Building up an old laptop

narsbars

2[H]4U
Joined
Jan 18, 2006
Messages
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Just bought an old laptop. Can anyone think of any upgrades beyond memory and SSD?
Not intended to game, just to have fun building it up as far as possible. Specs below.

Lenovo y510p
I7 4700mq
8gb ram
GeForce 750m has ultra bay
1tb hdd with 24gb ssd
Win 10 pro
 
The cpu is replaceable but it's already good. Up to you if you want more cpu power or more ram. Other than that, there really isn't anyrhing you can do.
 
What CPU would you replace it with? I thought it was soldered.
Supposedly you could upgrade to
Processor, Haswell Quad Core, 45W/35W, Intel, Intel I7-4900MQ 2.8G 4cPGA

The problem is the price, if you can find one is four times the cost of the laptop. LOL.
Maybe I can put up a WTB thread and buy one for a real price on the H IF I find out the CPU is actually replaceable.

I have fun building old hardware to the ultimate spec it could ever support. Now if I could only find a vid card that fit Ultrabay.
 
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Honestly it is fine as is for just day to day stuff. If that SSD really is 24gb and not 240gb then yes upgrade that. Get more ram if you are one of those people that likes to have 300 tabs open in chrome otherwise you should be good.
 
What CPU would you replace it with? I thought it was soldered.
Supposedly you could upgrade to
Processor, Haswell Quad Core, 45W/35W, Intel, Intel I7-4900MQ 2.8G 4cPGA

The problem is the price, if you can find one is four times the cost of the laptop. LOL.
Maybe I can put up a WTB thread and buy one for a real price on the H IF I find out the CPU is actually replaceable.

I have fun building old hardware to the ultimate spec it could ever support. Now if I could only find a vid card that fit Ultrabay.
4700mq is replaceable. 4700hq would be the soldered variant. You could upgrade to the 4900mq, yes, but it will only be about 10% faster, and the price premium is significant on those top of the line (for that socket) chips.
 
Lenovo usually locks the wi-fi chips so would be tough to upgrade that. I hate they do that. HP does it too.
 
Lenovo usually locks the wi-fi chips so would be tough to upgrade that. I hate they do that. HP does it too.

What do you mean locks the wifi chips? I just got a 2019 HP Probook 430 G6 and swapped out the Realtek wifi for an Intel one without any issue.
 
What do you mean locks the wifi chips? I just got a 2019 HP Probook 430 G6 and swapped out the Realtek wifi for an Intel one without any issue.

The bios has a whitelist of cards that it will accept, usually the ones that are options for that particular model. I just tried upgrading the crappy Broadcom wireless chip in a 2015 HP Envy to a modern Intel chip with AC and Bluetooth 5.0, and it would not let me boot. I have to get an older Intel card that was an option for that model to make it work. There used to be a forum full of people that would mod the bios, removing the whitelist, but that seems to have mostly died down.
 
The bios has a whitelist of cards that it will accept, usually the ones that are options for that particular model. I just tried upgrading the crappy Broadcom wireless chip in a 2015 HP Envy to a modern Intel chip with AC and Bluetooth 5.0, and it would not let me boot. I have to get an older Intel card that was an option for that model to make it work. There used to be a forum full of people that would mod the bios, removing the whitelist, but that seems to have mostly died down.

Shows what I know. I turned off secure boot though maybe that has something to do with it also.
 
Shows what I know. I turned off secure boot though maybe that has something to do with it also.

Most people don't bother upgrading their laptops, so information isn't widely known. I got this laptop for free so I don't mind spending a few bucks to upgrade it. Why my uncle chose to get the quad-core with integrated graphics and 768p screen instead of the dual core with discrete graphics and 1080p screen for his son to game on is beyond me though, rofl.
 
Just posted a WTB 4900MQ thread. Let me know if you know anyone that has one or has one in a dead laptop. The laugh is I can buy a laptop with one for a couple hundred.
 
Ended up with 16gig, an SSD, and removed all crapware. It will play Witcher 3 but my wife liked the keyboard so much it is now her laptop and she doesn't game. Now to go looking for something else for me. Thanks for all the answers and there were absolutely NO 4900 MQ cpus to be had. There is a Whitelist for the bios but you have to have a mod bios to bypass and can end up with fan control issues. That was fun...on to the next one.
 
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