How should I upgrade travelmate 2420?

I have an old Acer Travelmate 2420 (1.5 GHz Celeron M, 1GB RAM and 40GB HD) in my office. I am planning to buy a new laptop (maybe Sager) when Ivy Bridge comes out next year, so what should I do with the existing laptop?

1. Do nothing
2. Upgrade to 2GB RAM for $30
3. Upgrade both the RAM and HD (SSD? or is my laptop too old to accept any SSD?)

 

It probably uses ATA drive based on the fact that it's 40GB and 4200rpm (from what I've seen) so it won't work with SATA SSD.
You may want to upgrade the RAM but only if you really need it- it's not worth investing any money in it.

 

so I guess I should just save it up for the next laptop. =)

 

better to just keep it the way it is.

since u been using it fine all these years upgrades dont really make sense for such an ancient machine lol

 

I just can't wait to see how much faster Ivy Bridge will be compare to Celeron M.

 

i think the cpus in smartphones atm are faster than the celeron m lol

 

Does anyone know what is the fastest CPU I can upgrade to on my 2420? Would Pentium M 765 work? (it has the same 400 FSB, but with 2MB cache)

 

Are you sure it isn't capable of 533mhz FSB?
If you have the right chipset (I think its 855) then you can overclock by 33% by going from 400>533.
I think that would make even the 1.5ghz a 2ghz CPU.

Otherwise the RAM is not worth it if you have to pay 30$, you should get 4gb for that much.

Anyway the Pentium M would work, you should probably get a cheap one though. Based on the overclocking it would be really stupid to pay more than 10$. The 1.6ghz - 1.8ghz are just as good.

And actually, if you're just going to get 1 thing, I would say get a new hard drive. Anything 5400 RPM, but 7200 rpm would be better. Has to be IDE/PATA interface and 2.5".

You'll see a large performance increase with a clean install and a new hard drive. Single core laptops can still browse the web and play flash videos pretty well, trust me, its great to have a back up.

 

A few weeks ago I upgraded to 2GB RAM for $1.99 (I found a deal on amazon), so I have maxed out the RAM.

The system specs in the manual says that 2420 has Intel 910gml/ich6-m, and it supported Pentium M 725, 730/740, or Celeron M 370/380/390. So I am not sure if it supports other newer processors or not.

The reason I want to to upgrade is because watching 720p video on Youtube is extremely choppy. HD upgrade would be nice too, but I have found any good ATA/100 drive on the internet that's relatively cheap.

Btw, for overclocking FBS to 533, do you mean this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekU6AIlRFZA

Also which version of the BIOS supports SpeedStep Technology? If I don't upgrade BIOS, how would this affect the speed of Pentium M processor?

 

I disassemble the laptop, did the pinmod, reapplied thermal paste. However the cpu is still at 1.5Ghz, so it seems the pinmod is not working. The good thing is the temperature drop from repaste:

Idle Load
Before 69C 80C (thermal throttle)
After 50C 61C

20C drop on average! I am very happy!

 

I think your BIOS already supports speedstep.

That video didn't explain what makes the pinmod possible - you have to have a 533mhz chipset like the 910 or 915 and a 400mhz FSB CPU. I looked it up, you have both of these things - it should have worked.

CPUz will still show the CPU at 1.5ghz or whatever the original frequency is - speaking of speedstep, it doesn't overclock the power saving frequencies of the CPU. So it would still show 800mhz unless you stress your CPU.

Maybe it worked after all. See my screenshot:

 

I think on the Intel website it only says 400 for the 910. 915 has the 533. I can take my chances and upgrade to a Pentium M 760, but it might get underclocked.

 

I just had another idea, instead of limited choice by the current chipset, is it possible to replace the current motherboard with something newer? What other motherboards would have the same dimensions, I/O's as the 2420?