ASUS X71SL processor upgrade

Is it possible to upgrade CPU in my ASUS X71SL notebook from P7350 to T9550 or P9600?

Chipset: SiS M671DX.

Hardware details of the notebook: http://linux-hardware.org/index.php?probe=5f223a80ac
Official specs: http://www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/X71SL/specifications/

 

Should be possible... Chipset should be PM45/GM45... Can you post a screenshot of CPU-Z of your chipset/CPU?

 

CPU-Z output for ASUS X71SL:

Chipset
---------

Northbridge SiS 671/FX/DX/MX rev. 00
Southbridge SiS 968 rev. 01
Graphic Interface PCI-Express
PCI-E Link Width x16
PCI-E Max Link Width x16
Memory Type DDR2
Memory Size 4 GBytes
Channels Single
Memory Frequency 333.3 MHz (8:10)
CAS# latency (CL) 5.0
RAS# to CAS# delay (tRCD) 5
RAS# Precharge (tRP) 5
Cycle Time (tRAS) 15

Processors Information
----------------------------

Processor 1 ID = 0
Number of cores 2 (max 2)
Number of threads 2 (max 2)
Name Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo P7350
Codename Penryn
Specification Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P7350 @ 2.00GHz
Package (platform ID) Socket P (478) (0x7)
CPUID 6.7.6
Extended CPUID 6.17
Core Stepping M0
Technology 45 nm
Core Speed 2000.1 MHz
Multiplier x Bus Speed 7.5 x 266.7 MHz
Rated Bus speed 1066.7 MHz
Stock frequency 2000 MHz
Instructions sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE4.1, EM64T
L1 Data cache 2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L1 Instruction cache 2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L2 cache 3072 KBytes, 12-way set associative, 64-byte line size
FID/VID Control yes
FID range 6.0x - 7.5x
Max VID 1.138 V

 

Ok that's weird.. well it looks like you should be able to Run the P9600/9700, T9400/9600/9900 CPU's so you can upgrade to those..

 

I've successfully upgraded to P8600: http://linux-hardware.org/index.php?probe=e00bb946c8

The performance is about 20% better on some tasks like compressing files.

 

The ones I recommended above would have given a 40% increase but would have cost about double the cost.. Still 20% is better then nothing..

 

Hello, I actually bought a t9600 processor of ebay for €10,- And no it didnt work on my asus x71sl

So I tried it on my dell inspiron 1554 and it works perfect. I switched the original t9600 for the one I bought to check if it is 100% ok and it is.

So the processor is working but no the t9600 wont fit the asus x71sl. At startup it starts up normal tough but the screen froze at just before counting the memory.
So i unplugged the battery and power socket. And kept the start button pressed for 1 minute. And started again. The normal procedure for a frozen startup screen. No didnt work. Then I retried this process after cleaning the socket of the cpu using electrical connection spray. But again no result.

Then I decided to swap the processor on the dell inspiron which got this t9600 as stock and works fine.

So I am not going to take another chance on a p9400 processor since I havent seen any upgrades on that whatsoever I will get my hands on a p8600 processor instead making it 20% faster. And then perhaps try over clocking it somewhat

 

My old laptop has a PM45 chipset and it originally had P7350 CPU (it was an Acer though with 9600m GT gpu).
I successfully upgraded it to P9600.
I'd go for the P9600 for the obviously lower TDP.
Don't know if your laptop can handle more than that reliably.

Also consider upgrading the HDD to an SSD (120 or 256 GB) and installing the OS and games/programs you use there.
256GB came down in price so it should be relatively affordable.
If you also want to keep existing HDD, you could take out the optical drive and put the HDD into a caddy (which would replace the optical drive).

Now, if I'm also reading the specs right, this laptop has dual HDD support. Now if that means it can support 2 HDD's... then you could just replace the OS one and keep the other one.... otherwise, if you just have 1 HDD slot and want to keep the HDD for storage... use a caddy.

