Acer AS5516 - Upgradable?

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Rauelius

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I picked up one of these for $300 on sunday. Reinstalled a personal copy of Vista Ultimate, ordered an extra 2GB of ram. Machine runs pretty nice. It'll even game a little (WoW at low settings is the most intense game it will run). Well, I wanna see if I could upgrade the CPU, I found a turion X2 s1 cpu for $30 and figured that would be a decent upgrade. Anyone know if that's possible? Also, I've been getting conflicting info that I could pop in an AM2 Athlon X2 5050e, but CPU-Z begs to differ (it says it's an S1 socket). If anyone out there has this lappy and did an upgrade, I'd appreciate some info, as it is a pain to take laptops apart.

BTW....This cheapy laptop is leaps and bounds better than my Eee...
 
Well, in case anyone in the future is interested. I found that I should be able to upgrade to a dual-core CPU. I ordered a Dual-Core S1 CPU, that should work. So between that and the $20 I spent on the extra 2 GBs of ram I have a pretty damn good laptop for less than $340. Worst case scenario, it turns out to be an AM2 board (which would mean CPU-Z lied) and I order a much faster 5050e CPU,which would make it scream...and from what I read, it won't get much hotter.
 
I'm not sure if I'm understanding you correctly, but you're trying to put a desktop CPU into a notebook socket? How is this possible? The 5050e is AM2, while the laptop you're trying to upgrade is a S1 socket? Both have different amount of pins so it wouldn't fit physically not electronically...
 
Nah, according to CPU-z, it's a Socket S1, a notebook only socket. Worked out great since I found a Turion X2 cpu for $12, and was actually considering spending $60 on an Athlon 64 X2 5050e, so the laptop Socket was, for the first time, cheaper than a desktop.

Also, The Acer 5515 did use a desktop CPU. Yeah, I know, I'm shocked on that one too! I proved it to myself by going to newegg and checking out reviews of the 5050e and found quite a few reviews throwing em into Aspire 5515's and there clones.

Well, glad someone checked out this post. Thanks for at least responding.:D
 
Oh, I see what you're saying now. The 5515 used a socket that was similar (and compatible with) to the AM2.. That's neat. I'm guessing the production of the 5515 has ended? For I cannot find them on most retailers..

This 5516 must be the 5515 replacement and they totally changed the socket too, huh? sucks..
 
Hell yeah! Battery life be damned! I'd love to pop in a 2.6 Ghz Athlon X2 in this thing and watch it scream!
 
The 5515 has gotten me interested since I've been seeing people get them for as low as $200 - $300 (some are refurbs). TigerDirect had a refurb deal for it for $200 shipped the other day but I missed it.

God, now I'm really interested in picking this up and modding it. Think of the possibilities, 5050e CPU, 4GB Ram, and 320GB HD, you got yourself a beefy laptop for under $500. It'll blow my current C2D laptop out of the water in terms of CPU, RAM, HD and onboard Vid specs.
 
Good news! Glad more people are reading this post.

Well, ordered my Turion X2 TL-50 Socket S1 chip(Which only ran me $12) and took the laptop apart and thankfully it was an S1. Popped the chip in, and after some finagling to get it up and running, it booted into windows and Vista loaded the drivers. Ordered a 2GB stick of ram (it has 2 slots and only one is filled with a 2gb stick) for $23, poped that in. The Machine works very nice, and is significantly snappier with the dual-core and the 4GB of ram.

So for under $400 I got a pretty sweet laptop, here are what the specs ended up being

AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-50
4GB PC 5300 DDR2
160 GB Hard Drive (I may upgrade this down the road)
Radeon X1200 (it plays wow...can't complain)

I'm writing this post on it, ran CPU-Z and the board reads it for what it is, that is, it DOESN'T say unknown CPU or anything weird like that, it says Turion X2 TL-50. Ran speedfan, and it reports the core temp to be 45 which is acceptable for me. Pulled the power cord and Vista is reporting that I have about 2hr 16min of battery, btw my settings are on high performance. With the Single core I have about 2hr 45min of battery so it's a little bit of a dip, but I could deal with it, this is sooooo much nicer now.

About the memory, I picked up 5300, however, I believe that higherclocked memory will just clock itself down to the correct speed. I could be wrong, but thats how it works in the desktop world.
 
what sort of finagling did you have to do? im thinking of following in your footsteps and upgrading mine as well.

they are pretty nice laptops for the 300 price
 
There's been a bunch of deals on the 5516 lately. Newegg, BB, all over the place. Apparently, they had killer deals on the 5515 a week or 2 ago and I just missed it. Now I can't find one for under $350..

Is there any other laptops similar to the 5515 that uses a desktop socket (or one that resembles it)?
 
