D810 Processor Upgrade

Hey guys. Long time reader, first time poster. Anyway, I am looking to upgrade my latitude D810 notebook. I really don't have the funds to drop a ton on a new rig. I followed previous advice and downloaded the CPU-Z app, and it says I have a Socket 479 mpga. I currently have a Pentium M 1.86.

What is the fastest processor I can purchase for this setup?

Thank you in advance for your expert advice!

 

The fastest you can get is the Pentium M 770, which is compatible with your chipset. Not really worth it, probably.

 

Welcome to nbr,

If you have a Pentium M1.86, is sounds like you have the one with a 533Mhz FSB. (The Pentium M 750).
If you want, you can upgrade all of the way up to the Pentium M 780 clocked at 2.26GHz.
However, you need to tell us why you think the cpu is the bottleneck.
I can tell you right now, that if your harddrive is slow, that is bottlenecking your system much more than your processor.
Run a hdtune test and post the benchmark. If the drive does less than 30mb/sec on average, than I think its better to upgrade your harddrive to a faster one.
What apps are you using on your laptop, and are any of them using 100% cpu power.
If an application you are using is using 100% cpu power, than only then you will benefit from a faster processor. If your apps use like 30% cpu power, than upgrading the cpu is not going to speed up the system very much.

Please list the harddrive model, memory amount, apps you are using and operating system, so we can help further guide you in finding your bottleneck.

K-TRON

 

Do not upgrade! Not worth it!

 

Hey guys, thanks for the quick replies.

I primarily use my cpu for gaming, and it was a great system about 2 years ago. It's just a little slow these days. I ran the HD TUne app and the results showed an average of 27.6 MB/sec on the HD with a low of 4.7 MB and a high of 34.2 MB. Looks like I need a new HD.

If I wanted to up the memory from 1 GB (DDR2), would I have to get two identical sticks, or can I mix and match?

Thanks a ton in advance.

 

You may mix and match, but the memory will run at the slower of the two speeds. I'd agree your due for a hard drive upgrade.

 

Your harddrive seems to be the bottleneck, it is pretty slow.
The D810 uses PATA/ATA/IDE drives, so your best bet is to buy a harddrive which has plenty of punch to it.
The Samsung HM160HC is the fastest drive which will work in your laptop.
I have this drive and it is simply amazing. It outperforms the 100gb 7200rpm drive I had in it by a rather large margin.

Here is my review of the drive. You can get this drive for about $70 shipped online.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=264209

upgrading the memory is also a good idea, but first you should find out if you have a 2 x 512mb configuration or a 1 x 1gb configuration in your system now. (You can use CPU-Z to do this. go into the memory and spd tab, and it will tell you the size of the memory card in each memory slot)

Your system uses DDR2 Pc3200 memory, which runs at 400mhz. Finding Pc3200 ddr2 memory may be a challenge, so you may just want to buy pc 4200 memory which runs at 533Mhz. It will automatically downclock to 400Mhz speeds.
Your system supports a maximum of 2 Gb of memory. (2 x 1Gb cards)

K-TRON

 

Thanks. I will check out the HD you have reviewed.

According to CPU-Z, Slot 1 has PC2-4300 (266), Slot 2 has PC2-3200 (200).

Therefore, I will most likely get 2, 1GB stick to put in there.

How drastic will these upgrades be in regard to the overall performance of my machine? From what I understand from the comments on this thread is that CPU speed is only a small part in the overall picture. It's better to have more memory and a faster HD than a quicker processor. Sound right?

 

K-Tron,

I found the Samsung HM160HC on one site for a good price. Newegg does not carry the same model, but it does have the HM160HI and the HM121HC. What do you know about these?

Thanks.

 

Give the guy $10 for this CPU, and turn it into a Pentium M 770 that cost $100! Make sure it is a Pentium M 725 (400fsb/2mbL2) before buying, and it will make your day.


http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=280829

 

This is true, pinmoding is the way to get the fastest pentium M for a cheap price, but it involves sticking a wire into the socket to short a BSEL, and most people are not comfortable doing that.
Kobe, he should not go for a 7200rpm drive because both the samsung 160gb and wd 250gb drive are faster than the fastest 7200rpm drive for the PATA interface.

I bought my Hm160HC from Lagoom, for just over $75, and now you can get it for $70 shipped, because they lowered the price on it.
DO NOT get the HM160HI, it uses 2 80gb platters and gets 34mb/sec
The HM160HC has one 160gb platter which gets 52mb/sec
The HM120 I am not sure about, but I would definietly get the Hm160Hc or the WD250, as they are both great drives.

Your system can run Pc4200 memory, so you can upgrade to 2 x1gb of Pc4200 memory if you so desire.

K-TRON

 

You guys are a tremendous help. I am not really comfortable pinmodding, as i will most likely destroy the whole thing. Upgrading the memory is priority 1. I just have to find a copy of XP to load back on it. There is no way to transfer everything from 1 HD to a new one, is there? Thanks again guys!!

 

yes there is, it is called cloning.
You can use software like acronis true image or norton ghost. Their are many others, which others will suggest, but the acronis one has been the only one I have used.
It is free, in the trial form, which will work fine for you. Just go to their website and you can download it and just follow the instructions and you just saved a lot of time

K-TRON

 

The D810 and the precision M70 are similar. The M70 uses an nVidia Quadro Go 1400 which is the same as the Go6800. Going from the Quadro1400 to the Go6800 is just a matter of upgrading the graphics firmware. Just use google to find the right firmware.

The D810 and the M70 have the same motherboard, the only difference between the two is the bios. Read this if you want to turn the D810 into and M70:
http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=pw_bios&message.id=1386

To use the Go6800 you may have to upgrade the bios. You could even upgrade the graphics to the Go7800:
http://laptoplogic.com/resources/detail.php?id=31&part=resource&page=1

Some have tried the Go7900 but did not succeed. they think that the latest bios for the D810 and the M70 don't suport the Go7900.

I can't find a link but I think I've read that some have succeded into installing an nvidia 8 series in a dell d810/M70.

Last the pin-mod of the CPU is something you really should do. I did it twice with a celeron M340 to up the speed from 1.4 ghz to 1.86ghz, and with a pentium M715 to up it from 1.5ghz to 2.0ghz. With the M715 I used RMclock to undervolting and to reduce the heat. A link for a tutorial:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=235824

P.S. Could you reduce the size of the picture as it is very hard to read this page on a screen with a 1024x786...thanks