Out of curiosity... have you considered buying yourself a new laptop instead of upgrading that older one?
AMD is coming out with Raven Ridge APU's for laptops that appear to be really powerful low power options with up to 10 hrs battery life.
Don't know about the price, but from a CPU point of view, they seem to be on par with 8th generartion Kaby-Lake R in single threaded tasks and about 45% faster in multithreaded ones.
The Vega iGP in those laptops will also be on par with GT 1030... all this in 15W TDP... the GPU might need another 10W (going overall to 25W) to use its full potential, but hopefully the OEM's won't restrict the TDP as its already low enough.
Plus, some of them come already in dual-channel configuration and with SSD's in place.

Hopefully the price will be affordable as well (up to $600/£600 or less).

 

That sound really promising.
I just found out that I bought a t9600 processor instead so I changed this in my previous threat.

Well thanks for your great answer.
I just bought a p8600 processor.

If look at the Ark intel site the voltage (vid) of the p8600 cpu is the same as the original cpu.

So what did you do to change is?
Just plug and play?
Or complete bios changes and voltage setting adjustments?

How do I do the p9600 upgrade to the asus x71sl??? Since you got an acer what did you do?

So the p8600 is 2.4 GHz 20% gain

the p9600 is 2.66 GHz 33% gain

So yes I need the p9600


The t9600 is 2.80 GHz and aint working on my mother board.

I bought 2x 2Gb ddr2 800MHz
And read today I could have switched to ddr3 obviously which is possible on my mother board.
That would have been 1333MHz or so now I am using 333MHz so not as fast

 

I found an interesting threat:

1. 
   AntBakerNewbie
   hi
   
   i currentley own an Asus X71SR. i'd like to upgrade the CPU but cannot find much info on what size CPU i can install. i've used Winflash to upgrade the bios to version 206. I 've noticed on the Asus website that the X71SL has a bios upgrade to accomodate CPU's up to Intel Core Duo P8700. Would this be suitable to use ? Any help much apprciated.
   
   Jul 8, 2012ReputationReport
   Like
   
   This info could be the answer to my near future upgrade
   
   Thanks,
   
   Hans Gorter
   Netherlands
   
   

 

question: I got a t9600 and a p8400 and later this week a p8600 processor willing to get the p8700 as supported by asus (says the bios update)

So I am going to flash my bios using asus EZ flash (not with those floppies of course)

and it says with Bios 205 it is now possible to run a p8700 processor.


So since I can only upgrade a bios and never downgrade a bios is the processor upgrade also included in bios version 206 Which was the latest version in 2008. long time ago?

So does the newest latest Bios upgrade got all the other upgrades included?????


And does is support the so called p9600 / t9600 processors????

And does it even support the P8400? since it says p8700 and nothing else


How come then that the other guy in this tread upgraded to p8600?


I just installed the p8400 without changing the Bios and it doesnt work. Just like the t9600 nothing. the screen freezes at startup thats all it does. So the Bios is not recognising these processors. I have Bios version 203 installed as stock.


Well I go give it a try to upgrade to Bios version 206 (which is nearly 10 years old)

 

I succefully UPGRADED my Asus X71SL from the P7250 2.0GHz processor to T9600 2.8GHz processor


My recent upgrade works perfect.

My laptop is the X71SL laptop running windows Vista and 4Gb 333MHz RAM and the nvidia Gforce 9600M GS Graphics card
Stock processor is the P7250 2.0 GHz 3Mb cache

I realized to update the BIOS of my laptop. Since it was not able to recognize the newly installed P8400 2.2 GHz processor.
It was really easy to update the BIOS but you need to have the balls to do it.
But if you are able to plan it 100% perfect nothing can go wrong at all.

step by step way to upgrade your processor (for any laptop):

1. note your BIOS version at the startup screen or press F2 and note your BIOS version.
2. Go to your laptop or PC brand website. e.g. www.asus.com
3. type in your laptop in the search field. "X71SL" for the laptop I am using.
4. check out the latest BIOS in the downloads area.

Which version of BIOS do you need to download? the latest version? or an increment of all versions available no matter which one?
Well once you go for the higher number BIOS you cannot go back. You can never go back.
But that is not a problem at all since the latest BIOS includes all information of all BIOS versions available.

Why is a BIOS updated by the manufacturer? Well to get rid of faults in the current BIOS. Some hardware is not detected for example and by means of testing and perhaps customer input the manufacturer will adjust the current BIOS to a new BIOS.

at the ASUS X71SL BIOS for example the BIOS I got stock was BIOS version 203.
You can read on the www.asus.com website what is changed in the latest BIOS.

