Pavilion ZE4904us upgrade help

I have an Hp Pavilion Ze4904us... the 1.3ghz cpu is getting a little slow, but I'd like to keep this laptop. Is it possible to upgrade the CPU, and if so what kind do I need to get? I know right now it has a 1.3GHz Intel Celeron M Processor 320. Any advice anyone can give would be great. Thanks.

Scott

 

Prior to upgrading the cpu, you should upgrade your memory and hard drive. You will see a nice performance boost will the memory maxed and a 7200 rpm hard drive.

If you wish to go forward with the cpu upgrade, you first need to do a little research. It would be best to determine the chipset in your laptop, you can do that with a program like CPUID. This will also verify the cpu you have.

Once you know the chipset look here to find the cpus it will support. I believe you may have a 855GM or PM chipset, but that is only a guess.

With that info look, look at the Intel Processor Spec Finder and locate you cpu and find an upgrade that matches the specs of the Celeron M 320. Make sure to match the "Package Type" (pin configuration) and Front side bus.

I believe you should be able to go with a Pentium M. I did the same thing you want to do with my daughter's Toshiba (Celerom M 1.5 to a Pentium M 1.6), without any problems. I wanted to extend the life of her laptop for a few more years, and a $28 cpu upgrade was the perfect solution. I wouldn't spend much more, some cpu can still be expensive and not worth the upgrade.

Make sure that you have the latest bios and that it supports the cpu you want to install.

Good luck.

 

Thanks... I've already maxed out my memory, and upgraded the hard drive to 120gb @ 7200rpm with an 8mb cache... It's quick but I'm definitely looking for something faster... but I want to keep this laptop. Thanks for all the great info! I'll be checking it out.

 

So I found that I may be able to use an Intel Celeron M 390 1.7 GHz if I can find one. If it works, what kind of gain could i expect? Also, after running the CPU-z I realized the second stick of memory I put in was a 256, not a 512 like I was told.... So I'll have to correct that. So, with a 1.7 GHz processor and an extra 256 mb of memory, should I expect to see a difference? I appreciate your expertise. Thanks!

Scott

 

What are you doing on the laptop that feels slow/that you need more speed for?

If you could post a screenshot of your CPUID diagnosis that would be great, we'll see what other CPUs you can use in there.

 

We'll I've noticed it's slows down quite a bit when I'm multi-tasking, locks up everyonce in a while. I also have a few games that would run quite a bit better if I could upgrade this thing. Heres the screenshots:

 

locks up? shouldnt lock up at all unless somethng was wrong

as for CPUs you have a choice, you should check the HP site for your model and see what CPUs it came with and also for a BIOS upgrade to see what CPUs it eventually ended up supporting.

as it stands you can probably use any CPU from the banias era which includes Pentium Ms which are slightly faster but offer better battery life due to their downclocking abilities.

[EDIT] found a new BIOS for your notebook on the hp site http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareList?os=228&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=434856

 

Yeah it's the wierdest thing... About once or twice a day the computer will just freeze... No blue screen, no crash. It just stops right where it's at. I have to manually reset it... I've run my norton virus scan many times, defragged, used compressed air to blow out the dust and junk in the fan, etc. etc. and can't find anything. I'm hoping the upgrades might make that stop. That's pretty damn irritating too... but I did just update the BIOS... thanks for that link man!

Scott

 

hmm well are the temperatures alright? could be the thermal paste worn out causing a spike in temps. maybe the BIOS fix will sort it out

 

Sorry to revive dead threads, but I finally got a Intel Celeron M 390 1.7ghz processor to replace my old 1.3ghz for $30. I"m wondering if anyone can tell me where to find the BIOS update for this chip before I install it. Thanks!