Dell xps 17 Upgrade

Hi everyone!

After having to clean out my dell's heat-sink recently, requiring a total disassembly, I began wondering if it was time to upgrade the RAM and CPU for a bit of a boost. The RAM isn't a problem when it comes to instructions, sadly I can only fit in a total of 2 modules, however I was wondering if you chaps could tell me what I can do with:
1) total RAM my system can hold - I presume it can take up to 16gb but I honestly can't be sure
2) CPU - I really haven't a clue when it comes to this bit - I've got an I7 2630QM currently installed so what is a viable upgrade here?

Please find any relevant information in the image I've attached below



Regards
Renz

 

The upgrades worth doing (95% of the time) are:

1) O/S: Win8x64 PRO Highly Recommended.

2) RAM: 16GB RAM are my current 'min' configurations - yours should be able to do it easily too.

See:
Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR3 1600MHz SODIMM Kit (2 x 8GB) at Memory Express


If you can't buy from the above link; use the part # to find it in your area.


3) SSD - Clean install, OP'd by ~30% and at least 240/256GB capacity (or 512GB if considering an M4 - or 480/960GB capacity if considering the M500 series).


With your current setup, I wouldn't touch the cpu - but the RAM would be upgraded yesterday.

What is your workflow/normal use of the system? You may not 'need' more RAM depending on what you're doing - but if you want the most responsive system possible, it is a cheap way to achieve it.

You may also want to try some of these suggestions to improve responsiveness too:

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sol...rage/718208-asus-ux32vd-db71.html#post9194652


Good luck.

 

Eh, if you're an Average Joe, I see only marginal benefit to upgrading to Windows 8 (under-the-hood wise). As for the interface, Metro is something you either love or hate, and I'm certainly no fan of it at all.

With RAM being so cheap these days though, I don't see how 16GB of RAM could hurt, though. And I *highly* agree with tiller about the SSD; that's probably the best upgrade you could make to your XPS 17 overall. It would be worth it to get something 240GB or higher for performance reasons (full channel use), though I typically set my SSDs up for 10% free space on top of whatever the OEM builds into the SSD (~7%, give or take).

 

Well I've gone ahead and made those upgrades, the speed is remarkably better ( I avoided Win 8 ) - now a question I imagine you might hate. Can I upgrade the CPU? (i7 2630QM) I know the GPU can't be upgraded.

Could I fit this? i7-2920XM

(Old http://ark.intel.com/products/52219)
(Proposed http://ark.intel.com/products/52237)

 

Look on your socket and see what it listed for the CPU socket type that will tell you what other CPU you can upgrade to. And I have to agree with Jarhead if your i7 isn't a touch screen don't go Windows 8 since the improvement probably won't benefit more then a SSD and more memory and if CPU. Windows 8 is best IMO reserved for some future use when they listen to the core market users and not what fits their bottom line or try to compete with Apple when they aren't and the surface has yet to surface the waters it went down under. So if your i7 was Windows 7 stick with that as going Windows 8 will not gain for you as some might think for everyday users whom doesn't either have Touchscreen or software incompatibilities with Windows 8. So going Windows 8 isn't simply reformat and go 8 there more factors to consider then oh it's new so install it.

 

Loving the deep-rooted dislike of Microsoft's new angle on mobile computing.

How on earth do i tell what my socket type is?

Renz

 

Hi Again

I've had a thorough look and this here - Dell XPS 17 L702X Motherboard YW4W5 0YW4W5 3GB NVIDIA N12E GE B NVIDIA GT 555M | eBay

So would that cpu i selected ( ARK | Intel® Core) fit it?

Renz

 

The CPU itself would physically fit in the socket, but the system BIOS needs to support it. Also, the 2920XM has a higher thermal rating than the 2630QM (55W vs 45 W), so if it does work, it will run hotter and use more power.

Upgrade the SSD as has been mentioned, but take the money you would spend on other upgrades and save it toward a new computer down the road.

 

Thanks for the pointers, I do understand that the CPU would run hotter. As for the power, well it's a desktop replacement so it's not as if I take it out without plugging it in somewhere. I do intend on replacing the cooling solution currently applied, Arctic Silver seems to be the best bet. Do you think that would partially solve the problem?

It's great to know that it's a physical fit, now where on earth do i find out about BIOS compatibility?

Renz

 

Changing the thermal paste may help, but it's not a silver bullet (no pun intended). I was also speaking about power as it relates to the notebook's power supply. If you happen to get the CPU working, you might need a beefier PSU to keep up with its demands, especially if you're going to be performing system-intensive tasks.

As far as BIOS compatibility, if the system was not originally offered with that CPU at the factory, chances are it won't work now. You might get lucky and the notebook will actually work with the XM despite the BIOS not officially recognizing it. I've had that happen with some desktop CPUs where I forgot to update the motherboard BIOS ahead of time. The systems booted and were functional despite the startup screen showing an unrecognized CPU. If the clock speeds are messed up, you could use a program such as ThrottleStop to potentially fix it. TS could also aid in overclocking the XM, but that's still more heat that the XPS wasn't designed to handle.

