Updating a sony vaio VGN-NR180e laptop

Hi guys. I'm so glad I found this forum, I wish I did before I bought my lenovo laptop Anyway-

I have an old sony vaio vgn-nr180e laptop with a intel mobile core 2 duo T5250 processor on a motherboard with a intel GM965 chipset.

I was thinking of upgrading the chip but everything I've seen for this chipset is about 533mhz or 800mhz FSB chips. My chip is running at 667mhz and I was wondering if I could upgrade to a 800mhz chip, or if i'm stuck at 667mhz fsb.

Needless to say my bios is pretty limited in that I cant do squat with it. I've read that this particular chip runs a 166mhz FSB at quad data rate. How does that correspond to the other chips in the socket P/GM965 family?

Also, I believe I'm limited as well by the TDP of the chip which is 35 watts, is that correct?

 

Unless you are getting the new parts for close to free (or free), I don't think upgrading this circa 2008 platform will be profitable.

Especially given this is a Sony model and all that entails (proprietary comes to mind...).

If you are still running the original O/S, your best bet to increase it's usefulness is to upgrade to Win8.1 along with an SSD. But only if you have these lying around as 'spare parts'.

In almost every respect otherwise, this would be a bad $$ to performance increase upgrade. Especially when real world usability is the bm used. A new platform will wipe the floor with this system and won't cost that much extra when your time, a cpu, RAM, an SSD and an O/S are buying requirements for this old platform.

Good luck.

 

Newegg has several processors in the socket P family for under 20 dollars. Also, ebay etc...these things are pretty readily availible for next to nothing. http://www.newegg.com/Processors-Mobile/SubCategory/ID-759

I already had a SSD laying around from another build I put in and reinstalled windows 7 32 bit, but that was before I realized this is a 64 bit processor/chipset. Really makes me question why sony installed a 32 bit operating system with a 64 bit chip.

Anyway, the SSD upgrade was OK. But the real bottleneck with this laptop is the processor.

In terms of upgrading to a new platform, I think if i can get this thing going for under 100 bucks it would be better than spending 500+ on a new laptop.

 

How much memory did the notebook come with? If it's 4GB or less, it's likely because 64-bit memory addresses take more space, so 4GB on a 64-bit system is effectively less than 4GB on a 32-bit system.

 

It came with 1gb stock but my wife paid for the upgrade from bestbuy for an additional gig. So it currently has 2 gigs, and I was hoping to upgrade to at least 4(because sony says that it has been tested with 4 gigs) or maybe even 8 if its cheap enough. Ive already had the thing apart and theres only 2 dimm slots so the old memory will have to go probably.

I never knew that about 64bit memory addresses.

 

Billdozer,

I can understand the intent, however, my quick search shows that possible compatible processors of that era will give you at most a 20 to 40% boost in cpu power. 'Possible' is a sticking point...

While a new notebook will give you an effective order of magnitude difference in real world use.

As you have seen, an SSD does little to increase 'performance' of a system.

Build on a current O/S on a current platform with at least a 2C/4T cpu and with at least 8GB RAM and then adding an SSD will show the benefit of adding it the most.

I really hope you can get the performance you wish for less than $100, but I am almost certain you'll be better off in the long term by spending more for a newer platform, even if it is used too.

 

Tiller-

I have already bought a new laptop. Its a lenovo ideapad z710. It's nearly as powerful as my desktop gaming rig.

I happen to have this old laptop laying around and I'm just trying to get the most bang for the buck out of it. Yes I understand I could spend money and get more performance. This is about maximizing performance with an old computer and trying to reuse it rather than selling it for next to nothing or throwing it away. I'm not trying to get it to run modern games at 60fps. In fact I'm actually trying to set it up as a streaming rig so I can stream steam games from my desktop to my laptop.

It already does this at a reasonable rate, considering how old it is. However, like I said, I'd like to spend 100 bucks and try and make it better. with a 20-30 dollar processor from newegg and along with a 40 dollar memory upgrade to something like http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2W02KR4300

Also, this rig will be my 5 year old sons computer as well, so I DEFINATELY don't wanna buy a nice new laptop for him. If this thing gets broken/destroyed and I'm out 100 bucks, who cares? If I'm out 500 bucks I'd be pissed.

If I can get another couple useful years out of this rig I'd be happy.

 

That puts things in perspective!

As I said before; I hope you achieve what you want.

Good luck.