Upgrade CPU Satellite Pro L650 + more

Hi there,

I have a few questions on the Toshiba Satellite Pro L650-167 i am about to buy. This is the model with an i5 430m, 4gb drr3 and the ati 5650. Satellite Pro L650-167 - Product Specifications - Toshiba

1) Will the laptop motherboard support upgrading to an i7m processor like the the 620m for example? I can find these on ebay for good prices. Also can you actually open up the L series laptops to replace cpu's? You can in dell's for instance. I know this will void my warranty. Finally all the i series cpu's are all 35w so there should not be power issues?

2) Can you easily swap out the hard-drive in the L series or is it not accessible? I.e i might want to put in a 7200rpm drive or SSD.

Thanks alot!

 

Well i've gone for an i5 540m (2.53ghz) to put into the L650-167 when it arrives.

I'm working on the assumption that you can pull the toshiba apart and i know its current chipset (HM55) supports the i5 540m.

 

Hi,
I have a L650-116 and i've opened it up.
1) I don't know if it will support i7m, but the processor can be taken out.
2) Yes, the HDD is easily replaceable. The HDD in mine is a Seagate ST9500325AS and is pretty fast but I too am looking to replace it with a 7200 rpm one.
If you have trouble opening it up I can help you, there are some hidden screws.

 

Hey,

Thanks alot for your help. Its good to know you can open it up and change the cpu. I'm not sure about the i7 chips so i will put an i5 540m inside when the toshiba arrives later this week.

Is the process of opening it up fairly straight-forward?

Thanks for your help!

 

You're welcome
Yep, pretty straight forward.
There are some screws hidden behind the battery and dvd-drive, so you have to take them out first. Also there are some covered screws just above the keyboard, but i can't remember if they have to be removed.

 

Thanks alot for the pic!

Also may i ask, is the dvd drive IDE or SATA?

I am looking at putting a blu-ray drive in you see .

Thanks.

 

No problem!

DVD-drive is SATA, mine is a TSSTcorp TS-L633C.

 

Nice!

Sorry for more questions but your the only other member i know who has an L650-167!

How does the ati 5650 do? Can it handle modern games at acceptable settings? If you don't game then don't worry !

Does the laptop get very hot? I heard it might.

Finally at 2.5kg is it portable or too heavy?

Thanks alot

 

It's an L650-116

Yes, I'm satisfied with the gaming and OC performance of the 5650. It can play most new games on high.
I've played Dirt 2 on high, Starcraft 2 on high, UT3 on max, SupCom etc.

I've OC-ed from 450/800 to 650/900 stably, so it matches the 5730 default clocks.
Just ran 3DMark06 at these clocks, with catalyst 10.8, and got 8099.

The GPU is soldered on the mainboard so you won't be able to upgrade it though.

It gets pretty hot while gaming, max GPU temp I get is about 82C overclocked.
Also the power brick gets really hot

About the weight, I don't find it heavy, it's lighter and thinner than my previous laptop (Inspiron 1520).

Also if you're going to buy it, you must know it has the CPU whine problem. There's whining noise coming from the cpu reg, but it's only a problem in very quiet rooms (like bathrooms ). I haven't found a solution yet for this. My other laptop also had this, but RMClock fixed it. Apparently Core i procs are self-managed and no software can set p-states.
Another problem I have is it BSODs on resume from sleep, something about the ati driver crashing, but that's probably just on mine, maybe a windows reinstall will fix it.

Hope I haven't scared you off from buying it

 

Thanks for your help. I see yours is the L650-116 but thats basically the same spec as the 167

Don't worry you did not scare me off! I think £689 for this laptop is a great deal so i will get it.

I have never OC'ed a laptop gpu before but it seems the 5650 can be pushed quite a bit!

One last thing - did OC'ing ur 5650 have a bad effect on your battery-life or can you switch over to the Integrated graphics when you want?

 

You are welcome.

OC has no effect on battery life, because I switch to 2D clocks 100/200 MHz when not gaming. Without oc it does that automatically.
So I use RivaTuner with 3 launcher profiles for 2d, 3d, and 3d-oc bound to ctrl+shift+ 1 to 3.
Default 2D clocks are 100/150 but it stutters a bit on win+tab so I increased mem clock to 200 and it's smooth now.

Unfortunately you can't switch to the intel hd graphics, that would have saved more power, but it's only available on more expensive models. I get about 2.5 hours just surfing.

 

Ok thanks alot

I'll post more when it arrives.

 

Hey LlamaOne is your screen glossy or matte? Thanks.

 

It's glossy.

 

Does anyone know whether, on the core i platform, you can run uneven dual channel RAM. Like 4GB + 2GB? Or do the amounts of each DIMM have to be equal? Thanks.

