Dell Inspiron 1200 Upgrades?

My brother recently received a Dell Inspiron 1200 from his wife's mother. It's a very old model, they say either '05 or '06. They want their children to be able to use this for games. The games are not very taxing, but this old clunker runs them slowly. I was wondering if there were any possible CPU upgrades. I told them I was unsure, because it's so old.

Didn't know whether I should post this in here or in the Dell subforum.

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You are way better off wiping the hard drive and reinstalling windows and also increasing the ram if it is less than 1gb rather than replacing the cpu.

 

I have an Inspiron 1300.
I overclocked the CPU (Celeron M 1.6 GhZ) using the pin-mod to 2.1 Ghz (running perfectly fine for over a year like that) ... upgraded RAM to a max. of 2 GB, and replaced a 60 GB hdd that died on me about 2 months ago with a 160 GB one (still 5400 rpm).

The only thing that happened now is that the backlight needs to be repaired since it died (which I will do in about a week and a half when I'm in London) and I also need to replace the keyboard (one of my keys was ripped out when I was cleaning the keyboard and replacing just 1 key isn't gonna do it).

If Inspiron 1200 is anything like my 1300, then there are several things you can do with it.
Wipe the hdd and re-install Windows for one thing.
I think you can upgrade the CPU with a Pentium M or Celeron M running on 400 MhZ FSB.
Be sure to check the chipset for your laptop using CPU-Z and then check online which cpu's are supported.
As for RAM ... I think the standard for that model (as far as I can see from checking on google) is 256 Mb ... but it CAN be upgraded to 1 GB tops (PC-2700).

So I do think the CPU is upgradeable (RAM most definitely is).
Dunno just how much of a performance gain you will be getting since the gpu is what's responsible for games.
I guess a better CPU WILL improve the performance in that integrated solution, but don't expect high gains.

I think you could also upgrade the HDD (at least get a new one with better capacity) and there's a good possibility the newer hdd will be faster in comparison to your old one.
Although you will have to get the ATA interface hdd of course.
100 or 160 GB would be more than enough.

I think such upgrades would be relatively cheap if you get the parts off ebay (from reputable sellers).

 

Am I right thinking that your CPU is a Celerom M 350?
If yes that you can upgrade the CPU to any Pentium M 7x5 CPU which should give a huge boost in speed and battery life. The M735 is relatively cheap in ebay.

Boosting the ram to 1GB and putting in a faster harddrive (a 5400rpm instead of the 4200rpm that ships with the laptop) should help too.

 

I don't think the Pin Mod is possible because the inspiron 1200 uses either the i852 or the i855 chipset.

 

I think your notebook has the 910GML chipset, verify with CPU-Z.

Upgrading to a Pentium M 725/735/745 will be nice.

Samsung HM80HC/HM160HC are fast IDE drives, and a fast HDD does improve the overall performance in windows.

RAM: Add 0.5GB/1GB DDR-333, and I guess the 256MB is soldered.

 

Alrighty guys, thanks. I'll check out the chipset and hopefully find that there are some available upgrades.

 

Actually, the 256 MB RAM would not be soldered.
I received my own Inspiron 1300 with 512 Mb initially (2x 256Mb), so I removed both plates and replaced them with 2 x 1GB (a similar procedure should be possible in Inspiron 1200, only the OP would have to remove the installed 256 Mb and replace them with 2 x 512).
I don't think these laptops were shipping with soldered RAM ever. At least mine was not.
And since it says that the ram can be upgraded to 1 gb, it is reasonable to conclude the existing ram can be replaced with higher capacity memory.

As for the pin mod being possible in that laptop or not ... that has to be checked respectfully.
But I think the OP would do well in purchasing a Pentium M cpu and replace the existing Celeron M since it would be better for the battery overall.
The FSB has to be the same and also it should be checked which Pentium M is supported by the chipset inside the laptop (which I think one of the posters already did).

 

Review says so.

 

Actually it only says 'built-in' ... not 'soldered'. There is a difference, and as such it is my opinion it can be replaced (although I admit there is a possibility I'm mistaken).
Besides, the OP can access the RAM compartment and see if he can remove the existing 256 Mb before he gets additional ram.

 

Linky

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service and owner manuals are here click me please

The link below will confirm my assumption that the pin mod can't be done in this laptop
http://www.notebookforums.com/thread190016.html

 

Yeah, Pin-Mod is a no-go --> 910GML

 

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Hi.
I have a dell Inspiron 1200. Original spec is pretty crap. but with a few upgrades it's not a bad little performer. It has a very sold build. I’m pretty rough with mine and it just goes and goes. I have upgraded the following :
RAM – 256mb to 1256mb. Max this board does. I can confirm the 256 is soldered on.
CDRW/DVDROM to DVDRW
Installed Intel 2200GB Wireless card and aerials.
I have a 160GB HDD too. I just haven’t got around to installing it yet.

I have 2 better CPU’s too, these are the reason I am posting here. CPUs are :
Intel SL7SL – Pentium M
Spec Number: SL7SL
CPU Speed: 2.13 GHz
Bus Speed: 533 MHz
Bus/Core Ratio: 16
L2 Cache Size: 2 MB
L2 Cache Speed: 2.13 GHz
I have tried this CPU in the machine. CPUZ shows it as a 2.13Ghz CPU but the core speed never goes above 1600mhz. I think this is coz the FSB seems to be locked at 400. is there any way to unlock this ?

The other CPU is a sl8ba. 1700mhz 2mb cache 400FSB. This CPU runs great in the laptop.

I would rather have the 2.13Ghz chip going at full tilt or even a little more.

Any bright ideas on how to get this chip running faster ? or how to get the FSB unlocked ?

You chaps have any other upgrades I can try on this little laptop ? I think I have it pretty maxed out.

Your thoughts please.