Upgrade an Inspiron 1150?

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blindrocket

Gawd
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Jan 14, 2001
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I have a Dell Inspiron 1150 with a Celeron 2.4 Ghz (I believe that's the speed, it's not here with me ATM) and I was curious if I could switch out the CPU for a P4 - desktop or mobile.

It also has a 20 Gb HDD and I want to replace that, will any laptop HDD work within these or do I have to watch what I buy?

Also, I have one stick of 512 Mb memory and want to get another 512 Mb stick, what would you suggest I pair it with? I havent' taken it out to look at it yet, perhaps it is labeled to make it easier on me.

Thanks for any help!
 
Nope, everyone was waiting on me.

You can put a Desktop P4 in the system, but you might have to flash the BIOS to a 51xx in order for it to POST properly (the 51xx is the same chassis as the 1150).

You can put any 2.5" notebook drive in the 1150. You just have to take the Dell cage off the original drive as well as pull the Edge connector off the drive.

As for memory, buy whatever name brand you want. PCs are less picky about the type and brand of RAM these days.
 
I think I have done that upgrade for a friend before when the chip in it messed up. Yea that system should work with any normal(read not sata) laptop drive and should take a desktop p4 chip. If I am not mistaken that unit will also work with a Pentium 4-M chip as well. Just make sure it is a 400 fsb chip or a 533 fsb chip(If I remember right that unit will work with a 533 fsb but ask evil). O yea it should be noted that when we are saying yes we mean the older p4 chips and not the prescott as that unit should be too old to support one of them. Pretty much evil works on the more then I do so he would be better to back up what I am saying. I work on toshiba, hp, apple, toshbia(I say it a second time as I see that many fail) most of the time.
 
I wouldn't go with a Pentium 4m just for the simple fact that they don't have the Integrated Heat Spreader on them, and the heatsink in the 1150 is designed for a CPU that has the IHS.

As for the video card. It's been a while since I've worked on an 1150 (and Dell uses the same service manual for the 11xx and 51xx notebooks) but I don't see why you couldn't put the best video card from a 51xx in the system. Look for my long answer in the Notebook FAQ at the top of the forum for more in-depth answer to that question.
 
I upgraded my Inspiron 1150/Celeron 2.6GHz to a Mobile Pentium 4 2.8GHz/533MHz FSB (sSpec SL725) from ebay for $60. It worked great and was well worth the upgrade.

As a bonus, I put the Celeron 2.6GHz in my sister's old Inspiron 1100 which had a Celeron 2.0GHz in it originally . :D

The only disappointing thing is that the 1150 doesn't support PC2700 memory, even with a 533MHz FSB CPU. The 5150 does support PC2700 memory. :(
 
Thanks for the info guys!

pxc, did you have to flash the BIOS? And what did you do about the Heat Spreader issue Mr. Evil brought up?

Evil, I'll check out your thread, thanks!

It would be very cool to upgrade the CPU, RAM, HDD, and Video Card. Damn, it's almost like owning a desktop, I didn't know I could even up the video on it.

EDIT:
And any idea what the best video card is I can put in this? Right now it has an Intel Extreme Graphics 2 82852/82855 GM/GME 6.14.10.3889
 
blindrocket said:
Thanks for the info guys!

pxc, did you have to flash the BIOS? And what did you do about the Heat Spreader issue Mr. Evil brought up?
Click to expand...
No BIOS flash is necesasary. The sSpec I listed has a heatspreader on it. Only the P4-M/P-M don't have heatspreaders.

The "Mobile Pentium 4" (not the similarly named "Mobile Pentium 4-M"/"Pentium 4-M") has a heatspreader on it. I really recommend eBay for the CPU. The chips are dirt cheap vs what a boxed mobile processor costs.
 
Thanks a lot pxc, I think I found one on ebay for 89.99 before shipping.

And I did a search on Dell and I think these were the video cards available for the 51xx.