 

LlamaOne is your broadcom WLAN card (i assume its the same as mine) full or half mini pci-express? Thanks.

 

Hmm... Don't remember. It's been two months since I opened it. But mine is not Broadcom, it's a RTL8191SE.

 

Oh i see, thanks. FYI i looked up your card and its half-mini pci-e.

I wanted to know because i'm going to put in an Intel 6200 WLAN card which is also half mini pci-e.

 

Hey Llama, or anyone actually!, i plan on buying the much cheaper version of the L650-series (l650-165) which still has the ati 5650 but has 2gb of RAM and an i3 350m.

This is all for an amazing deal of £560!

I can upgrade the ram easily to 6GB but here is the gamble i have -

I bought an i5 540m and have it here already. I know LlamaOne said he could take the cpu out of his model (the i5 version, L650-116). Do you think that there is any possibility of Toshiba soldering the i3 cpu's onto the motherboard or is it likely that regardless of whether i3 or i5 i can still change the cpu?

Surely if one version of the l650 series can have its cpu changed, then all of the different versions can? Its a gamble though because an i3 350m is much weaker as opposed to an i5 540m. If it were to pay off then £560 is a steal.

 

I am now the proud owner of a L650-165! Opening it up was a little bit harder than anticipated. There are a lot fiddly wires to disconnect from the MB and some hidden screws. I upgraded the laptop to an i5 540m, 8gb ddr3, X-25M 160GB SSD and a intel 6200 mini-card.

Boots in 16 seconds and wifi signal is awesome.

All in all these L650 laptops are great. Amazing build quality, very light-weight. I recommend!

Thanks for your help LlamaOne!

 

Nice, I'm glad you like it
Can you please check if it resumes from stand-by? Mine BSODs
How about CPU whine?
Are you going to OC the graphics card?

 

1) It resumes from sleep fine at the moment. I am running ati CCC 10.8 btw.
2) No CPU whine but the fans do tend to spin up at random times.
3) I probably will OC it but at the moment its fine. Maxed MW2, L4D2 and pretty high dx10 settings of stalker. I'll try Crysis, AvP, GTA4 etc soon,

 

How did you manage to install the latest ati drivers ? When I try the ones dl from the official amd webiste I can not install them. I got a message from de installer that I have not the right hardware to do the installation.

I think the ati drivers from toshiba are signed. I tried this on the preinstalled win 7.

Do you all installed a clean version of win 7 ?

Thx;

 

Try this. You can change the '10-8' in the link to get other versions.

 

What's the diff between these and the one from amd ?

 

These are unmodified AMD drivers, it's a direct link to their hosting site.

 

Oooh, but why do they provide these not directly ?

 

Yeah they are the ones i used and i can confirm they work 100%.

 

Am considering a CPU upgrade in my L650. Would really appreciate a little help on the disassembly side of things. Have built many desktops both mainstream and extreme gaming types over the years but not much experience in laptops.
Any help or guidance would be much appreciated. Thanks

 

I was looking at this very thread a few weeks ago and have came back to it entirely by chance when looking for a BIOS mod for my L650. Anyway back to your question, this laptop is easy as pie to open up. I did it to mine as I wanted to dust out the cooler as my machine started getting toasty.

Above the keyboard there is a strip of plastic. Put something thin in the left side to pop it up. Pull it off of the main assembly (you'll hear the latches unclicking) to access the 4 screws that hold the keyboard in place. Unscrew the keyboard and lift it up. After doing this carefully unclip the keyboard connector and slide out the keyboard flexicable.

Now that you can see the other connectors through the various holes, disconnect them. This includes the power button (black and red wires, to the left), the speakers (which on mine were underneath some black tape) and the mouse connector which is beneath the keyboard connector.

Now, turn the laptop over. Remove all parts (HDD, RAM, battery, optical drive). Undo all of the screws. This includes one that is in the RAM compartment, 2 larger screws underneath the optical drive and 2 larger screws in the battery compartment. I mention these as it is easy to miss them and wonder why the thing won't open up!

Right, now that you've removed all of the screw open the laptop up. You should be able to pop the entire top off now. From here, there's only 2 more screws holding the mainboard in place. Have fun!

 

@ RichB93

Thanks for taking the time to write this very informative post...VERY much appreciated!

Cheers Bud!!

 

By the way Rich, what kinda BIOS mod are you after?

 

No worries, happy to help

Anything really. Ideally I wouldn't mind a way to make the graphics switchable to onboard but I've not seen anyone have any luck with this. Unlocking any hidden options in the BIOS would be great!

 

Anyone got any idea if it'll take the i7 640m?