Well, I didn't do much. It's just when I initially installed it I forgot to turn the locking screw for the socket forcing me to take the laptop apart again to tighten it. Once I tightned it it booted right up. My only complaint is that you basically have to take the whole thing apart and remove the board to get to the CPU. But you do it once, it's not that tough to do it again. Wish I could upgrade the fraphics card too, but that's not happening, and is not possible with this board. Anybody outh there with this laptop, I whole heartidly recommend a dual-core Turion and an extra 2gb of ram, An upgrade to Vista Premium or Window 7rc and you'll have a laptop that is almost indistinguishable from the one you initially bought.
 
thanx a bunch for your input im going to work on getting mine upgraded soon! ill let you know how it works out for me!
 
One thing i can say i dont like about the laptop...the sd card slot you need tweezers to get the card out ...no push to eject function like normal
 
I just picked one up this morning for my mom. I had ordered the TL-52 dual-core CPU to replace the current CPU.

How the heck do you get to the processor to replace it?

The normal user-accessible covers came off, but removal of the rest of the screws has got me nowhere. I'm afraid to pry the wrong area for fear of snapping something.

I'm very comfortable working on desktop computers, and have even replaced a keybaord on a Dell Vostro 1500 - so I'm not afraid to open things up, and I'm aware of the dangers of static electricity to the components.

Can anyone give me some guidance?
 
I also picked up one of these laptops a couple of weeks from Micro Center for $299.

I purchased a Hitachi 320 GB 7200 RPM HD and scored a TL-56 for a good price in anticipation of upgrades.

The hard drive was absolutely no problem, but after spending the last 12 hours tearing my hair out trying to figure out how to take this thing apart, I finally threw in the towel and am returning the TL-56 for a refund.

From what I can see, this Acer 5516 was not meant to be taken apart, in fact I believe the only way to take it apart is to break it (someone please prove me wrong here).

It is doubly frustrating for me as I am an ex IT guy, I can take apart a Dell Latitude in my sleep, but this Acer laptop is something else.
 
The good news for me: I only spent $12 on the new CPU, so I'm not out much if I cannot figure this one out ...
 
I figured it out! As frustrated as I was, I kept at it. I will be the first to admit I was wrong, this laptop CAN be taken apart. Here is what I did:

1. Remove the hard drive, memory, and the wireless network card.
2. Remove any screw you find at the bottom of laptop. You can now remove the DVD module, and it would also be a good idea to remove the LCD hinge covers (they pop out easily).
3. The next step is to remove the center strip (the strip where the power button is located). Open the LCD screen as far as it will go. Along the back edge of the center strip, at the recesses for the LCD screen hinges, you will notice there is a slight overhang. Using a small screwdriver, gently pry up on the overhang. The center strip, should begin to lift up. Once this happens, you can lift up the center strip along its length by hand and you should be able to remove the strip.
4. Remove the keyboard. There are no screws holding it in place and it should pop right out. Remove its ribbon cable from the motherboard.
5. Unplug the main connector for the LCD on the left. Next, pop all wires coming from the LCD out of their holders. You are now ready to remove the LCD. Remove the 4 screws holding the LCD in place. Once the screws are taken out lift the LCD out. You will be able to pull the wires through the hole and completely remove LCD.
6. On each side of laptop, there is a small two pin wire connector. The left side is black/white, the right side black/red. These are the speaker connectors. Unplug each connector.
7. Along the back edge of laptop, you will now see three recess that look like screw holes, but are the color of the laptop. These are screws, but each have an adhesive cover. Using a very small knife (an X-acto knife works best) gently pry off each cover and put off to the side to reuse. Remove these screws.
8. Now, under where the keyboard was , you should see 5 screws. Remove these screws. Once done, you should now be able to separate the two halves of the case.
9. The bottom half of the case contains the motherboard. There is one screw holding it in place, on the bottom right. Remove this screw. The motherboard can now be removed and the laptop is now completely disassembled.

I hope this guide helps those of you trying to upgrade the processor. I just installed the TL-56 I bought and am in the process of assembling he laptop. I will post my thoughts on the TL-56 later today.
 
I left out a couple of things when I typed the disassembly procedure, and they both belong in step 8. Before removing the 5 screws, there are two ribbon cables (1 wide, 1 narrow) that come from the inside of the top of the case to the MB. It is best to disconnect these before removing the 5 screws. Also, besides those 5 screws underneath the keyboard, I failed to mention the sixth screw, underneath where the right LCD hinge would be.

Anyway, I installed the TL-56 and reassembled the laptop. I used Arctic Silver 5 when I mounted the processor. Vista Ultimate installed the correct drivers and all went well. I decided to test using Prime95, which I ran for 6 hours, and passed. I kept my eye on the temps using Core Temp. Temps at idle are at 55-56C. Temps at full load are in the 65-69C range. A bit on the warm side, but well within specs.

