Upgrade CPU, RAM, HD for my DV9305tx?

Hi all, I was wondering what is the best CPU that I am able to upgrade to with my HP DV9305tx, T7200? And also what RAM is recommended? As I've still only got the stock 2GB.. Same goes with the hard drives. I'm guessing that's about all that I can upgrade?
Even though this laptop has suffered from heat issues, it's been a great work companion for the last few years, and is perfect for my design work, so I really don't want to upgrade to a new laptop, but I DO need a little more speed if it's possible.

Thanks for your helps people!

 

<s> T9300(2.5ghz), T9500(2.6ghz) and X9000.

Going to T9300 will give you up to a ~40% increase in performance.
X9000, a little over up to 50%, but you cannot overclock it in your system. The price premium of this CPU is because of its overclocking ability. SO you'd be paying for something you can't use. It usually costs 50% - 100% more than a T9300.
</s>

See posts below.

As for RAM you can go to 4GB. <s>Possible to go to 8GB but you won't see much improvement over 4GB other than if you were maxing out 4GB from running many programs at once.</s>

See posts below.

As for HDD, any 2.5" 9.5mm height SATA HDD will work. Even an SSD will work.

An SSD will give you a radical boost in performance over a HDD and will speed up your entire system in very noticeable ways. For one, SSDs are 3 to 5 times faster than HDDs and have seek times that are several hundred times faster than an HDD and are near instantaneous.

 

awesome 2.0, thanks for the reply. I guess I'll start looking for a T9300 or t9500? Is there much of a price gap? I just thought that I read somewhere that depending on what CPU the DV9000 came with originally, it limits what you can upgrade too. I totally forgot about SSD, as I haven't bought or looked into computer parts for many years now! Thanks for the advice!

 

hey 2.0, I read in another thread that I can use PC2-6400 RAM "drop 'em quite a bit. 4-4-4-12 @ 667MHz = 5-5-5-15 @ 800MHz." Doing this, does it mean that I can achieve faster clock speeds? Or is it not worth it and I should just get the cheaper 5300 RAM?
Also is it possible to go up to 8GB? Would it be beneficial for me as I use Photoshop and Illustrator at the same time with multiple windows open.

Thanks, and sorry for all the n00b questions!

 

Faster RAM won't help since the difference in performance will be around 1-2%.

8GB is Not possible with the DV9300 series because of the PM945 chipset. Max is 4Gb, 2.97Gb useable. PM 965 chipset is capable of 8GB which is found on Dv9500-dv9700.

 

You're right. It's based on what the chipset can support. In your case the chipset is PM945. Just update your BIOS to the latest for full recognition and support. So the max CPU supportable is a T7600(2.33ghz), socket M. I forgot that HP updated the DV9000 series starting at dv9500 with PM965 which supports T9300 (socket P) and up.


Anyway, BIOS here: WinFlash for HP Notebook System BIOS (for Notebooks with Intel Processors) - Microsoft Windows/Vista-Based HP Pavilion dv9305tx Notebook PC - HP Customer Care (United States - English)

There's also the option of upgrading to the DV9700 motherboard which will
give you a better graphics card along with the ability to upgrade CPU to T9300 and up,RAM to 8GB.

BTW, here's a link to the PDF version of the service manual. Has complete disassembly instructions.
DV 9000-9300: http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01311536.pdf
DV9500-9700 http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01951704.pdf

And don't forget about thermal compound when you replace the CPU.

 

Thanks for all that info 2.0. The DV9700 mobo is available in both AMD and Intel right? Should I just stick with intel CPU's? Are they cross compatible or do the CPU's need different boards?

 

Yes it's available in both platforms. I would recommend sticking with Intel. Intel CPUs run cooler and are more powerful.