dv6-3000 i5 not Upgradeable to i7

I recently bought a i7 processor off ebay and the matching cooler from HP. For anyone out there wondering, core i5 dv6-3000 series notebooks are not upgradeable to core i7 even though they are the same socket and running off the same chipset. The motherboard is the same (it is also the same as the dv7 mobo) but there is a missing row (4) of chips on i5 motherboards. I'm not sure what they do but they make contact with the i7 cooler and there are 6 solder points where they go, therefore they are not resistors or MOSFETs, they are also not able to be soldered on afterwards due to the positioning of the solder points. Oh well...

 

So, why not use the old heatsink that comes with the i5?

 

Since the i5's have 2 dies the i5 heatsink doesn't make good contact with the i7 CPU, but that's only a minor issue. It's the missing chips on the mobo that cause it to not work.

 

Could we see pictures? I want to see what you're talking about.

Edit: Anyone care to explain the differences here? I got to looking at rPGA-988, then rPGA-989 comes in... what fits where?

 

Finally was able to dissassemble laptop again. Here is a picture of the missing chips.



They have the same "mount" as the chips directly to the right of them. There are 8 chips making up that grid all labelled PQXX, where XX = 44:53. The 4 chips next to them have numbers:

K03B9
9D1
6001

or

K03D3
0B2
60J1

Printed on top. There are 2 of each. Any ideas on their purpose? I could most likely get a specialist (I'm an electronics engineering student) to solder them on if i could determine what chips are supposed to go there. Also turns out they have around 12 contact points on the mobo as well.

 

Educated guess, more powerful power regulation for more powerful CPU? since i5 doesn't need that they were left away from the mb?

 

Well it's hard to say from that pic. Are you able to take one so at least the letters/numbers can be seen on the chips? I would guess along with KLF, probably MOSFETS paralleled up with the other ones to reduce the overall on resistance for the higher currents.

What do you mean the missing chips cause it not to work? Do you mean you tried to run the i7 and the notebook would not post and think it might be the missing chips causing the problem.

 

It looks like those are missing power MOSFETs. If I am looking at that correctly you have a few voltage regulars there as well as some power inductors right next to the CPU.

Need a better pic but it does appear that HP cut down (depopulated) unnecessary power circuitry on the i5 version of the motherboard.

 

No, I wish I could I only have an old phone to take pics with. I posted the numbers above the 'squares' on the motherboard are PQ44 to PQ53, the numbers on the current chips are there.

Yeah. Wouldn't post. Kept looping, fan on (like the start of post) lights on, then off. I'm fairly certain it is these chips. There is a dedicated contact area on the i7 cooling assembly for the chips to contact. You can also see the black plastic around the area clearly indicating something is supposed to be there.

There are some more pics here but they are pretty much as bad.
dv6 pictures by Poulsen8r - Photobucket

Why would they change the circuitry? Probably related to the GPU right? I think I saw somewhere they run the same voltage, but not sure now I have a look.

Dammit HP, I needs to repopulates....

 

To save cost. Make the same PCB for both i5 and i7 versions, but then only put on the necessary pieces for a particular option or product line. Even if you were to find the exact components and solder them on it *may* not work...there could be other small differences for which parts are put on each board (resistors, caps, etc found all over the board) that you might not be able to see or 'fix'.

 

Seems there are two different boards for the dv6-3000, 615279-001 for the duo's and 615278-001 for the quads. I think there is more to it than just those 4 missing components and I doubt if they are stopping you posting but might cause problems with heavy load.

Another poster firesyde424 is also trying to upgrade from an i5 to i7 on a Dell in the Acer forum and is not able to post. Seems more and more likely the MSID is set differently for the i5 duo and i7 quad contrary to Intel public doc's. If this was so then this would stop your new processor from initializing since the CPU would recognize the platform it is running on is for a lower power market segment and therefore not rated to be able to run it.

 

Look:
592816-001
There they are! They are mocking me lol. I wonder why that board is blue? There are even 2 different quad core mobos. One BD and Non-TS (Whatever that means?) and one Non-BD and TS. Check it here:
HP PartSurfer

I think TS = Touchscreen. Interesting that they reduce the power chips but leave the touchscreen connection ready to go on my laptop...
BD is obviously bluray. Why would you need a new mobo for bluray?