Upgraded Acer 3680 Celeron CPU to a T5300!

It read MBTEB 06.001638OFA1D2500.
According to kraziphyre it was only upgradable to solo core but michacerboy could c2d?
or should i disassembly mine so i take a look exactly what kind of chipset in it?

thank you very much meegulthwarp

 

I don't remember reading michacerboy upgrading to a C2D. The highest I remember was the T1350. I also have the MBTEB and have a T1350 in mine. But you are welcome to take it apart to take a look at the chipset (since you will need to take it apart anyway to stick a new CPU in).

Edit: Did not see your previous post. Mine was also bought in Asia and most of the ones I've seen bought in Asia have the 940GML. Krazy did have a i943 and I believe his wasn't a MBTEB.

Most programs cannot recognise the exact chipset so they say 940/943 but the RAM bay sticker is the one that tells you what you have.

 

Thank You So Much Meegulthwarp, I Really Appreciate Your Help.

 

how to install bios update? since it is a high risk. i got the bios file .whp.

 

It isn't as high risk as it used to be and now can be done in Windows. You will need Winflash.exe and the correct .whp and it is fairly straightforward from there. I don't remember the exact details as its been a while since i last did it but if you need a walkthrough let me know and I'll give it a go.

 

thank you meegulthwarp, you are a big help for me.
how big are the upgrading processor laptop market in uk?
since i am planning to sell spare part of laptop and notebook in indonesia, not mention new and used laptop.

 

has anyone had success upgrading the 940gml version with a pentium dual-core?

there are definitely other laptops out there with the combo.

thanks!

 

No problem

I haven't found too many people in the UK wanting to upgrade CPUs but I think there have been a few more since the resession and people want to find ways to save money.

I think someone did try that somewhere in the first section of this thread, lemme have a read over and I'll see if its possible.

Edit: According to this Wiki page it can handle Pentium Dual Core.

 

Hi all just joined up and hope to get some good advice ,
basically i'm looking to upgrade my current Acer 3690 cpu to the most powerful one that my laptop can take, wether it be a core duo or would really love a core 2 duo??
here's my current spec's below,

Mainboard : Acer Grapevine
Chipset : Intel i943/940GML
Processor : Celeron M 420 @ 1600 MHz
Physical Memory : 2048 MB (2 x 1024 DDR2-SDRAM )
Video Card : Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family
Hard Disk : HTS541060G9AT00 (60 GB)
DVD-Rom Drive : HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T10N
Monitor Type : LGPhilipsLCD LP154WX5-TLA1 - 15 inches
Network Card : Broadcom Corp BCM440x 100Base-TX Fast Ethernet
Network Card : Broadcom Corp BCM4309 802.11a/b/g
Operating System : Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition 5.01.2600 Service Pack 3
DirectX : Version 9.0c

Manufacturer : Acer
Mainboard : Acer Grapevine
Bios : Acer V3.60
Chipset : Intel i943/940GML
Physical Memory : 2048 MB DDR2-SDRAM
LPC bus : Yes
PCI Bus : Yes
Bus PCI-Express : Yes
USB Bus : Yes
SMBus/i2c Bus : Yes
Bus HyperTransport : No
Bus CardBus : Yes
Bus FireWire : No

Processor : Celeron M 420
Frequency : 1600 MHz - (current : 1596.22 MHz)
Support : Socket 479 mBGA
Cache L1 : 64 KB
Cache L2 : 1024 KB
FPU Coprocessor : Present
Processor activity : : 1%

Number of monitor : 1
Monitor Type : LGPhilipsLCD LP154WX5-TLA1
Video Card : Mobile Intel(R) 945GM Express Chipset Family
Current Display : 1280x800 pixels at 60 Hz in True Colors (32-bit)
OpenGL : Yes
GDI Plus : Yes

ACPI Thermal Zone : 46 °C
:
Processor : Thermal Diode
Celeron M (Diode) : 44 °C
:
Hard Disk Monitoring : S.M.A.R.T
Hard Disk HTS541060G9AT00 : 38 °C


All of the above is copied from PC Wizard V1.871.
The reason for the upgrade is that i'm doing alot of online poker with multi-tabling, Rapidsharing , listening to ton's of music and general surfing the net all at the same time, i know multi-tasking .