All in all I am a happy camper. Between the TL-56 and 7200 RPM hard drive, the laptop has a much faster feel to it.
 
Czechster,

Thanks for making those instructions available. I found that extra screw, and removed those ribbon cables when I encountered them.

I replaced the TF-20 with a TL-52, and was honestly shocked that it booted up after re-assembly. Obviously, I didn't screw things up too bad.

Of course, it looks like a cable came loose, since the trackpad appears to be nonfunctional now :(

SInce it's for my mother, she said she hates the trackpad and would rather use a mouse. With that in mind, I'll call it a success instead of potentially screwing something else up by disassembling it one more time ...

It does feel noticeably more responsive with the dual-core in there. It was nice to see the Vista performance index go from 3.4 to 4.6 following the CPU upgrade.
 
hey, I'm new to this forum, and this is my first post! Anyway, I also bought the Acer 5516 not too long ago, and just started looking to see if it was upgradeable. So I found this thread, and it sounds good that you can upgrade. I stared doing my own research on the S1 socket and what processors are available. There were a couple that I found that had a higher speed than the TL-50 and TL-56, specifically AMD QL-67 and the AMD QL -62

all of them are 64bit dual cores. The QL-62 being 2 GHz and the QL-67 being 2.2 GHz. Both of these run at 35w and max temp at 100C. Thats only 4w and 5C more than the T-56 In comparison the TF-20 runs at 1.6 GHz, 15w, and 95C.
Since heat seems to be an issue with this laptop, would it be overkill to try and use one of the higher end CPU's? As long as you use some good quality thermal paste and keep the heatsink, would an extra 4w compared to the T-56 make much more significant heat?? Let me know what you guys think....would I be crazy to try either of these??
 
The QL series are S1g2. No go.

The highest I would go with that laptop is a TL-56 or -58. (1.8 and 1.9 ghz respectively). Much higher than that and the heat would likely become an issue, as would power draw.
 
thanks for the reply...I did some more reading and learned about the S1g2...what about the TL-60? It has the same power ratings as the TL-56 but at 2000 MHz.
 
Thanks to this forum, and especially Czechster for the detailed case open instructions, I went ahead and upgraded my Acer 5516 single core 1.6GHz TF-20 to dual core 1.9GHz TL-58.

I chose the TL-58 TMDTL58HAX5DC since it had the lowest Thermal Design Power value (31 W) of other TL-58 chips (35 W), based on info at:
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-Turion%2064%20X2%20Mobile%20technology%20TL-56%20-%20TMDTL56HAX5DC.html

Got this CPU on ebay for $33.

The only other CPU with TDP of 31 W that's faster was the TL-60 (TMDTL60HAX5DC), but this was over twice the cost on eBay.

With the TL-58 and an additional 2GB of RAM (~$30), this unit became a very respectable dual core laptop for ~$360.

Observations:
With normal usage, the fan seldom runs. Playing AVCHD videos (impossibly laggy before, but now is very smooth) will switch the CPU into full speed mode, at which time the fan goes on and noticeably hotter air (than the old TF-20 system) comes out of the back vent.
The laptop is visibly faster even just from Windows 7 RC desktop.

So far, after a few days of normal usage, I'd say the upgrade was a complete success. I think I could have gone as high as the 2GHz TL-60 (TMDTL60HAX5DC) as far as power and temperature is concerned, but it wasn't worth the extra $ to me.

I took some pictures of the upgrade process. Let me know if there's interest in these, and if so, whether it's appropriate (bandwidth-wise) to post it here.
 
Last edited:
Thanks to Czechster's take apart guide and this forum I have another success to report.

I upgraded my processor to a TL-56 and it has been working great. No heat problems and the performance is much better.

I also doubled the RAM and replaced the hard drive with a Seagate Momentus 7200.3.

All told it was a great, inexpensive upgrade that really upped the performance. I would highly recommend getting the 5516 and upgrading the RAM, processor, and hard drive. I spent $80 on parts and have a laptop worth far more than the $380 I spent on it ($300 for laptop, $30 for processor, $30 for HDD (refurb), $20 for RAM)

Observations:
I had some trouble with the 4 screws underneath the LCD between the hinges. They were covered with plastic stickers and it took me a while to figure out they were just stickers and I could peel them off. I did not put the stickers back, but its really an unnoticeable aesthetic change. Also, my trackpad stopped working prior to the upgrade. I tried everything I could to get it working to no avail. Another user here reported this. I think I will call Acer and see if i can get a new one and find out if this is a known problem.

Thanks again Czechster!
 
I got this laptop from MicroCenter for $299.00. I had a TL-58 1.9ghz X2 Dual core that I installed in it along with an additional 2GB of ram. It runs Windows 7 RTM very well and is a great little laptop. I had a Macbook Pro that got smashed in Iraq, so no more $2000 laptops for me.
 
