Upgraded Acer 3680 Celeron CPU to a T5300!

Do you have to completely take apart the acer Aspire 3680 (i.e. front and back, keyboard, etc. etc. etc.) in order to replace the CPU? I have never done this before and have no idea how to do it. I was under the impression that I could access the CPU by removing the screws on the back and the one on the side in order to accomplish this upgrade.

 

Yes, this video will help you, if you prepare well and take your time dismantling without rushing it's not that hard, make sure to use an anti-static wrist band, organise yourself by making note of what you remove from where, you will be fine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_a531XBbtg

 

thanks, and well....hmmmmmmmm.......i do not know any other way to say this but i finished putting (or almost finished putting) together the laptop and i have 3 screws left over, lol. i really do not want to bother with taking this frakkin' thing apart all over again. you computer people have a great deal of patience and while i envy your knowledge and patience, i do not envy the work that must frakkin' be put into all of this repair/upgrading stuff. DAMN!!!!!!

 

IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!! Unfortunately, the internet will no longer work. Told you I was a noob. Perhaps, pcLaptopNetbook_moron would have been a much better username. Damn, this sucks. Anyways, thanks again for all of the help ellalan. The laptop is running really fast and maybe I can fix the internet problem. Have a great weekend and thanks again to everyone, peace

 

Wait, i had the aux. wire LAN attached to the wrong connected to the wrong spot. But yeah, is the fact that I had 3 screws (1 larger & 2 smaller) left @ the end of putting the laptop back together going to be a concern? I mean, should I take the whole thing apart again? I really do not want to, as the whole time I was handling the motherboard, I thought I was going to break it or damage an important part of the unit. I do not know a damn thing about computers. I have tons of respect for you people and once again, thank you for everything. That goes to the creator of this thread, the individuals who kept it alive, and the kind/patient persons who took the time out of their lives to help my totally n00bish self. I really mean all of that/this, peace.

 

Well done, don't worry about the excess screws, keep them safe, you can put them back, if and when you need to open it again(may be to re-paste the CPU in future), as long as it works it's fine, even if you give it to a technician or Acer, you wouldn't know what would be broken or any screws missing, it always happens, I have broken many plastic tabs from screen bezel, damaged a screw head of the dummy bay cover.

 

Thanks, bro. Hey, although I do my own research in regards to PC upgrading options, I simply lack the familiarity/knowledge with computers to be certain that an item that I might purchase will actually be a compatible upgrade. I do most of my shopping through online vendors.

Is upgrading the factory installed WLAN an option for this acer Aspire 3680?

Far too often, I find myself having to restart this laptop once or even twice after initially powering it on in order to connect to my wireless signal and my wireless signal is transmitted from a good quality eMTA modem.

Been doing some research on my own, but I have not turned up any definitive answer and/or solution. Later.

 

hi guys

i know this thread is donkeys old but i want to try this upgrade and wondered if its just a straight swop ?i bought this processor ( Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T5200 2M Cache, 1.60 GHz, 533 MHz) to replace my original .I am not an expert so all help appreciated . my 3680 has 3gb ram .not sure if i would need to instal new bios etc or how to do it if i do to be honest .i want to learn so am prepared to have a go.

i ran pc wizard and this came up if its any use ?thanks for all help in advance ;-) Dave..

Mainboard : Acer, Inc. Prespa1
Chipset : Intel i943/940GML
Processor : Celeron M 420 @ 1600 MHz
Physical Memory : 2048 MB (1 x 2048 DDR2-SDRAM )
Video Card : Mobile Intel(R) 945 Express Chipset Family
Hard Disk : Hitachi HTS541680J9SA00 ATA Device (80GB)
DVD-Rom Drive : MagicISO Virtual DVD-ROM
CD-Rom Drive : HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T10N ATA Device
Monitor Type : QUANTADISPLAY - 14 inches
Network Card : Atheros Communications AR5005G 802.11a/b/g Wireless Network Adapter
Operating System : Windows 7 Ultimate Professional Media Center 6.01.7601 Service Pack 1 (32-bit)
DirectX : Version 11.00
Windows Performance Index : 2.6 on 7.9

 

Wow this is an old thread. I did this upgrade a couple years ago. I put in a t5200 also. Here's what I remember. I didn't do anything to the bios. It just worked. The two issues I remember was making sure you have the right gpu for this mod and the actual disassembly. Lots of parts and multiple type of screws. Keep track of them. Also, i had to disassemble quite a bit to check the gpu spec. Just checking with device mgr doesn't cut it. For what it's worth, it's still in service at the office.

