out with the old......and so forth

Hey guys I just found this forum as Im about to join your ranks as a happy m17x owner!
I am well aware of how these forums work as I have been on one for years about my car, so how you all doin?

My first question is (and yes I used the search but I am a real noob when it comes to computer talk so couldnt make sense of what I found lol)

.....I got a i7-720 cpu......now in the future I want to swap it out for the i7-940xm.....other than getting it in there carefully following some of the videos on here....what else would I have to do for the new cpu to function properly? I found out the 940 will run a lot hotter than the 720.....ok Im going to say do I need a new bios but I really dont know much about bios....any help about this would help heaps as Im sure this is quite a normal thing to do for you other m17x lovers

Cheers, Troy.

 

lol what is this question to stupid to answer or something?????

 

No worries, the 940 will work in the newest BIOS that are available.

Other than a good installation you shouldnt need anything to make it work fine

 

ok so I shouldn't worry that it runs hotter? are all the heat sinks in m17x's the same???? and would u know where I can get these bios you speak of? are they as easy as downloading and running the installer??? sorry as I said before....very limitd compy exp.

 

lol any takers on this??

 

All the heat sinks are the same. You'll just need to re-paste your CPU.

The latest bios is on Dell's support site and it requires you to make a CD and boot off of it. Once you do that the update happens auto-magically.

 

sweet, auto-magic sounds good to me lol I have noticed there are a few different opinions on here about which is the best thermal paste......replacing this cpu on a m17x, which one would suit this specific application? also dose the cpu in a m17x have one of those little thermal pads on it between the heat-sink?

 

It does but it's not directly on the CPU. You don't have to touch it.

Regarding the thermal paste it's more about the application of it rather than the brand. I personally use OCZ freeze.

 

Where are you purchasing it? ES, QS, OEM? I'm wondering because I will also be looking for one in the near future.

 

Im looking at a oem version just off e-bay.....actually Im really glad you brought that up.....what is the difference with the oem versions? are there any versions to stay away from?

 

i7 920XM/940XM OEM CPU's are hard to find on E-bay.

What's EASY to find are ES and QS CPU's from China. Ebay is overrun with them and I've never been able to understand why stolen property of Intel is OK to sell from China.

 

To the best of my knowledge, there are no OEM 940XM's out there, and if there are, they are over $1K. I could be wrong since I've been gone for close to a month.

All the ones on ebay are ES or QS, which are essentially the same as the OEM. They are sent to manufacturers so that they can use them in designing thier systems and testing. Not sure how they get batches of them in China, but it sure saves me money

 

Yeah, there's no doubt that they're much cheaper. Problem is that they're pretty much "grey" market products. So long as you don't mind, you'll get a great deal. But make sure you guys understand what you're getting yourself into.

These chips are "test" samples meaning that many of them have been through the ringer. Also many think that since these are testers sent to manufacturers, Intel would send out their best prototypes, but this is nothing more than an educated guess.

 

you guys are a wealth of knowledge so judging from these reply's, to me, it would seem feasible to actually purchase one of these ES or QS versions of the 940xm cpu.
Anyone one here have actual first hand exp. with these versions of the cpu? any flaws I should be aware of before purchase?