KTT said:
Thanks to this forum, and especially Czechster for the detailed case open instructions, I went ahead and upgraded my Acer 5516 single core 1.6GHz TF-20 to dual core 1.9GHz TL-58.

I chose the TL-58 TMDTL58HAX5DC since it had the lowest Thermal Design Power value (31 W) of other TL-58 chips (35 W), based on info at:
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-Turion%2064%20X2%20Mobile%20technology%20TL-56%20-%20TMDTL56HAX5DC.html

Got this CPU on ebay for $33.

The only other CPU with TDP of 31 W that's faster was the TL-60 (TMDTL60HAX5DC), but this was over twice the cost on eBay.

With the TL-58 and an additional 2GB of RAM (~$30), this unit became a very respectable dual core laptop for ~$360.

Observations:
With normal usage, the fan seldom runs. Playing AVCHD videos (impossibly laggy before, but now is very smooth) will switch the CPU into full speed mode, at which time the fan goes on and noticeably hotter air (than the old TF-20 system) comes out of the back vent.
The laptop is visibly faster even just from Windows 7 RC desktop.

So far, after a few days of normal usage, I'd say the upgrade was a complete success. I think I could have gone as high as the 2GHz TL-60 (TMDTL60HAX5DC) as far as power and temperature is concerned, but it wasn't worth the extra $ to me.

I took some pictures of the upgrade process. Let me know if there's interest in these, and if so, whether it's appropriate (bandwidth-wise) to post it here.
Click to expand...

Those photos would be a great! I'm planning on taking my laptop apart when my turion x-2 50 arrives. Thanks :]
 
KTT said:
I've put up some pictures of the upgrade. This isn't meant to duplicate Czechster instructions, but rather accompany it.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25792168@N00/sets/72157622393042218/

Feel free to add any pointers/comments in the picture set above if you think they'll help others going through the process.
Click to expand...

Thanks man! Quick question you think my laptop will be okay without arctic silver 5? I'm getting the TL-50, currently I can't my hand on any thermal paste. Life is just hectic right now :]
 
Should be fine if you can manage to distribute the existing thermal paste that was between the TF-20 and heat sink into a thin even coat between your new CPU and the heat sink. As long as there isn't some hard foreign material or dried up paste chunk to prevent the heat sink and CPU from making good contact, it'll be good to go. I've reuse old paste in a pinch in the past to no ill effects. Even old paste is better than no paste (which is very bad).

That said, since on this laptop it's so much work to get to the CPU, I'd recommend using new good quality paste from the start. Especially when you're going from a TF-20 with Thermal Design Power of 15W to a TF-50 with TDP of 31W. You want to get as much heat away from the CPU and out of the laptop via the heat sink as possible.
 
Nice! I got it to work with no arctic silver. It runs around 55-65*C and with cpu burn in about 68*C. Are those safe numbers for a laptop CPU? My Althon XP 2500 runs at similar temps... IDK about laptop
 
soulzero said:
Nice! I got it to work with no arctic silver. It runs around 55-65*C and with cpu burn in about 68*C. Are those safe numbers for a laptop CPU? My Althon XP 2500 runs at similar temps... IDK about laptop
Click to expand...

That's fine. Your CPU is rated for 95 degrees C max, so you're well in the nominal working temperature range. Congrats on your upgrade!
 
I'm thinking of pulling the trigger on this baby, everything still running great for those of you that upgraded? Obviously this officialy voids the warranty but can this be done without leaving a mark that you did?
 
OldPueblo said:
I'm thinking of pulling the trigger on this baby, everything still running great for those of you that upgraded? Obviously this officialy voids the warranty but can this be done without leaving a mark that you did?
Click to expand...

No problems with my TL-58 upgrade. I am very happy with it. No heat problems, whatsoever.

As to voiding the warranty, I don't recall any tamper-proof seals. The only thing that might tip people off that you've opened the computer are the three/four stickers covering the screws under the LCD hinge. I wasn't able to remove the sticker without leaving a crease in each. Perhaps if you were more careful...
 
can anyone tell me if this tf-20 in this model is upgradeable? Aspire AS5532-5535

i would like to do it in the future. i bought it about a month ago with the release of windows 7 on it. seems really fast so far. any help is greatly appreciated.
 
Based on the excellent info here I just upgraded my $198, black friday, emachines laptop to a TL-58 and now it's quite snappy. $242 total investment..niiiice :)

Jerry
 
Wow, seems like a trend. I got the eME627 emachines laptop from walmart and upgraded to a TL-58 but it turns out the TL-58 they sent me was DOA so I have to wait for a replacement. Otherwise I'm pretty happy with the laptop. It can even run CSS decently (on low settings of course).

One thing I noticed was there are 4 screw that are smaller than the rest. I think two of them go to the wireless card. Can you guys fill me in on where the other two go?
 
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