Any advice or help on this would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

John.

 

John, can you post a more specific model number of your laptop? I don't know the compatibility of the 3690 versus the 3680. You have a lot of information there, but it doesn't actually specify the subtle difference between the i940 and the i943/i945.

Considering what you have listed, be sure to check that you don't have any malware installed. I recommend you try Malwarebytes and Avast! Anti-Virus. You can get both of them for free from download.com. Online poker and sharing are common ways for malware to sneak into your system and slow it down considerably, so I would recommend checking that first.

Also you will probably see a large performance improvement simply by upgrading to a larger hard drive. Larger drives pack data more densely, which means that more information is read/written for every rotation of the discs. 500GB hard drives can be found for around $90. That's an upgrade that doesn't depend on chipset, and compared to the 60GB that you have now, you will see over 8x the storage capacity and roughly double the data speed.

---------------

I've bought a bunch of Toshiba A105's, early models, which came with Celeron M 430's. I hunted and searched online and found oh so many pages that said these older A105's would NOT accept anything more than a Core Solo. They have Radeon xpress 200m and IXP 450 chips, which even Intel said would only work with Core Solo's. I tried the 64-bit Celeron M 520 and the Pentium Dual Core T2060 (which is basically a Core Duo) and neither worked. Then I thought to check my BIOS version. (Duh!) I was running 1.30, and Toshiba had released version 5.60 about a year ago, and it covered even the very early A100/A105 laptops. The new BIOS worked perfectly with the Celeron M 520, the PDC T2060, and......the T5500!! 0_0

Just thought regulars of this amazingly long thread might be interested to know that...especially since there's so much information online to the contrary.

 

Hi Benvanderjagt thanks for the reply, sadly i took a magnifying glass to my chipset to reveal the dreaded i940gml Boo Boo!, my system is completly clean i have, Malwarebytes, Super-antispyware and Nod32 installed, i take plenty of precaution when Rapidsharing and scan my system regularly.

I've ordered a Core Solo T1350 1.86GHZ for my 3690 and i'll definately be getting a 7200rpm hdd, i'm quite pleased with the runnings of xp 17sec boot-up and 10sec shutdown, with the Core Solo and faster spinning hard-drive my multi-tasking should improve slightly?? hopefully!!

thanks,

John.

 

Strange that that website said it had a i945.

The Core Solo will mean you will have a slightly faster CPU 1.86 vs. 1.6 plus the added benefit of Speedstep which should result in a slightly cooler system that should mean you have a quieter laptop as the fan should spin up less. My T1350 does 2M wPrime in 95sec vs 110sec on the M420 (resulting from the higher clocks).

As Ben said, higher density HDDs mean faster access times and you can buy a 500GB 5400RPM drive that will perform faster than a 160GB 7200 drive as the 500GB HDD doesn't have to work as much to read different sectors. And you don't have the noise that some 7200 RPM drives have. I personally prefer 7200RPM drives though as I feel my laptop is working harder to do my bidding

@ Benvanderjagt

Did you ever get a Pentium Dual Core working in a 940GML? I'm thinking about trying one as it is listed in Wikipedia as able to work (yes I know, its Wikipedia but I'd like to believe it).

Yeah, BIOS updates are awesome, and something that most people overlook when trying new CPUs.

 

Well, 500GB 7200 RPM drives aren't too expensive, either. :-D

I wish I had kept the only i940 ZR1 board I have run across so far, but unfortunately I got the T2060 more recently. I have another couple 3680's coming in, but I think they're both 3680-2682. I'm really curious about it myself. By all accounts, a chipset that is unable to support a Core Duo shouldn't be able to accept a T2060, and yet supposedly it is a standard combination.

