Wannabe Geek seeks to upgrade motherboard/cpu

Hi. I need your help.


My xps m1330 recently lost it's freaking mind after 18 months of ownership. Explanation is at the bottom. ).

So I've been using my Inspiron 6000 that I bought 5 years ago. I use Ubuntu on it and I added 2GB of 5400 rpm EDIT 566 mhz ram to it. It handles most things really well, but the intel celeron m 1.3 ghz processor (integrated video) just can't handle any multimedia stuff. I can't even watch hulu in full screen on 360p.

So should I just give up and buy a macbook for $899
Or should I try to upgrade the processor and motherboard myself? I've shopped around, but I don't know where to look or what to look for. Any advice?


on the XPS
The keyboard and media buttons just glitch out and raise the volume up and down along with trying to eject a CD every time I type. Also, my mouse freezes every time it happens for about 20 seconds. I replaced the keyboard and the media button strip. It worked for a few days and then the same thing started happening. Ruled out virus (same thing happens on Ubuntu

 

It shouldn't be the processor that is deffective. By 5400RPM you mean your HDD.. right? That can't be RAM speed, after all, RPM is Revolutions Per Minute. A new motherboard will probably cost you over 300$ on eBay and even more straight from Dell. Does the laptop monitor ever show any artifacts? Or straight lines where they shouldn't be? You could upgrade the Inspiron 6000 to it's max, new Pentium M 760 at 2GHz would be a fantastic upgrade, and i can tell you from experience that it will not disappoint you, it's deffinitely not up to today's Intel i series or Core 2 series standard CPU's but i can tell you it will handle 720p video smoothly, and it was designed specifically for battery life.

 

Right, sorry. I meant to say my ram is 566 mhz. I wasn't thinking.
It seems like newegg.com has motherboard cpu combos for less than 300.

I really don't know what the hell I'm doing.
Can you explain to me how to determine the "max" of a machine? Why can't a Inspiron 6000 handle a processor like this ? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819111328

 

Concerning the motherboard... the Inspiron 6000 can only take motherboards made for the Inspiron 6000. Period. You can't just buy some random motherboard and expect it to work.

There are two Inspiron 6000 motherboards. One with integrated graphics, and one with a slot for discrete graphics. If you've got the one with integrated graphics, you can upgrade to the one for discrete graphics, but if you've already got a discrete GPU, there's absolutely no point in upgrading the motherboard.

The fastest processor for this machine is the Pentium M 7 80. The machine will only take Pentium M processors and associated Celerons. Period. Core Duos and Core 2 Duos will be physically incompatible with the socket and electrically incompatible with the chipset.

2GB of memory is probably your maximum as well, but you can use the biggest PATA notebook HDD you can find.

 

If you really are a power freak, you could max the CPU out to a 2.26 GHz Pentium M but that power upgrade was extraordinarily priced for how little a performance gain it was. 2GB RAM would probably be the limit, and the Core 2 will not work because first of all, the socket is incompatible, second, the heatsink would not be big enough to handle the heat it puts out if it was compatible, and third, the power consumption would never work out electrically and physically with that motherboard and it's controllers.

 

Thanks, you guys are awesome.

 

If you are going to buy a new laptop - there are better choices than Macs - better build (won't dent ) and overall same or better performance for less money.

Consult NBR if you decide to go down that router.

Personally I'd say get a new laptop before you sink a lot of money into an old machine.

 

I know the following doesn't belong in this section, sorry.

My needs: I'm a law student, I stream hulu and netflix all the time, I take a lot of pictures but I don't do much editing. I browse the internet all the time.
I've been burned by dell twice. Even though I got an amazing deal on a very good xps m1330, it now seems to have an unfixable problem.
I can get a macbook (perfect size for me) for 800 through my school. Do you really think there is a better option out there for me? (I know I can buy an on-paper-equivalent PC for less money.)

 

Yes, I do think there are better options

If you can wait a bit - see if the new Vaios have any glitches (see Sony forum, Vaios tend to run very cool, you do pay a bit for the name too though).
(I have a Vaio SZ and I'm happy with it works perfectly, stays cool )

Potentially Thinkpad could be interesting.
I know Dave would suggest HPs...

And speaking about Dells, what about say Latitudes?

I highly recommend looking at business laptops - they'll all do the job you need them to do - and tend to be better built and more reliable.

PS: If you really want to discuss this - open a thread in the FAQ section I possibly won't post there - don't know enough models, as it'll be a fair while until I go looking for a laptop, but good luck!

 

If you don't know what you're doing, then I wouldn't suggest a motherboard or CPU upgrade for you. Sell the machine and look for another computer.

 

Yeah, but I want to learn. It's a 5 year old machine. I wiped everything off it and installed ubuntu. What do I have to lose.

 

cash because ur trying to upgrade something which has to be retired because its like a racehorse which has become old and is too slow...

 

A decent Pentium M chip shouldn't cost you much on eBay, in which case I'd encourage you to do the upgrade, even if it doesn't give you much of a performance boost. Still, there are benefits over the Celeron M, and you will learn a good bit.

 

A 1.3GHz CELERON to a 2.0GHz Pentium M is probably going to be noticeable, obviously the most on CPU intensive tasks, or videos, the 760 can deff manage 720p smoothly, and it's still miles better than any Atom or AMD Neo.

 

Thanks everyone. I bought an m 760 processor on ebay for $28 dollars. I took everything apart and replaced the processor and put it back together. I flashed the Bios and it actually works!
I just used hulu desktop and it ran 480p video smoothly.

I have an xps m1330, but it lost it's mind, so I'm just glad to have my old dellie as a backup.

 

Yeah, i'm sure it can do more than that too, mine has, just make sure it's running at full clock speed for 720p. Also if you don't want the extra heat the processor puts out when playing video, you should consider a Mini PCI-E HD Decoder, if you have a free slot, just slip it in there, run the setup software, and it basically takes alot of the load off the CPU, i think the newer ones can handle 720p and 1080p smoothly. If you get all your TV online, that can be important, like i do.

 

I say get an UL80Vt,It has an Core2duo of sorts,4Gb of DDR3,an Great Graphics card.....it's entirely awesome..
http://www.amazon.com/UL80Vt-A1-14-...=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B002Q8HK7K

 

wow for the $800 price , u might as well get an ASUS G51VX which cost $1K and can play most games on high... unlike the UL80 which can only play on low-med...