upgrades besides adding another 4gb stick of ram. So far these are my upgrades plus cost, Walmart special, Acer 5251-$329, Amd Phenom II X920 BE-$99, Adata DDr 1333 4gb-$39, Seagate 500gb 7200 rpm Hard Drive-$39 black fri special. Around $550 total for one awesome laptop.

 

can you post pictures of the teardown and rebuild? I'm afraid to break the plastic the laptop is inclosed in. I'm able to remove all the screws but can't seem to get the thing to seperate.... Also where did you order your CPU?

 

I have sold the laptop, looking for something cheap with non intergrated graphics that I can upgrade next.
Starmicro on e-bay. they have a website if your not comfortable with e-bay. make sure you get the small screws under the battery, after all the screws are out use a guitar pick or credit card any thin sturdy plastic to seperate the case.

 

fperez, you sold it already?!! What happened? Did you not like how it performed? I just finished installing my cpu. The exact same one you got. Took me a while since it was my first time but the manual definitely helped alot. The only thing I didnt do was remove 1/6 tape like you did since you said the phenom cpu has a larger die or something. I wasnt sure what to do so I just left that out. Should I take my laptop apart again and do that? I really dont want to. Thanks

 

I just removed a little tape to be on safe side, but if your running cool then I wouldnt worry. The laptop ran great, Ive never had one that could run as many apps at one time and not hesitate. The only game I had it couldnt crush was Crysis. I had alot of people interested in buying it so I'm looking at the next laptop project.

 

Astrozombie138, do you have the acer 5251 manual? it shows pictures step by step in taking apart your notebook. It even has a diagram to show you that in order to get to the cpu, you need to remove these components first.

 

Oh I see. Seems like there isnt much to choose from when it comes to a laptop and room for upgrading the cpu. Hope you find something of interest. Oh, also on my laptop, I am running the same 2GB of memory that it came with. Was there a noticeable improvement when you installed 4GB? I do run 3-5 programs at once, mostly firefox w/ 3-7 tabs, itunes, Word, occasionally some torrents, and also I hook it up to my tv via HDMI.

Its usually anywhere from 45-65% full on memory, peaking rarely at 70's. What do you think?

Also by temps are around 48-52C idle and high 57-59 high load. Is that normal or should I apply more/less thermal compound? I am using artic silver 5. Thanks for your help

 

I left it at a single 4gb stick of 10666 ddr3 1333 CL 9. I was going to add a second stick of dual channel memory before i sold it, but the buyer was impressed with how good it ran with just the single stick. Im sure the second stick would have made it better.
Your temps sound like nothing to be concerned about. For a higher end, higher wattage cpu there is going to be a little more heat. let the As5 settle maybe burn it in with AMD overdrive, but be careful if you do because your heats can get up there. set limits and keep your eye on it.
I used a silver based thermal pad and temps would peak at 62c after burn in.

 

Oh very nice then. I am looking into getting just a 4gb stick of memory then with your suggested specs. Also, I just reapplied the AS5 again but this time I used some plastic on a finger and spread it evenly on the cpu. It really helped. Then I got to thinking and since there were thermal pads also along various parts of the heatsink, I took those off since some were falling off and 1 of them was burnt and grey. Thought it wasnt good anyways and used thermal paste on them.

This really helped my temps and now I am getting as low as 44C - 52C.
It used to be4 from 48C - 59C

Also, did upgrading your hard drive make any improvements. 5400 to 7200
If it just a minor boosts, then I'd rather not invest in it.

 

does anyone know a way to downgrade the bios? I would like to go back to 2.05 instead of 2.10. Unfortunately everytime I run the firmware it says this bios does not support your system anymore.

 

There should be a config file to edit to skip version checking.

 

all I have is the .exe file. How do I extract the config file or do you mean within the app itself is the configuration?

 

If you have the exe file only, you can try extracting the contents of the exe file, sometimes the exe is actually a compressed folder to be extracted.

 

thanks, I extracted all the files into a folder. Only one I think it could possibly be is the ini file since it has strings about what you said. I am very iffy on messing around with them and then flashing it so maybe I should downgrade the firmware. I just thought maybe it would be better since it was used in reference when installing new memory and cpu.

 

I wonder if going from 2gb to 4gb or even 8gb would make a noticeable difference. I sometimes get unresponsiveness from firefox w/ only 4 tabs open or switching to some other open app. Any thoughts?

 

If you're not using all your RAM at this point- it won't help you.
It may be related to flash plugin or one of FF extensions rather than the lack of RAM or CPU power.

 

Thanks for replying. About how much would it have to be in order to say its using all of my ram? Here is my task manager screenshot. This is minus itunes and a few other programs I usually have open like office.

4-20-2011 11-21-28 PM.jpg

 

You are using only half of your RAM at this point.
You do have over 90 processes running- that's way too much.
Take a look at processes and services that start with Windows and eliminate those that are not needed.
These days all apps want to be added to startup- starting from Winamp through Acrobat to Daemon Tools.

 

Hello All,

As a very late reply to this thread, I installed the X920 into my laptop. After, I was consistently running in the high 50's (celsius) to low 60's, and even topped out around 90. Something's wrong if everyone is telling me that they are running in the 40's with a load. I used thermal paste as directed and re-seated the processor properly. Heat fan functioned normally... Any answers would be greatly appreciated...

R.B.

 

@ rbooker686,

Mine doesnt run as high as 90 on load, but it gets to around 83-85. Thats if its running intense video encoding or decoding or games. Normal usage is anywhere from 40-69