 

the T2080 should work with the 3690 according this link (posting Nr. 60):

http://paulsiu.wordpress.com/2007/09/03/is-it-worth-upgrading-the-cpu-on-acer-3680-2833/

 

Yes, but his chipset is supposed to be the i943 which means he might as well stick a Core 2 Duo in there.

I'll be ordering a T2130 tonight for £20 so I'll give an update soon on whether or not it works on my 940GML.

 

I think, the information on the wiki page is wrong for 940gml and for the 943gml.

for the 943gml: I miss for instance the core duo.
for the 940gml: I never read before that the pentium-Dual works.

I think the information about the pentium-dual here is correct:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=209284

 

Nice link. Yeah, most of what I've read says it shouldn't work. But I've seen a couple laptops for sale with that combo. Sure it could be a typo but I want to see for myself if it works as the CPU is dirt cheap.

 

thank you meegulthwarp, sorry for being unable reply soon enough.
looking forward for the good news from you guys here.

 

Well, my Pentium Dual-Core T2130 arrived today and as I thought (but hoped otherwise) it does not post in a 3680 with the 940GML.

I think this may have been covered before but the 940GML does not want anything to do with a 2 cores, I wonder if there is a way to get it to work with just the single core.

 

You can always OC the T1350 to above 2Ghz too. Just use SETFSB or CLOCKGEN.

I could OC the original Celeron M520 1.6Ghz to 2.3Ghz totally stable and I tell you what a difference it makes!

And if you change the thermal past to a high quality one like MX-2 or AS5 you will get better temps then stock.



I just ordered a T5600 and going to OC it higher then T7200 speeds.

 

Yeah, I had my T1350 running @ 2.2Ghz I just didn't like the heat and I mainly use it on my bed for browsing so I didn't see the point.

I would also suggest to Undervolt when overclocking, I had the T1350 running @2.0Ghz + undervolt and it was around the same temp as stock clocks without undervolting.

 

Hi I need your help to install the acer 3680 and T5600 and has a windows7 Virtualization for xp but my Enable the bios as it is

 

I have just installed a T7200! A pretty sweet kick in the pants for my laptop. I originally went to a T2250 and now a T7200 as I am getting more into stuff like Blender.

Everything is definitively faster. Booting, opening windows and apps, etc. It's pretty impressive. Maybe I'll do a multi-boot to OS-X and see what happens. Hrmmm...

eb

 

Hello, I am a bit late in the game, but I just order a T5200 on ebay. There isn't much different between T5200 and T5300 right?
My rambay sticker got pull out for some reason and I ran pcwizard, cpu z, and everest return 943i Calistoga. So I figure it should work on my 3680- 2682 model. Sorry for asking these question, but this thread is so long, I only read to 41 pages. But is T5200 or T5300 is the most I can get out of upgrading this model? Will it run better with intel core 2 duo 1.6 ghz than 1.8 ghz celeron or slower? I'm wondering if replacing a T5200 of unknown usage online will actually perform better than my 2 years of everyday use of celeron. Thanks for answering.

General Information :
NorthBridge : Intel i943/940GML
SouthBridge : 82801GBM (ICH7-M/U) LPC Interface Controller

NorthBridge Information :
Architecture : Direct Media Interface (DMI)
Manufacturer : Intel (Acer)
Codename : Lakeport
Revision : A3
Bus Speed : 133.3 MHz
FSB Frequency : 533.4 MHz (QDR)
FSB max. Support : 667 MHz
RAM max. Support : DDR2 (667 MHz)

 

Hi, welcome to NBR.

First you must be absolutely sure you have the 943 chipset otherwise C2D CPU will NOT work!!! If you don't have that sticker well, I can't think of any reliable way to check that out.
If you have 943 the best CPU you can upgrade to would be T7600

C2D being with two cores will kill the celeron in terms of multitasking, will provide better battery life and I think it will give you a better overall performance.

 

I wonder if I should really do the upgrade. I used this laptop for 2 years already. Now the fan is running all the time. Maybe the cpu has gone bad or the whole fan and heatsink hardware malfunction already? Is replacing to a new cpu a better idea? Will it cut the fan for a while?

