Recent content by voltoid27

You can probably get a new motherboard with a better CPU if you're willing to disassemble your entire laptop. What's your current CPU? If you install CPU-Z and provide screenshots of both the CPU and memory tabs I'll have all the info I need.

You won't be able to upgrade a CQ57 by conventional means, as they all come with APUs that are soldered onto the motherboard. While it's technically possible to desolder them, I'm not in any way qualified to recommend or give advice on that. You're better off up cleaning up the OS or doing a new...

An i5-3230M will work fine. It's the HM70 chipset that doesn't support anything higher than a Pentium, so you'll be fine with your HM76. You can go up to a Core i7-3540M.

Exactly, so instead of being a 1.4GHz CPU it'll be a 1.6GHz one. You can't overclock a 3520M any more than you can a 3400M unfortunately; overclocking is pretty rare in mainstream laptops and yours is no exception. For these old CPUs I always go straight to eBay, as you'll have a heck of a time...

All Ax-3xx0M APU's are socketed, so you'll be able to drop in up to an A8-3520M APU in there. That'll get you 200MHz to the base and boost clocks, and a more substantial graphics uplift. That's the best you can do unfortunately :/

Hey, don't blame me for your own curiosity :D I'd do the same thing in your position, so I can't judge. Hope it works!

Yeah, that'd be a pain. In case you're curious, on my Win7 laptop (don't have an XP computer with me at the moment) I have to launch msconfig, then go to Boot -> Advanced Options and the option for max RAM is in the top right of that window.

Glad to hear everything's working OK :) Yes, faster FSB speeds do generate more heat, best example I can provide is that the 533 FSB Pentium M chips are rated for 27W TDPs while the 400 FSB counterparts are only 21W. About the RAM, from what I've read it seems that the problem isn't having 2...

Any time!

Good luck!

https://www.amazon.com/320-Scorpio-Blue-5400-Sata/dp/B00473ZRGS

RIP :( If it was the original 160GB drive it was probably a piece of crap anyway. If you need a high-capacity drive that'll be compatible there's this: https://www.amazon.com/WD-Green-Mobile-Hard-Drive/dp/B008HCKN0K

A T9600 will work fine. The GM45 chipset supports it fully and since both the old and new processors are rated for 35W TDPs, you won't have too many heat problems either. You did good :)

Cool, hope everything works!

Well, I wouldn't say it would outright not work, but it certainly won't run at full speed if the system boots. The T5550 gets its 1.83GHz speed by multiplying it's "base clock" (FSB/4) by it's multiplier, in this case (667MHz/4)*11=1.83GHz. On a 533 FSB, that gets reduced to (533/4)*11=1.46GHz...