Dell Motherboards

Does anyone know who makes Dells mobo's for the Studio laptops.
Im trying to find out what Intel processors are compatible with my mobo and chipset and also if BIOS updates are required with certain CPU's.
I contacted Dell tech support and the bloke on the phone was next to useless, wasnt interested in offering upgrade info just tried to sell me a new laptop.
Im hopeing I can contact the mobo maker and they can give me a list of possible processor choices and what if any other mods are required.

 

What chip you got now?

 

I am using the Intel T8300 with the PM965 chipset

 

I believe you could go up to the T9500, perhaps the x9000 if BIOS supports it, but you'll take a serious hit in the battery life department and I doubt your machine is equipped to take the extra heat. If you're looking for a performance boost a faster hard drive or SSD is almost always money better spent. Unless you're running your CPU at 100% 24/7 it's unlikely you'll notice a difference. Plus you won't void your warranty in the process.

 

The T8300 is an excellent processor to begin with for the PM965 chipset. As ZaZ said, the highest model that's guaranteed to work is the T9500 2.6GHz, and possibly the Core 2 Extreme X9000, 2.8GHz, but that one draws 10W more power and runs hotter. In your case, I don't think it's worth replacing your T8300.

What exact laptop are you talking about?

 

I have a Dell Studio 1735, One other thing everywhere I read says that this laptop only supports up to 4GB RAM DDR2 PC2-6400 but on Dells web site I noticed that they are offering the latest models with an option up to 8GB RAM.
So rather than a processor upgrade maybe a RAM upgrade would be better ?

 

Again, unless you are using 100% of your RAM there really isn't a point to upgrading that either. So long as you have 2+ GB you should be fine.

What hard drive do you have? Capacity and rotational speed should be enough info, don't need a model number.

 

how do I find that info out, Im not sure I have twin 250GB drives

 

Would I have a heat issue using the T9500 ?

 

I have noticed that the Dell XPS series laptops come out with the X9000 processor but I guess they use a different heatsink to cope with the extra heat would this be right ??

 

here we go I have found the HD's I am running one is a Hitachi HTS543225L9A300 and the other is a WDC WD2500BEVT-75ZCT2 Im not sure if they are any good or not ?

 

I just found out both drives are only 5400rpm so a faster HD would probably be a good upgrade for me

 

Actually, given the density of the data I wouldn't be surprised if these drives are fast enough.

Have you considered reinstalling the operating system? A lot of times Dell (and others to be fair) will install extra "trialware" and "bloat" programs that line their pockets but slow your PC down. A fresh installation can make even the slowest computers surprisingly fast.

 

I agree with you, Greg, clearing a newly-purchased PC from Bloatware is a very important thing to do nowadays, companies love to install Bloatware as if they were giving away candy...

CCLeaner, Sweepi, and the like are very useful when clearing out the Bloatware mess.

 

I recentley downloaded the latest BIOS update from Dells web site A05 and i wanted to update my machine due to Im still using A04. But because I am using Windows 7 RC the auto windows flash program wouldnt work.
Is there some way that I could create a boot CD and do it that way ???
If so how do I go about obtaining the files I need, Dell only allows you to download this .exe flash program.

 

I am not experienced with CMOS BIOS flashing, but I know that you will need a MS-DOS Boot Disk for it to work, a floppy preferably, but it can be done using USB Drives, too.

 

Doing it with a floppy is out of the question as I dont have one, I have herd of people burning a boot CD and doing it that way. I wonder if I can find a tutorial showing how to do this, but in the end I still need to obtain the flash file

 

Google is your best friend in this one, there are many BIOS Flashing tutorials out there, I bet.

Anyway, good luck on that BIOS Flashing, RickAbraham.

 

I wouldn't update the BIOS unless you have a need to do so. If you're just doing everyday stuff like Office and Internet, the marginal value of a better CPU is almost zero. If you want a better performance, get a faster drive or SSD. The drive you have now is a slower 5400RPM drive. If you were to upgrade to a faster drive or SSD, it will give you a much more noticeable uptick in performance than the CPU. A clean install as Greg mentioned can also help too. Most consumer based machines like yours are infested with bloatware, which can dampen performance.