CPU upgrade from 1.3 to 1.6Ghz

Hi all,
I'm using a laptop with Pentium M 1.3Ghz processor. Still saving money for a new laptop though. However, in the mean time, should I upgrade my processor to Pentium M 1.6Ghz, the maximum that my lappy supports? Because my laptop is quite slow at the moment with Win XP and Office 2007. Could you please tell if the 300Mhz increase would make a noticeable difference in performance? Thanks all

 

Not by much.

 

I'd wait. Don't upgrade.

In this case, the cost of the upgrade would not be worth it given the performance boost wouldn't be very large. If you want a larger boost for XP+2007, get more RAM.

 

Uh, you should be able to get a nice 1.6Ghz Pentium M new for less than $50 or on ebay for about $30. If that's not too much to spend then why not.

The only thing is that most people would see more benefit from a faster HDD or more memory. If you have less than 512Mb of ram, I'd start there. You can get a gig of memory for about $35 shipped (or $20 for 512Mb) and it'd probably help smooth things out long enough to keep you happy.

Even just tweaking your OS can improve your experience tremendously.

 

This depends if you have the regular Banias 1.3GHz Pentium-M or the Low Voltage 1.3GHz Pentium-M. If it's the Low Voltage one it's likely you can't upgrade it. What's the laptop?

You will need a Banias core Pentium-M (1MB L2 cache and 400MHz FSB). The only 1.3GHz P-Ms are Banias and the 2 cores are not interchangeable. The best you can get with Banias is 1.7GHz. It depends on how much it would cost and how easy it is to do. Pentium-Ms (especially Banias) are quite cheap these days and a 400MHz lift would be a nice and effective if not huge upgrade. More ram and a faster hard disk might make more of an impact.

 

I'm using an HP NC4000. I'm waiting for my new 1GB RAM to arrive but not sure about the speed of the HD. Is there any way to check that? I live in Australia and there's a guy here selling on ebay the 1.7Pentium M chip with 2MB L2 cache. Do you know if my laptop support 2MB L2 cache, provided its FSB 400mhz? I dont know much about the computer hardware so please help. i really appreciate that

 

I recommend you uninstall Office 2007 and put Office 2003 instead. The differences are merely cosmetic as far as I know, but 2003 eats up MUCH FEWER resources.

I run a P-M 1.6 GHz with 1 GB RAM, with XP and Office 2003. I can use Office while having Firefox open and running a few more programs (firewall, antivirus, antispyware and a few utilities). It's still well responsive.

 

All chips with 2MB L2 cache are Dothan Core Pentium-Ms and are not supported by your laptop. You should look for 1MB L2 cache and 400MHz FSB.

To check your hard disk, right click on 'My Computer' icon and select properties. Go to the hardware tab and click on device manager. Open 'disk drives' and it'll give you the manufacturer and model number of the hard disk. Google this and it'll tell you what rpm it is. 4200rpm is generally bad especially below 120GB area. 5400rpm varies largely and can be very slow or pretty fast but is the standard for laptops these days. 7200rpm is usually the fastest.

Segate and Hitachi hard disks are generally pretty quick. Fujitsu are generally slow. Anything else is probably middle of the pack.

Looking at the nc4000 specs, if you have a 30GB hard disk it'll be 4200rpm. If you have 40GB or 60GB it'll be 5400rpm.


Diskette Drives Optional Diskette Drive*
Hard Drives 30-GB 4200 rpm SMART
40-GB 5400 rpm SMART
60-GB 5400 rpm SMART


http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/11606_na/11606_na.HTML

I think the ram will give you the best performance boost. Also try re-installing windows if you haven't done that in a long time.

Hope that helps.

 

Knowing the model helps alot. As said you can only upgrade your processor to another Banias 400Mhz FSB core. Here's a list of compatable processors with the SSID's. You'll find exactly what you want in ebay if you search by SSID #


Pentium M 1.4 SL6F5
Pentium M 1.4 SL6F8
Pentium M 1.5 SL6F6
Pentium M 1.5 SL6F9
Pentium M 1.6 SL6F7
Pentium M 1.6 SL6FA
Pentium M 1.7 SL6N9
Pentium M 1.7 SL6N5

Also you're limited to 1gig of ram and your HDD is either 4200 or 5400rpm just like moon angel said. Because it's an older computer('03) even if you did have a 5400rpm drive upgrading to a current 5400rpm or 7200rpm drive should show noticable improvement.

 

Thanks guys for your responsive helps. I do have one more question. If I upgrade my laptop to 1.6 or 1.7 Pentium M, do I have to replace the heat sink and fan as well or I can just keep it? And is it hard to replace the CPU? Thanks in advance

 

You don't replace the fan or heatsink unless it's broken. It is a good idea to clean it when you're in there though.

Here's the Maintenance and Service Guide for your notebook so you can look through it yourself and decide if it's something you can do:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/CoreRedirect.jsp?redirectReason=DocIndexPDF&prodSeriesId=321835&targetPage=http%3A%2F%2Fh20000.www2.hp.com%2Fbc%2Fdocs%2Fsupport%2FSupportManual%2Fc01134109%2Fc01134109.pdf

Link to the manual download site:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...kId=101&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=321835

 

Well, you don't know very "far", do you?

 

Hey -- I'm trying to help here (unlike yourself)... Instead of mocking me, why don't you explain here what the main differences are between Office 2003 and 2007? That would help him decide and I'd know "farther" next time.