 

Oh yeah I forgot about that. C2D are supposed to run much cooler that the Celerons thanks to lower TDP and SpeedStep.
If it's a good idea to replace the CPU? I'd go for it, especially if case of limited funds.


Nevertheless if your fan is running all the time right now your system might need some cleaning. Check the heatsink grill, it's probably clogged with dust.

 

Do I really have to disassemble this much http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI_PC4IPznQ to get to the cpu? This is too insane!!!!

 

Yes you do! Enjoy!

 

oh god, save me, I haven't receive the cpu yet LOL. Sigh.....

 

Umm... at the part where I have to remove 18 screws on the bottom panel, I got 17, and the last one won't come out, i think it is because of its bad head, I can't get it out.... This is so frustrating... I am SO close... Help me

 

Try using a screw driver that is the next size larger, also you may (very gently) tap the screw driver as it is sitting on the screw, that might help set the screw driver in the screw.

 

umm.... this may be a stupid question but, can i just leave my laptop disassembled for a week? I am such a noob.... for trying this thing. I saw other laptop model, and they are easily accessible to the CPU. I am too busy with school work, I just put the panel, hard drive panels, and keyboard back, to avoid dust getting in. The only thing that hang out is just the lcd power connector and the wireless attennas. I'm worried that it may collect dust or something and will not work....

 

I have read most of the posts in this thread, but can't find any confirmation regarding the 3680WXMi. Anyone know what chipset is mounted in thoose? 940 or the 943? PCwizard says as always i943/940 and i am not keen on disassembleing the laptop or buying a 100$ CPU before it is certain it will work.

PCwiz also says that max FSB fq is 667 that should mean that i have the 943, right?

Im thinking about the t7200. and 4Gigs of 667 ram.

TY

 

Hi guys..
I'm new here, and I need help.

I need to know what processor I could use to replace the one in my laptop. The processor of my laptop is a Celeron M, running at 1.73 GHz. Here are some other details about my laptop.

Right below the keyboard, there is a sticker here included all the details..

Acer Aspire 3683NWXMi
Intel Celeron M processor 430 ( 1.73 GHz, 533 MHz FSB, 1MB L2 cache )
14.1" WXFA CrystalBrite LCD
Mobile Intel 940 GML Express Chipset
80GB HDD
DVD-Super Multi double layer ( support DVD+R Double Layer/DVD+RW )
2GB DDR2
802.11b/g wireless LAN

There's not much at the back.

Please, do not tell me to disassemble my laptop coz I'm only 14 years old. I might break it. I am a major techie, but this is a technician's work.
Unless of course if what you're letting me screw out is something really easy.

Thanks!
Please help! Much appreciated!

 

(1)Has anyone had success with the 5570z aspire? I have seen the 5570 succesful, but no mention of the 5570z model (or at least mixed results). I'm pretty sure I've got the 943GML because I've already got a T2080 dual core. (2)Would I see a large increase in performance of the T7200 due to the 4MB L2 over the T5300 2MB L2? (3)Also has anyone installed a 64 bit OS successfully once they got the T5300 + upgrade? (4) Would that allow for two SODIMM (dual channel) 2GB modules for 4GB total? By the way great forum guys!

 

I should be attempting a similar swap to the target of this thread soon. However, I don't have an Acer... I have a Toshiba A135-S7403. It's the 229$ black Friday deal from Best buy last year.

Someone gave it to me for free because it was in poor shape and they got it from a drunk friend who said it didn't work. Had to replace the keyboard and throw a hard drive in it but for about 90$ I got a decent working laptop.

Unfortunately the processor is dreadfully slow: Celeron M530.

I tracked down a detailed spec pdf on the Toshiba website and it says that the 7403 has the Intel 943GML chipset so that should be good to go with a T5300 correct? I just want to make sure before I make a purchase off ebay.

Anyhow I thought this might be a good place to post as the goal of this was to take a really cheap laptop and juice up the performance on it right? So far I've got 90$ invested in my laptop and if I throw in another 50 that's 370$ for a pretty decent laptop.