 

hey thanks for the reply buddy,i was in florida in jan and it was bloody freezing then but i notice its nice now tho ;-). how will i know if i have the right gpu ? or should i just give it a go and if it doesnt work i can revert back to the celeron i presume ?? does it make much difference with new processor in ???

thanks again

dave ..

 

well i swapped the cpu over to the Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T5200 2M Cache, 1.60 GHz, 533 MHz and nothing would boot up and the screen was blank with out power.it would turn on but then straight away turn off within 2 seconds but if i tried to turn it on a few times it would turn on still without any screen at all and it would just search for the dvd/cd drive and then do nothing ? .i have now put my old cpu back in and its as it was (working properly albeit slow due to cpu).

in the interest of learning what have i done wrong ? should i be loading another bios with the new cpu ?? i read on here somebody has just done what i did and it worked,now im confused lol ..........

 

It's nice to find a thread like this when you need it!

I pulled a 3680-2682 out of the closet to see if it might be an upgrade to an even older HP Pavilion running XP with a Sempron 3000+. I have put a larger HD (but no faster) in and have finally got Vista up to date. The T5300 is on it's way and this should make a nice replacement for the older machine, which I use to control my telescope imaging rig.

I find it interesting and puzzling about the 2GB memory limit. I understand that 2GB is the limit imposed by the chipset, but find it odd that it recognizes 2.5GB as does the Windows system properties screen, but the task manager performance tab only shows 2GB system memory.

I have contemplated flashing the 1.3508 bios to see if this changes anything. Even at 2GB, I think it will do fine, but more memory is always nice!

Long live the thread!

 

Well, chalk up another successful upgrade of a 3680-2682! I got the T5300 yesterday and installed it with only minor issues. Still running 32 bit Vista, I'm not sure it's worth the effort or money to go above that with only 2GB of RAM. My memory footprint with 4 or 5 programs running is about 1GB, so it's not starved for resources. I might/could pop a small SSD in as a boot drive and replace the CD/DVD with another HD as a data drive. I'll wait and see if any issues pop up 1st.

 

I recently upgraded a Acer 3680, from a Celeron M 440, 1.86 ghz. To the Core 2 duo T7200, 666mhz front side bus. the laptop the i943 chipset variant. Just thought I would let other posters know that's it's possible. I purchased the t7200 for around 11$ on ebay. I also upgraded the Wireless card to a Wireless N card, the original was only G.

 

I have the Acer Aspire 3680 2472 laptop and i want to upgrade to the Intel Merom T7600 core duo cpu. I found this on another forum, what is the risk of buying a modded T7600 cpu?

I am sure there's a big price difference from a modded T7600 merom and the original one from Intel. I can't find the original legit Intel Merom T7600 on the internet. I checked Amazon and Ebay and per the specifications specs all cpu's i have found are modded and cheap on price (average 100$)..

 

Hey i can Upgrade my Acer aspire 3680 from a singel core to a T6500 dualcore ?

 

Success story for this old Acer Aspire 3680 2472 laptop.
I had a big plan in mind.... after numerous coats of paint, sanding, paint, sanding, clear coats... the beast T7600 Merom arrived after waiting almost a month and a half lol (free shipping cause I wasn't going to spend 20$ extra for a week delivery). All went smooth, took the T7600 Core 2 Duo out of the package, swapped the old with the new, applied a nice coat of thermal paste, assembled the laptop back together after a month a part lol and it turned On first try. I had only luck with this entire process. First, thanks to all the people here that contributed one way or the other for guys likes me with medium skills to be able to do this. Second, the bios version i needed was already installed. Third, i still need to add 1gb more memory and swap the wifi for wifi N or better. Last, i swapped the hdd for a 120gb ssd i have and this thing is very good now.. good for another 3 years.

