I don't know what processors are compatible with this motherboard

I had a new question and didn't want to bother everyone with a new thread right after this one.

Is it possible to add a new hard drive to my Sony Vaio vpcec? Apparently they don't attach the SATA or whatever to it unless you order two hard drives...

This is what Speccy says about my mobo:

Motherboard
Manufacturer Sony Corporation
Model VAIO
Version A222HTF5
Chipset Vendor Intel
Chipset Model Havendale/Clarkdale Host Bridge
Chipset Revision 02
Southbridge Vendor Intel
Southbridge Model HM55
Southbridge Revision 05
BIOS
Brand American Megatrends Inc.
Version R0300Y8
Date 07/20/2010

I'd like to know if I could possibly upgrade to an i7 in the future. If not I'll be fine with the i5's (hopefully a 600 series will come out since Sandy Bridge is using another chipset)

 

You can upgrade to dual core i7s for sure. For quads, it's theoretically possible, but it depends on the BIOS, system cooling, and possibly some chips on the motherboard.

 

Yup, any dual core Core i processor will work on it. You can't go quad core because it doesn't have graphics.

 

Alright that's good to know. I personally don't need 2 cores but I'd love to upgrade to a future i5.

Incidentally, does anyone know if I can throw in another hard drive? I've been told it may not be possible even though it's possible order the laptop with two HDD's. I'm told Sony actually removes the SATA adapter or something =\

 

No idea, but I've seen that done on a Toshiba before. Everything is there, including the bios knowing there is a sata port there. Just the connector was never soldered to the motherboard.

 

I'm gonna be so annoyed if they did that -.- guess I won't know till I open this thing up. That would mean I can't ever upgrade to SSD unless I make it my main drive... which would be ridiculously expensive.

 

Intel® Core? i5-520M Processor (3M Cache, 2.40 GHz) with SPEC Code(s) SLBNA, SLBNB, SLBU3
i5 520m




Intel® Core? i7-660LM Processor (4M Cache, 2.26 GHz) with SPEC Code(s)
i7 660LM

The i7 660m should be slightly faster, right? And will it use less battery than the i5?

 

I'd also be curious about the 640m v the 660LM

 

I imagine the performance will be so close you won't notice a difference (520M vs. 660LM). The 640M has higher performance than both but it depends on what you are doing.

Keep in mind the 660 LM is a Low Voltage processor, so that is why it's not clocked very high. It will have lower power consumption than the 520M but costs more money. As for how much battery life you will gain from it -- what notebook are you looking at?

 

Not looking at any notebook. I have an i5 520m, ati 5650, 5400RPM 320GB HDD. I'm not necessarily planning on upgrading but I enjoy speculation =p

 

Ah. What kind of things do you do with your notebook?

Generally you are only going to notice a difference between CPUs when running the CPU at capacity. For example, encoding video or running complex math programs.

If you want to boost your performance, I would definitely upgrade your hard drive to a 7200RPM model (WD Black or Hitachi 7K500) or better, a Seagate Momentus XT.

 

Well if you want low power consumption with a little more cpu power then you go with the 660, but performance wise they would essentialy be the same i think.
The 660 is most prob more expensive than the 520

 

I'd love to put a SSD in my computer but they're super expensive.

I agree that my hard drive is in fact my weakest component... 5400rpm... I mean that's the same as my 6 year old laptop =p

But the difference between 5.4k and 7.2k always seems to negligible, the latency chances by a mere 2ms if I recall and read and write speeds are similar. Would I really notice a difference? What about with a 10k rpm or something? Would the voltage increase a lot?

 

And yeah, the 660 is like... 300 dollars I believe. Not cheap by any means. For that price I could get 8GB of RAM and a 7.2krpm HDD =p

If I got a new processor I'd likely ge tthe 640m. It would certainly blow the 520 out of the water.

Oh and I forgot to answer your question Charles, I use my computer for games and internet browsing. PS2 games, Wii games, PC games. All sorts =p

 

Looking back at the 520M vs. 660LM.

The Turbo Boost multi for the 520M is 2/4; the 660LM 4/6.

So the 520M can do 2,400MHz + (133MHz *2) = 2,666MHz on two cores.
The 660LM 2,270MHz + (133MHz * 4) = 2,802MHz on two cores.

That's maximum Turbo Boost. In single-threaded apps where only one core is being used, the 520M can go up to 2.93GHz on one core (2,400 + (133MHz *4)) and the 660LM 3.06GHz (2,270 + (133MHz * 6)).

In reality, not much difference. If someone secretly swapped your 520M for a 660LM, you would not notice any performance difference. Maybe a bit less heat/more battery life; not sure how much though. Probably not a whole lot.

 

Interesting, thanks for the input!

I was very curious about the multithreaded turboboost since my i5 520m almost never does turbo boost for single core apps (any intense applications I use make use of two cores)

4MB of cache is still a 30% increase over the i5 520m.

 

The biggest factor for battery life is your screen size. Considering the parts you listed, I doubt you'd notice any benefit on the power consumption side as you seem to be on idle most times anyways.

 

Yes, I'm idle most of the time so I rarely reach that max TDP.

I think if I upgrade I'm going to get the i7 640m. Although the first thing I upgrade is the hard drive. I want a SSD =\ but getting one the size of my current drive would be like buying a whole other computer lol

 

Do you have/use your ODD (DVD)? If not, you can get an external enclosure for the ODD and replace it with a caddy.

 

Uh, >_> would you mind elaborating? I don't really use my DVD drive, I prefer USB. I don't know what a caddy is, though.

 

It is possible to get a caddy (drive casing/mount), remove your optical drive, and mount the caddy (with installed hard drive) instead of your DVD drive. This would convert your machine from a HDD/ODD machine, to a HDD/HDD machine. This is a link to a thread that explains a great deal about it.

 

Thank you so much for this... seriously, I was just thinking today that I'd rather take my ODD out and put in a hard drive. You've made me very happy! =p

 

How much space do you need for your main drive? I've seen 60gb Vertex2 driver for $110ish Cdn, if that's all you need that's a pretty good value for your money. If you need into the 200+ GB then they can get pricey.

 

I've actually figured this out. I'm going to turn my optical drive into a Hard Drive and replace my current hard drive with a SSD. I lose the optical drive but I'm not crying about it lol

The thing is, don't I have a big empty space for where the hard drive COULD have gone?

 

I dunno, do you?

You should check and see.

you could always just run a SATA extension cable from your optical drive bay SATA port. I dunno how helpful that would be tho except you could add a 3rd drive probably.