Therefore I had to make a choice which BIOS to install version 205 (which supports the P8700 processor) according to the website or version 206 which is the latest version.

So I decided to download BIOS version 206 the latest version because yes it includes version 205 also and all previous versions also. no doubt about that.

5. download the latest BIOS version to your C:\ drive.
6. unpack the BIOS file if you have to unpack it and put it in the root directory of the C:\ drive. the root directory means C:\ so no directory (just to find it quick)
7. restart your computer
8. press F2 at startup and you will be directed to the BIOS screen. (this is for the ASUS laptop)
9. before updating make note what kind of hardware you have installed to enter these settings in case of those settings being lost. (So take pictures with your smartphone) with my BIOS update everything was still 100% in place and working so I didnt need to enter anything. nothing was lost. So I expect nothing to be lost at any ASUS.
10. press EZ flash and you will go to the flash screen.
11. There you can choose on which drive the 206 BIOS version can be uploaded from.
12. Choose C:\
13. and wow it will install dont do anything at this moment dont touch your laptop. It will take a while until your laptop is updated again. Dont switch it off.

WARNING: NEVER SWITCH YOUR COMPUTER OFF WHILE UPDATING YOUR BIOS YOU WILL BE LEFT WITH A NON FUNCTIONING MOBO MOTHER BOARD. ONLY THE MANUFACTURER CAN REPROGRAMM YOUR BIOS.

Well or buy a new motherboard for 40 bucks. that aint a lot of money anyhow. Less then let someone else do it for you. And just plug in all devices.
that would have been my sollution.

14. once your BIOS has been upgraded. Your laptop is good to go. and you dont need to change your processor at all. So also dont change your processor before the BIOS update. that would be stupid anyhow.

15. Congratulations. ok you got your laptop to a higher level and bringing it back to life because your laptop was getting slow with all new software and internet and youtube etc.

16. it this point of time you need to swap your processor.
17. unplug your laptop and take out the battery and hold down keep pressed the startup button for at least 1 minute to drain the electric charge from your laptop.
18. open up your laptop using the proper tools. and get to the processor.
19. unplug the fan and take it out. (X71SL)
20. unscrew the heat transfer arrangement on top of the processor according to the numbers on the device. 1, 2, 3, 4 then take it of (X71SL)
21. now you need to turn the screw on top of the processor holding arrangement anti clock wise and you will see you can take out your existing CPU.
22. replace the CPU. anything between P7250 up to T9600 / P9600 I changed it first to P8400 2.2GHz.
23. apply heat paste to your CPU. cover the complete mirror of the heat transfer plate. (you can use Copper silicon heat paste or like Arctic Silver)

Never use zinc **** or aluminium **** paste or whatever other paste like gold or titanium or toothpaste or whatever home made stuff besides if you know what your are doing.
Heat transfer coefficient of copper is very good 390 W/(m.K) Silver is even a bit higher so a bit better. we are talking about the LAMBDA figure.
So you can actually make your own cheap heat paste if you buy liquid silicon and very fine copper powder. Mix 90% copper powder with 10% liquid silicon and yup you got very good heat transfer paste for a bargain. and you never have to buy those relative expensive small seringes of heat paste.
You can try 3M silicon copper paste (used in the automotive industry) but that stuff contains some other materials which you dont need.

24. put everything back again just like you took it appart and follow the 1,2,3,4 numbers on the
25. restart your laptop and hell yes it is working.


So my first try was a T9600 processor which didnt function. (before the BIOS update
then I bought a P8400 processor and a P8600 processor. While the supported processor in BIOS update 205 (asus X71SL) is telling a higher number processor. the P8700.
So I installed the P8400 processor 2.2 GHz and Yes it works perfect.

So now 1 day later I decided to test the T9600 processor using 2.8 GHz and wow awesome it works 100% perfect also the temperatures are very low using the SPEEDFAN programm.

Why is it low? well because of the higher capacity of course. it is running at less % of what it is capable of. and when I need the power it is running like a dream.



So now my 10 year old 1200 bucks laptop is 5 years old or so.