 

mace89:
I tried to put a C2D in a 5570z, and it wouldn't POST. I swapped the CPU, and the power regulator stopped working, and I stopped working on that laptop altogether. However, it looked like it should work with the newest BIOS installed. I think that in the majority of cases, if a socket M system POSTs with a Core Duo, it will work with a Core 2 Duo.

I frequently install 64-bit OS's on TravelMate 2480's and Aspire 3680's with Core 2 Duo CPU's. I even found all of the drivers for Windows XP 64-Bit. As for the T7200 versus the T5300, you'll see approximately a proportional performance improvement with clock speed, despite L2 cache size difference. FSB makes a big impact, as does final clock speed, especially with video speed.

Remember, the <4GB memory limit from Windows XP is absolutely NOT because it's a 32-bit OS. It's because Microsoft -decided- to limit XP to ~3.5GB. There are plenty of 32-bit OS's, including with Windows NT kernels, that access 4+ GB of RAM. However, some of these Intel 940, 943, and 945 based laptops won't see more than a certain amount of RAM. It's really very odd. The Aspire 5315, for example, almost never ever sees more than 3GB, and even getting 3GB is tricky. This is despite that the 5315 uses a 965 based chipset! The TravelMate 2480's and Aspire 3680's see 2.5GB, if you use a 2GB stick and a 512MB stick, and if the chipset likes the RAM. More than that, and it might either see only 2.5GB or it might not POST whatsoever. A Dell B120 (B130? I forget, actually) that came with a Celeron M 520 and had an Intel 940 chipset upgraded to 4GB no problem. The moral of the story is that RAM on this particular era of laptops is really iffy, has everything to do with the particular laptop you're upgrading the RAM in, and technically has nothing to do with the OS. (You can address more than 4GB of RAM in Vista 32-Bit, for instance.)

Doitle: All of the A105 and A135 laptops that have socket M processors are Core 2 Duo capable, so long as the BIOS is updated. However, updating the BIOS is one of the leading causes of Toshiba's ending up in garbage cans. I strongly recommend downloading the newest BIOS for your laptop, running the .exe file, and simply choosing to "read instructions". Then look to where you extracted the files and find a .iso file, which you can burn to CD and boot from. Running the BIOS updater from Windows is a game of Russian Roulette.

It should be a 945GML chipset, and you will probably be happier with a T5500, because of the 667 MHz FSB.

If you have trouble with your laptop, please PM me, and I'll try to help. I work on dozens of these A105's and A135's in a month.

 

Is there anyone here that's running a T7600 on a 943 chipset? That's one beast of an upgrade, and something I'm contemplating.


Regarding the 943 chipset (sorry if it's already been discussed, I made it through 50 pages and didn't see it), they're capable of running at a FSB of 667, just the memory stays at 533? Is that the only drawback? Does memory still run in dual channel mode?

 

I didn't try the T7600 on an Acer 3680, but I did try a T7200. Performance was certainly quite good. One of the difficult things in many laptops is video speed, but it's more closely related to processor speed in Intel video chips. I pushed a T5300 to almost 2.3 GHz with setfsb pretty easily, and that may actually outperform a stock T7600 despite lower cache, since the FSB was forced much higher than usual. I wish laptop makers would put BIOS-level clock and voltage settings. That would be so handy.

I just put a T5500 into a 3680-2682 with two PC2-5300 sticks and ran memtest. It reports that the RAM is running in dual-channel mode at "279 MHz", which I figure is probably 266 (or 533).

 

Well I completed the swap today. My A135 is successfully running a T7200! Thank you so much benvanderjagt for the confirmation that it would work and the suggestion to update the BIOS. I would never have thought of that and maybe it would have failed had I not.

Also thank you everyone in this thread for all the tons of information about the 94X chipset and the Celeron -> Core 2 Duo swap.

Also it seems that the fan almost never runs anymore and performance is improved dramatically. I sort of wish I had run some benchmarks prior to the swap so I would see a numerical value of how much better this is.

 

I can also tell you that A135's with Core 2 Duo chips seem to have a much lower failure rate due to power regulator and northbridge BGA solder failures. It's just plain better technology!