Again, however, this seems like a lot of hassle and potentially wasted money for something that's not going to make a huge difference in the long run.

 

You're chasing a red herring. Upgrading your CPU will not give you any real-world benefit, because 99.9% of what you do with a computer is not bottlenecked by the CPU. The only exception to this is if you are in the edge case minority of users that actually run CPU-intensive tasks such as CPU-based video encoding or CPU-based video / photo processing.

Upgrading your CPU will cost you several hundred dollars for zero real-world practical benefit. You can run all the benchmarks in the world, but you will never notice a difference in real-world performance.

The upgrades that DO matter to real-world performance are:
1) Make sure you have at least 8GB of RAM.
2) Get an SSD if you don't already have one. <---- ***** especially this *****

You certainly can continue to pursue the possibility of upgrading your CPU. But I can tell you right now that you're way past the point of diminishing returns on this if you're going after performance.

The smart thing to do (if you already bought RAM and an SSD) would be to save your money for a new laptop in the future. Or buy yourself a really nice bottle of scotch whisky.

 

Maybe you're right. I do agree that a cpu replacement on a laptop isn't the greatest investment. I'll stick to the Ram/SSD upgrades and wait until something better comes along in the future.

From a purely academic point of view, if the psu I currently have didn't provide the power required for the new CPU, would i need to do more than simply up the power that was coming into the system?
As for the heat generated, har har at the turn of phrase by the way, would there be a chance of the solder on the mobo melting?

 

No to both questions (power and heat).

In all likelihood, if you were to try and use a CPU that had different power / heat requirements than what your laptop currently can handle, then the CPU would most likely not work because of lack of BIOS support.

If your laptop ships from the factory with 4 different CPU configurations, then those are the only 4 CPU configurations you can really count on ever working with that laptop. The reason is because the laptop manufacturer (Dell) knows that if they only sell 4 potential CPU configurations, then they only need to provide compatibility (BIOS support, power, heat dissipation) for those 4 CPU models.

This is different than a desktop configuration, where a motherboard manufacturer specifically knows that their customers will mix & match all sorts of CPU models, CPU coolers, and PSU models. With a laptop, the only parts that are really reliably upgradeable are the RAM and storage (HDD or SSD).

 

Well that all makes sense, i do agree that a CPU upgrade would be a bit expensive and rather wasteful.

From a purely academic point of view:
Would I need to find a power supply with a higher amount of input?
Would the increased heat, somewhat negated by the arctic silver paste, run the chance of melting some of the mobo soldering?
Would upgrading my BIOS not help with the proposed CPU compatibility at all?

 

Regarding PSU... It wouldn't matter. Your motherboard would not support the higher voltage or current required by a higher wattage CPU. Therefore it wouldn't work. The motherboard also wouldn't support a CPU with higher power requirements. Either situation would just result in a computer that will not power on or boot at all.

Regarding heat...

Arctic silver won't help. Arctic silver only helps in transferring heat away from the CPU. Once that heat gets to the heatsink, it needs to get transferred to the air somehow. And if your heatsink/fan are only designed to cool a 35W TDP part, then it will be unable to cool 65W TDP worth of heat no matter how much arctic silver you use.

You also won't melt anything on your motherboard. Those types of stories are myths. A modern CPU will have thermal limits where they simply shut themselves down once a certain temperature is reached (usually around 100C). This is to prevent system damage in the very realistic scenario of a CPU fan dying, or improperly applied thermal paste.

And upgrading your BIOS only helps if the BIOS specifically has support for the CPU model you want to use. And a laptop manufacturer will only create bios updates to support CPU models that are sold as part of a factory configuration. If I am Dell, I only make money from a customer like you when you buy a laptop. Dell doesn't make any money when a customer like you tries to do an aftermarket upgrade. Dell actually loses money if they were to support you, since they would need to put in manpower in bios development, customer support, and warranty claims. So unless you plan on putting a CPU model that is specifically supported as a factory-sold configuration, it probably will not work.



Sent from my XT1060 using Tapatalk

 

unless he get cpu with same 45 tdp
I personally have tested this cpu 3710QM( Intel Core i7-3610QM Mobile processor - AW8063801013511 ) is ivy bridge and backward compatible with current chipset n socket
Ivy Bridge (microarchitecture) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
your temp does goes up by 3 degree..
true benefit maybe 10% boost and you will get intel HD 4000 and some newer tech, I think is personal preference... make sure bios updated to 19 by Dell.

 

With 150W charger of XPS , you wouldn't need bigger power supply if you upgrade to 2760QM/2860QM or even 2920XM/2960XM.

No point in putting Extreme series processor like 2920XM/2960XM. As even if these work in XPS, with their 55W TDP heat will be too much for XPS to handle and it will result in thermal throttling and in the end you would get about same performance as you would have got with 2860QM/2760QM at first place.
And increased heat won't cause any melt down but it will slow the processor to a level that XPS can keep up with heat output.

New Bios is no guarantee that Extreme processor will work but my guess... XPS wil accept 2920XM but only way to make sure it to try it out.