Acer Aspire 5738Z CPU upgrade?

Hi,

As mentioned in title, I have Acer Aspire 5738Z laptop. Currently, it has Intel Pentium T4300 CPU. According to AIDA64, it uses Intel Cantiga GM45 chipset and Supported FSB Speeds are FSB533, FSB667, FSB800, FSB1066.

I was thinking to upgrade CPU to T9550, which uses same socket, and it works on FSB1066. It should work, but what do you think, will this work on this laptop? I'm attaching report from AIDA64 for my hardware specification.

View attachment Report.zip

 

What we need to know is what is your socket type that will determine the processor type it will take....

 

My current CPU is T4300, and according to Intel web site, socket is PGA478.

 

The GM45 chipset should work with any of the Core 2 Duo's of that generation. There are rarely guarantees when upgrading a notebook's CPU (perhaps only if the notebook was sold with the CPU you're trying to upgrade to).

The T9550 is considerably more powerful than the T4300; just beware it will also produce more heat. Consider one of the P series Core 2 Duo's, which consume less power. The P9500 and P9600 are good; also the P8700/P8800.

 

mara-, T9550 will work as any other Socket-P Core 2 Duo. Best ones are T9900 and X9100, the latter for overclocking.

 

Thank you both for reply.

@Charles
I know it's more powerful, but they have same TDP, so shouldn't the laptop be able to handle it?

 

mara-, yes, by all means it should. If you have an option to test a couple of CPUs and choose between them, spare some time to determine how well can they be undervolted, and pick the one which is stable at least voltage, just to be sure.

 

As far as I could see, BIOS on this laptop is pretty limited, and there isn't voltage control. Are there some applications which can do this from Windows? Also, I don't have options for testing, I was planing to order T9550 from eBay, since this one best fits my budget.

 

mara-, you can use RMClock, Throttlestop or CPUgenie for undervolting. I prefer the latter because it's rock-stable and easy-to-use.

 

Guys, I have one more question. I'm going to pick up T9600 (I found a good deal) on Monday. Although this should work, can I damage the motherboard if by some chance CPU is not compatible?

 

No it shouldn't damage anything... Just make sure you insert it in properly and not break anything yourself..

 

Great! Thanks for fast reply.

 

Yes; the CPU will only fit one way, there may be a corner of the chip marked along with a matching mark on the motherboard to indicate the proper orientation (at least that's the case with desktop CPUs).

 

Good news, guys! I picked the T9600 today, installed it and it works like a charm. Games which were lagging are now running great! I had some overheating issues even with T4300, it would reach 96C when stress tested, this one reached 100C. So, I removed the cooler from the motherboard and cleaned it thoroughly, changed thermal paste with Arctic MX4 and temperatures dropped to 85C when stress tested, in games around 73-75C. But this is still high. So after some investigation, I noticed that Acer did some preparation for fan intake holes but they didn't actually make the holes which means that intake is blocked completely. Even in the service guide there is picture of intake and warning not to cover it. So, tomorrow I'm drilling holes and I hope I'll get even lower temperatures. After that I plan to play with under-volt. Anyway, thanks to everyone for helping me out here.

 

Nice to hear this. Good luck with your mod

 

Mod is finished. Here is how it was before, actually I already drilled only one small piece.



And here is how it is now (made one small crack, but it's not bad):



And result is nice. I got temperatures lower by 10C. On stress test it was 85C, now it's 75C. During gaming it does not go over 70. Next is under-volt to get this even lower if possible, although I'm pretty satisfied now. There is less noise and I can feel that there is less heat since laptop is cooler when I touch it. Here is also one screen-shot from AIDA64 CPUID with T9600 in action:

 

mara-,

Nice work. Both your results and your workmanship.

 

Agreed, your temperature results say it all - thanks for sharing.

I wonder why the holes were left covered, I guess Acer figured the Pentium Dual-Core CPU's didn't need the extra ventilation. The T9600 is a great CPU. Best of luck with the notebook.

 

Thanks guys.

It seems to me that this a production error, since it's clear in the service guide that the holes are there and they give a warning not to cover that place. I have this laptop for few years and I always wondered why the temperatures are relatively high, but it never occurred me to check it out until now. And yes, T9600 is great, and I was lucky to find great a deal in my country, only $32, while on ebay they are much more expensive, except in USA but they don't ship here and when they do, shipment is more then CPU itself.

 

You've done pretty well, I'm impressed.

I think having or not having holes on the bottom is a trade-off between the amount of dust that gets into the laptop and performance of cooling. I suppose they may get less warranty calls this way.

That's the only thing I can think of because I don't think any difference in manufacturing costs exists. Unless of course, they actually wanted to put in an air filter if they put holes in it.

 

That's a good point regarding the dust. My notebook has intake holes for its fan on the bottom of the notebook but a dust grate in the way to catch the dust. Cooling would be more effective without the dust grate (increased air flow) but this way it needs to be cleaned less often at the expense of slightly higher temperatures.

Visually inspect the fan in your notebook and monitor the dust level from time to time, say, every month or so. When dust starts to build up, use some canned air to blow it off. Or, you can use a moist cotton swab to gently brush off the blades if you can get direct access to the fan.

 

Yeah, dust build up will probably be higher, and I did notice that laptop was pretty clean after I opened it for first time after few years. But it should not be a problem, since I have an air compressor so I'll blow the dust out from time to time.

@mujtaba

I still think this is an error in production, because, I must mention again, Acer's service guide for this model shows that holes exist on their picture and they give a warning not to cover it. Why would there be a warning if they didn't intend to have a holes there?