I wonder if i can swap the LCD with an hd one or even a touch.

Cheers.

 

I can confirm a successfull upgrade to a T7600, i943 chipset.

 

Confirm that T7600 works on 3680-2682. On mine I did not need to update the BIOS as it had the V1.3505 already. Did a few before and after benchmark tests on Prime 95 and these are the results:-

Celeron M
Compare your results to other computers at http://www.mersenne.org/report_benchmarks
Intel(R) Celeron(R) M CPU 440 @ 1.86GHz
CPU speed: 1866.60 MHz
CPU features: Prefetch, SSE, SSE2
L1 cache size: 32 KB
L2 cache size: 1 MB
L1 cache line size: 64 bytes
L2 cache line size: 64 bytes
TLBS: 128
Prime95 32-bit version 28.7, RdtscTiming=1
Best time for 1024K FFT length: 197.988 ms., avg: 236.505 ms.
Best time for 1280K FFT length: 253.108 ms., avg: 405.418 ms.
Best time for 1536K FFT length: 373.781 ms., avg: 458.925 ms.
Best time for 1792K FFT length: 387.524 ms., avg: 429.230 ms.
Best time for 2048K FFT length: 507.384 ms., avg: 553.058 ms.
Best time for 2560K FFT length: 597.746 ms., avg: 627.665 ms.
Best time for 3072K FFT length: 833.975 ms., avg: 889.287 ms.
Best time for 3584K FFT length: 875.185 ms., avg: 950.285 ms.
Best time for 4096K FFT length: 1066.999 ms., avg: 1121.469 ms.
[Tue Mar 15 08:11:57 2016]
Best time for 5120K FFT length: 1382.795 ms., avg: 1418.643 ms.
Best time for 6144K FFT length: 1450.861 ms., avg: 1506.730 ms.
Best time for 7168K FFT length: 1844.212 ms., avg: 1987.591 ms.
Best time for 8192K FFT length: 2126.351 ms., avg: 2235.154 ms.


T7600
Compare your results to other computers at http://www.mersenne.org/report_benchmarks
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T7600 @ 2.33GHz
CPU speed: 2333.45 MHz, 2 cores
CPU features: Prefetch, SSE, SSE2
L1 cache size: 32 KB
L2 cache size: 4 MB
L1 cache line size: 64 bytes
L2 cache line size: 64 bytes
TLBS: 256
Prime95 32-bit version 28.7, RdtscTiming=1
Best time for 1024K FFT length: 20.205 ms., avg: 20.930 ms.
Best time for 1280K FFT length: 26.710 ms., avg: 27.019 ms.
Best time for 1536K FFT length: 33.086 ms., avg: 33.873 ms.
Best time for 1792K FFT length: 39.115 ms., avg: 39.473 ms.
Best time for 2048K FFT length: 43.265 ms., avg: 43.766 ms.
Best time for 2560K FFT length: 55.345 ms., avg: 55.883 ms.
Best time for 3072K FFT length: 72.621 ms., avg: 74.479 ms.
Best time for 3584K FFT length: 84.801 ms., avg: 88.634 ms.
Best time for 4096K FFT length: 90.645 ms., avg: 91.137 ms.
Best time for 5120K FFT length: 119.039 ms., avg: 119.729 ms.
Best time for 6144K FFT length: 148.460 ms., avg: 149.209 ms.
Best time for 7168K FFT length: 171.688 ms., avg: 172.806 ms.
Best time for 8192K FFT length: 192.831 ms., avg: 193.335 ms.

More than 10 TIMES FASTER.
Now I can watch full HD movies no problem, before it would hardly load the movie let alone play it......

A huge result for such a small price. I paid $45 for a new processor. And it runs cooler too... And the battery last longer as in normal tasks/low load the processor runs at around 1ghz than when needed it boosts to 2.33ghz.

I also had the cheek to overclock it with CPU Cool. It can go to 2.5ghz improving the speed by around 15%. Once over 2.5ghz the computer still worked fine and performed all stress tests etc, successfully and did not get hot, but internet started to get disconnected. Maybe the built in internet card had reached its limit.

Anyway I recommend this mod to any 3680-2682 owner as it really transforms the machine.