For benchmarks, if your model has the Intel GMA 950 video chip, then you can expect to see a very large performance improvement. When evaluating 3D scores for various other integrated graphics chips, such as the nVidia 6150 and ATi Radeon Xpress 200, you can see that there is a very narrow range of performance among various laptops sporting these chips. However, the Intel chips range widely, with the highest scores being around four times the lowest scores, for the simple reason that Intel's video drivers are doing a better and better job of managing memory and CPU utilization. Make sure you have the newest released driver from Intel for your video chip if you do have the GMA 950, as you might see a dramatic performance increase as well as new DirectX features that the card "doesn't support". (I play Half Life 2 on an Intel 943 chipset, and it's smooth at silk, though I do have to turn off a couple features. Even WoW can be played, though I don't recommend it for serious gamers.)

If you have an ATi video chip, you're actually at a disadvantage overall. The upside is that, if you feel adventurous, your motherboard has a very high retail value, where the Intel-only version is pretty cheap.

Have a lot of fun!

-----

Oh, and I just bumped a Celeron M 520 up to 2.60 on a TravelMate 2480. *evil small child giggle* The RAM has been jacked up to around 700 MHz by my best guess. I'm getting a T5200 on Monday, so we'll see how high that one goes.

 

How did you get an M520 to 2.6?Mine has heat issues at factory settings.

 

Well, you can sometimes overcome the heat issues with Celeron M's by undervolting them at the socket. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=390696 You can also overvolt chips to get that extra power you want using pin mods.

As for me, I got lucky and didn't need to change anything! I used setfsb. I don't use Windows, so I'm still trying to figure out how to get GRUB to use the PLL from the Acer 3680's. (If I remember correctly, it's an ICS954310B.) It's a bit of a crap shoot and seems to depend somewhat on the laptop motherboard itself, but this chip just jacked right up and ran 3DMark and Mersenne Prime just fine. I usually just overclock chips with the enhanced power management, like the Core Solo, Core Duo, and Core 2 Duo, and it seems like there's virtually no heat difference overclocking them, since they drop to almost no power consumption when idle. The Celeron M's do get pretty hot, though.

 

Hi,

I have a Acer Aspire 3680-2682. Do you still recommend the Core 2 Duo as the wisest processor upgrade? Coupled with maxing out the memory?

Another question if I may: When I type, I find some keys not registering on screen. I don't think any specific keys are at fault...it just seems it falls behind, and I'm not even a touch typist. What really bizarre is that this is happening with my Dell wireless keyboard, and not with every program, and I've given that one a thorough cleaning, and it happens too with a Kensington USB keyboard. I just did a complete XO Pro repair on the desktop, and the problem remains. Weird>

Thanks!

Dan

 

I certainly recommend the Core 2 Duo and 2GB of RAM for the 3680. It's a very cost-effective upgrade with lots of benefits.

As for the keyboard problem, I don't think I've run across that with a 3680 before. I've seen that kind of behavior on other computers, but I don't think it's the same problem. You might try booting from a Linux live CD. Then you'll know whether it's a hardware or software problem.

Good luck!

 

Thanks! Linux is way over my head. I'd try it but wouldn't know where to get a Linux live CD.

 

THIS is a good Linux based OS that can be run as a live CD(bootable).

 

Indeed. If you plan to do any diagnostic or recovery work in the future, having a Linux Live CD can be a lifesaver. As far as Live CD's, I personally like Knoppix or DSL a little more myself. I certainly recommend having one on hand, and I (or probably most anyone here) would be willing to give you some basic instructions how to get/burn/use it.

 

Thanks. I'm going to make an Ubuntu Live CD by following the Ubuntu web site directions, just because it's what I have time to do. I've ordered the processor and memory. I will definitely appreciate help in understanding how to use the Linux CD to see what's up with both keyboards, my Dell XPS desktop (which I'm sure is a non keyboard issue) and the Acer notebook keyboard problem. You're all super generous with your assistance. Thanks so much!