Upgrade CPU in Celeron M laptop?

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skyline889

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I got a free Acer 3690-2970 from my sister that I had originally planned to use like a netbook but it's 512mb ram and Celeron M 520 are really too slow for me so I wanted to do some light upgrades. From what I've read I could swap in up to a T7600 into this laptop but the T5200/5300 offer the most bang for the buck performance, what do you guys think? The T7600 is way more than I need for this laptop since I just need it to word process, run Vista smoothly, and play occasional DIVX movies and music, but would the T5200 be satisfactory? Also what does replacing the cpu in a laptop entail? I've never cracked open a laptop other than to replace a hard drive so is it any more difficult than swapping a desktop cpu out?

The other thing I wanted to do was upgrade the ram to 2gb. That's pretty straight forward but I was wondering if this ram would be ok (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148237)? I was planning on installing two dimms but wasn't sure if this ram was any good, as it's substantially cheaper than Crucial's other laptop ram. Sorry for all the questions, I'm a noob to mobile pcs. :D
 
is it in fact an asus? some google-foo (at least my weak google skills) shows that model number to be an acer.
 
Before upgrading the CPU, you should upgrade the RAM because for your basic tasks the Celeron M should be perfectly fine. Also, I'd jump straight to 4GB if possible since it only costs around $40 (2GB is about $25 - so double the memory for $15 more).

EDIT: You might want to borrow someone's 2GBx2 SODIMMs before you order (just so you know it can handle that amount of RAM)
 
Yeah I would definitely go 4GB but I read the manual and it said my model only supported a max of 2GB and that only the step-up supported 4GB.Thanks for the tip though, I'll try upgrading the ram before I invest in a new cpu! Just out of curiosity, would the T5200 blow the 520 out of the water? I've found a few on eBay for like $60 so I wouldn't mind paying the extra if it would be better.
 
I'm running a T5270 (1.4GHz/800MHz FSB) currently in my laptop and FWIW it does fine for my basic tasks, but I've also run a Celeron M in a similar laptop and it was fine as well. Since you're running Vista and I think that laptop only has 512MB stock, that is your main problem, not the CPU. 2GB will be 4 times of your current setup and it will be much better (I'm guessing you're running Vista Ultimate since you probably got it cheap via your college). Disable unneccessary processes you don't use/need.

Also, try a firmware/BIOS update. It might lift that memory cap, not sure though.

EDIT: I'm not saying a CPU upgrade is bad, I'm just saying for basic tasks it may not be worth it.
 
450 said:
I'm running a T5270 (1.4GHz/800MHz FSB) currently in my laptop and FWIW it does fine for my basic tasks, but I've also run a Celeron M in a similar laptop and it was fine as well. Since you're running Vista and I think that laptop only has 512MB stock, that is your main problem, not the CPU. 2GB will be 4 times of your current setup and it will be much better (I'm guessing you're running Vista Ultimate since you probably got it cheap via your college). Disable unneccessary processes you don't use/need.

Also, try a firmware/BIOS update. It might lift that memory cap, not sure though.

EDIT: I'm not saying a CPU upgrade is bad, I'm just saying for basic tasks it may not be worth it.
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I'm running the stock Vista Basic right now. I have a copy of Vista Business and Ultimate as well but I wasn't sure if the pc would run it. I don't really need the features of Ultimate so I might just leave it with Basic but I was also considering possibly turning this into a Hackintosh. :eek:
 
Here is the intel spec sheet on the chipset for that comp.

http://www.intel.com/Products/Notebook/Chipsets/943GML/943GML-overview.htm

Not a word in there about dual core support, just that its optimized for the celeron. I also belive its a socket M yonah based chip, which would limit you to T2XXX assuming the bios would reconize dual core chips.

run cpuz and see if it is in fact a yonah based chip and post back the results.
 
I have a T5200 in my Dell e1705 and it does all those things you mentioned just fine. I just purchased a T7600 though to upgrade it, since I play a lot of games, encode video files, and other CPU extensive things.
 
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