W3J: CPU Installation Tutorial

Hi All,

I decided to take some pictures of my CPU upgrade on my W3J.

Upgrade consists of swapping a T2500 for a T7200 (Both 2.0 Ghz).

This tutorial takes place right after you have taken off the back panel.

1) Remove the 3 screws highlighted in the picture below: (This will remove the X1600 Module, the pride and joy of every W3J owner!)



1a) After removing the 3 screws from the X1600 Module, remove the module. Remove the module using your Right Hand, and lift the module at an Angle. (You can see that there is a portion of plastic that prevents the module from being able to be lifted upwards directly - Battery Lock/Release)

The X1600 Module should look like this when you flip it over:



2) Now remove the FAN CABLE, as highlighted below:



3) Now remove the 4 screws that surround the CPU, as shown below: (Yellow sticker on one of the screws says "VOID IF BROKEN OR REMOVED" - There is no way to remove it without breaking it!)



3a) Now remove the entire Heatsink carefully. Entire heatsink should look like this after removal: (Lift the heatsink at an angle)



4) After removing the heatsink, you can now access your CPU. To replace the CPU, turn the highlighted button 180 degrees anti-clockwise to unlock the CPU as shown below. Now you can remove the CPU. (Use a flat-head screwdriver to turn it 180, or a credit card)



5) Reverse steps 1-4 to complete the process!

Special thanks goes to: wettek & robohgedhang for their help!

BENCHMARKS:

3D MARK05:

T2500: 4221
T7200: 4400

WINDOWS VISTA (Business X86): WINDOWS EXPERIENCE INDEX: 4.9

Core Duo T7200 (2.0 Ghz) CPU - 4.9
2GB DDR2 (667) RAM - 4.9
X1600 256MB Graphics - 4.9
Aero Performance - 4.9
100GB 7200RPM HDD - 4.9

(Latest version of DirectX used, and Mobile Catalyst 7.3)

NOTES: Make sure you remove the old thermal paste attached to the heatsink of both CPU and VGA. Apply new thermal paste for both CPU and VGA. I used Artic Silver Ceramique Thermal Compound, and used a damped cloth and tissues to remove the old thermal paste, and used a credit card to spread the new paste onto the CPU/VGA. You can use whatever you like, but do so at your own risk.

I cannot be held responsible if this tutorial screws up your W3J. Do this tutorial at your own risk.

 

Good job, mate! Now we have an excellent tutorial with pics.

 

Fantastic guide dude! i'll be sure to refer to this when I upgrade.

p.s. just noticed that in all the photos on your guide that the battery is still attached, i would suggest that was quite a bad idea...

Safety first folks!

 

nice tutorial for all of us, thanks. btw my sound just died and asus says they have to replace the mainboard. does anyone know is it a small component like a chip or the whole mainboard needs to be replaced?

 

very nice, thanks.

 

It's a chip built into the board. Unless you're handy with a soldering iron and have another chip and the time to check each and every individual tiny contact, the board needs to be replaced.

 

I am planning on doing the same shortly so thanks for the visual guide, I was just gonna start unscrewing and pulling... so what did you do with your old chip? that is what I am trying to figure out now....

 

EBAY

 

I like amds idea of haveing two cpu slots, then I can put both in

 

Thanks DTX, this is useful to know, I am just waiting for my new processor to arrive, I am upgrading from my stock T2400 1.83 Duo Core to a T7600 2.33ghz Duo Core 2, Looking forward to a boost in performance.

For future upgraders, I ended up going for Masscool Shin-Etsu x23 thermal compound after reading this review.

http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/thread/16920.aspx

I purchased it from Chillblast.com, ordered it on Friday and was delivered Saturday morning!!!

What Bios are you running and what ave temps do you get, notice much difference?

 

Bios I am running is 210, didnt need to upgrade to 211 as I didnt have any problems installing Vista.

Temps I get according to RM CPU ~ 34 - 60C during normal usage. I dont game at all, so I wouldnt know how higher it can go.

 

Hi Aaron, first, congrats to your purchase of T7600! Now we'll gonna play with the same processor I use 2.11 BIOS, since I needed to be sure that my W3J was upgradable to Vista. I don't think there's much difference in terms of temps after I upgraded to T7600.

 

Hey Mate, yeah it just arrived in the post today so hopefully I will find out for myself soon!

 

i keep this in mind

 

Thanks for this guide. It's very informative. One question for you (and anyone else who has already upgraded their CPU)!

I have a W2JB with a T2500 CPU and I am very satisfied with its performance. However, I am intrigued by the possibility of a substantial performance increase with the T7600 CPU. Please tell me what type of horsepower change I can expect if I decide to upgrade. Is the difference radical? Is it worth the time and money?

Like I said, I am really happy with the way my W2JB runs right now, but I do my share of gaming and I could always use some extra juice. That is of course if the change from where I'm at now is substantial enough.

Thanks again.

 

Yonah => Merom means a clock-per-clock performance improvement of up to 30%, AFAIK. That's quite substantial.

 

Well my super Pi went from 1min16sec to 57sec! to calculate 2million plus i had several programs open and was downloading 2 files.

Day to day usage you do not notice much of a difference but CPU intensive tasks like encoding audio and video, even copying files in windows, when you change the clock speed from 1Ghz to 2.33Ghz there is a huge improvement, I ran 3dmark06 (which wouldnt even run under my 1.83 processor) and 3Dmark03 got a performance boost, although the boost was in the CPU intensive test.

If you are happy with what you have and dont use too many CPU intensive programs you could stick with what you have, but if you want more performance, I reckon its worth it