Video Card List


Item # Part Description General Description
320-0716 CRD,GRPHC,32MEGB,,ATI,M9,5150 ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9000
320-0717 CRD,GRPHC,64MEGB,,ATI,M9,5150 ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9000
320-1226 CRD,GRPHC,NVIDIA,32M,NV34,5150 nVidia GeForce FX Go5200
320-1227 CRD,GRPHC,NVIDIA,64M,NV34,5150 nVidia GeForce FX Go5200
 
pxc said:
No BIOS flash is necesasary. The sSpec I listed has a heatspreader on it. Only the P4-M/P-M don't have heatspreaders.

The "Mobile Pentium 4" (not the similarly named "Mobile Pentium 4-M"/"Pentium 4-M") has a heatspreader on it. I really recommend eBay for the CPU. The chips are dirt cheap vs what a boxed mobile processor costs.
Click to expand...
Does that "Mobile" CPU have speedstep on it? If it doesn't it's not a Pentium 4m, it's a Desktop CPU that the eBay idiots pulled from a Laptop.
 
If I remeber right the Mobile p4 has a heatspreader. The P4 mobile chip does not. They are different chips. It was just bad marketing from intel.
 
Mr_Evil said:
Does that "Mobile" CPU have speedstep on it? If it doesn't it's not a Pentium 4m, it's a Desktop CPU that the eBay idiots pulled from a Laptop.
Click to expand...
I know the difference between a desktop P4, a Mobile P4 and a P4-M. I thought I stressed it twice above. It's a "Mobile Pentium 4" with a heatspreader. I even gave the sSpec for the chip. :p http://processorfinder.intel.com/scripts/details.asp?sSpec=SL725

The "Mobile Pentium 4" is distinct from the "Pentium 4-M": http://www.intel.com/products/processor/mobilepentium4/index.htm and http://www.intel.com/products/processor/pentium4-m/index.htm

I don't think that P4-M chips work in the 1150, nevermind the lack of a heatspreader. The P4-M uses the Mobile 845 chipset, the Mobile P4s use the 852 chipsets. BIOS support would probably be a problem, and the chipset wouldn't support the finer grained power management even if the CPU got through POST.
 
blindrocket said:
Is this the CPU that I need?
Click to expand...
Yep. The title is wrong though. It shouldn't say -M in the part name since the SL725 is a "Mobile Pentium 4."

It's really not hard to upgrade the CPU. At least look at the 1150 service manual before paying someone. http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins1150/sm/index.htm

The quick instructions:
1. pop off the plastic bezel that has the power switch on it
2. remove 4 keyboard screws
3. remove 4 heatsink screws and the fan cable
4. twist a screw to remove the old CPU

It's a 10 minute job at most.
 
Thanks a lot for the reply, pxc.

Do you think I should bite on it costing $90 or should I hold off a bit longer until I can snag one for around $60? Or have prices inflated to a point of no return?
Thanks.

Also, I'm running a desktop Celeron right now, and when I'm actually doing something on my lappy I have about an hours worth of battery life, will going to a mobile chip solve all of my problems or should I get a higher capacity battery too?

Again, and I'm sorry for all of the questions but how easy is it to swap HDDs and Optical Drives? I'm not a n00b to PCs, I've built several myself, but laptops are totally new to me.

Thanks again everyone.
 
Most are going for $80-$90 including shipping from the completed history. The poorly listed ones like this: http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Intel-Penti...ryZ14293QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem might close lower. If you do go for that one, only place a bid right before it closes (i usually do 10-20 seconds). There's ZERO point to bidding right now. It just pushes the price up unnecessarily. :p

Speedstep will save some power, but these "Mobile P4" processors still use a lot more power than a P4-M or P-M. I wouldn't expect any battery life miracles. Just 1 hour seems like pretty heavy use. My sister still has an 1100 and that gets around 2h:15m with a Celeron 2.6GHz from my old 1150.
 
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