Who says GL960 doesn't do penryn or 800 MHz FSB ???

Hello Notebook enthusiasts,

I just thought I'd share this success story with you guys. I have read how some people have taken cheap laptops and beefed up the processor. I thought that was adventurous, but a nice move in terms of longevity in case it succeeded.
The reports of upgraded laptops were few - and all about Acer 5315 laptops (some Wal-Mart special with Intel GL960 chipset and Celeron M540).
The Celeron M520 and up are Socket P processors, as are the Pentium Dual Core processors. All are Merom-L chips.
Some said the GL960 doesn't do anything other than Celerons and Pentium Dual-Cores, doesn't do 800 MHz FSB, etc. etc. WELL this GL960 Penryn project was a success.

OK here's the beef: I got this Sony Vaio VGN-NR220E (NR200 series) which features the cheapo GL960 chipset. The laptop also featured a Pentium Dual Core T2330 1.6GHz (Merom-L Core 2 Duo with half the L2 cache and no virtualization technology). It also came with 1GB of system memory and Windows Vista (that was slow).
I bought this laptop off of someone who had it at the pawn shop - for $150.

Thought I'd do the experiment since the thing was cheap - $150, why not have some fun. On ebay, I bought a brand new Penryn T8100 2.1 GHz (Penryn-3M, it features 3MB L2 cache). Triple the L2 cache of the Pentium Dual Core! Got it for $120. I also ordered 2GB of system memory from the egg, doubling what was in it before. I have read about the limitation of the GL960 chipset to 3GB max. (No one has ever gotten 4GB to work).
Also, I needed to replace the keyboard in the laptop since it was badly gunked up, the original owner did not take good care of it. That was another $30 on ebay.

Today, the keyboard arrived (had the other parts already waiting). I took the darn thing apart - it was difficult since I did not really know what I was doing (but I have previous experience in taking apart a laptop). I was careful, but it was harder than it needed to be because I had no access to any sort of maintenance manual that explained how to take it apart. I can tell you that I LEARNED A LOT about opening VAIO NR series laptops, and if any of you plan to do the same thing, contact me - I will save you headaches.

Anyway, I removed the T2330 Pentium Dual-Core, plopped the T8100 Penryn processor into the socket and put it back together. Installed the new memory. I made one mistake and hibernated instead of shutting it down, and because I swapped the memory, the hibernation file was no good.
Turned on, and the machine WAS FLYING!! It now screams. I put the Core 2 Duo sticker on and Presto! $150 + $120 + $30 + $30 = $330 for a Penryn Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz. SUCCESS!!
CPU-Z is showing a Core 2 Duo Penryn with 2109 MHz and an 800 Mhz FSB, whereas before, it was 1600 MHz and a 533 MHz FSB. The CPU Temperature was at around the same - 43 C. 45 nanometer parts do run a little cooler.

I will post pics if anyone is interested. I am sure the entire VGN-NR200 series will open the same, NR220, NR240, NR 260E/S etc etc.

 

Quick follow-up to my own post,
getting in a new processor is EASY,
what was hard to do was swapping the keyboard, but I could still save you from potential problems if you contact me about this particular series of laptops. I have pics too if you'd like.
Take care, happy computing.

 

Congrats but we are aware of this already. Nice to hear another success story.

 

Quote myself with a similar case: