CPU upgrade for Acer 5100 notebook?

[Lenny]

My Acer 5100 notebook currently has a AMD Turion 64 Mobile MK-36 2.0 Ghz. If possible (and depending on price) I'd like to upgrade to a dual core X2.

Can I just remove the old CPU and drop an X2 in there like I would on a desktop PC? How do I know if the BIOS will recognize a dual core CPU? Is it difficult to get at the CPU socket in a notebook? Is there a lot of complicated disassembly? You can tell I've never attempted such an upgrade in a notebook before.

Is it correct that the MK-36 is socket S1 ? If true then I think these are my only choices? Seems somewhat expensive for a dual core of those speeds.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...rion%2064%20X2

[Lenny]

Does anyone have any advice? Has anyone performed a similar CPU upgrade in a laptop?

[JustinC939]

Does anyone have any advice? Has anyone performed a similar CPU upgrade in a laptop?

Upgrading CPUs in laptops is hit and miss like OEM desktops.
If there is a model of your laptop that has/had an X2, than it may be possible with a BIOS flash.
In my expirience with upgrading laptop CPUs is that their mobos will only take CPUs of the same BUS speed. Example is my D610 Latitude; it originally had a 1.6GHz Pentium M, and I replaced it with a 1.83.GHz Pentium M. Granted that's just going from single core to single core, but you get the idea.

But if you decide to try it,I'd recommend that you pull your lappy apart to make sure your CPU isn't embedded (like tthe GPU on a video card), and if it's not embedded, than get one that runs at the same bus and simliar/or same clock speed, and see it works, and sees it as a Dual core CPU.
If it doesn't work, resell it on eBay.

[Lenny]

Thanks for the info!

[Lenny]

I did some additional research and it looks like there are dual core X2 models of the Acer Aspire 5100 series. See here. Specifically mentioned - "The AMD Turion™ 64 X2 processor (TL-50/TL-52/TL-56/TL-60) delivers 64-bit performance ...". So I think that increases the chances of the BIOS in my single core model supporting dual cores CPUs although I can't be certain.

Regarding socket vs embedded CPU I took the cover off my laptop and looked around. I found the CPU socket labeled "Socket S1".

Here are some pics. The CPU socket is in the center of the pics at the end of the heat pipe which is held down by the 4 screws. There appears to be another chip to the right of the CPU and below the fan. I'm not sure what that is it seems like that entire heat pipe assembly would need to lift up to get the CPU out of the socket.







Here are some closeups of the CPU from a side angle view. Without actually removing the heat pipe to expose the CPU I wanted to verify that in fact it was a socket CPU. It looks like it is to me but take a look at these pics and let me know if you agree.





So would you agree that the evidence is suggesting that I can replace the current 2.0 Ghz MK-36 single core CPU with a dual core 1.6-2.0 Ghz X2 (TL-50/52/56/60) ?

Looking under the hood of the laptop the CPU exchange looks easier than I thought it would. I need to remove that heat pipe assembly and possibly apply some new thermal compound (hopefully the current stuff isn't thermal adhesive). Am I missing anything?

Btw, I just upgraded the memory in the laptop from 1.5 to 3.0 GB. Vista Basic finally runs like XP did with 1.5 GB

[Lenny]

Well I guess I'll just buy a cheap socket S1 dual core X2 on ebay and give it a try. Seems fairly easy to find a 1.8 Ghz X2 for around $30. The 2.0 Ghz X2's are much more expensive for some reason.

[Lenny]

I found a 2.0 Ghz X2 on ebay for $45 shipped. I installed it tonight. The install was easier than I thought.

The good news is the BIOS recognized it as did Vista so I've got a dual core laptop now!

The bad news is I still get sometimes choppy playback of full screen HD video streamed from the net. That's the main reason I wanted to upgrade the CPU. I use the Lost episodes on abc.com as my benchmark. I have no trouble playing the Lost episodes on my desktop PC which is an AMD 2.6 Ghz dual core. I realize that's a 600 Mhz difference but I was expecting the dual core in the laptop to be enough. Is the video card a factor? Is any sort of hardware video acceleration involved? The laptop has an ATI Radeon Xpress 1100 while the deskop has a 7600GT.

I'm going to try a few other things before I give up like free up space on the hard drive & defrag and wire connect to my home network (my initial tests were over wireless).

[Lenny]

I decided to try to overclock the new dual core in the laptop so I downloaded ClockGen. A google search later and I had the correct PLU clock. Long story short, it goes from 2.0 to 2.3 easily but locks up at 2.4 Ghz.

The really bad news is that after the 2.4 lock up chkdsk ran and there were tons of errors on my Vista partition. Vista Basic 32 bit came installed on the laptop and is on C: and I later partitioned and installed XP Home on D: because I didn't like all the Vista compatibility problems and how much RAM it needed to run well. For over a year I exclusively used XP. But eventually I added more memory and started using Vista. But after the 2.4 crash and chkdsk errors it appears the Vista partition is hosed as Vista won't boot any longer (early blue screen) so until I can figure that out I'm back to using XP which isn't really a problem anyway since I still prefer it over Vista.

The good news is that at 2.3 Ghz and running XP (not sure if XP helps) I can finally stream those HD Lost episodes full screen at 30 fps with minimal choppiness. Hulu isn't quite there. Only getting 20 fps and it's more frequently choppy. This is running the laptop resolution at 1920x1080 which is the native resolution of my 61" Samsung TV.

So overall I'm fairly pleased with this upgrade and overclock. It's largely achieved my goal of being able to use the laptop on demand to stream video to the big screen TV without having to bring my desktop PC in the living room every time.

[nickfat]

Hi Lenny gr8 feedback!

Plz tell me which cpu you bought from ebay?

I have an Acer Aspire 3100 board similar to 5100 and i'm looking for a cpu upgrade.

Thnx m8

[Lenny]

Hi Lenny gr8 feedback!

Plz tell me which cpu you bought from ebay?

I have an Acer Aspire 3100 board similar to 5100 and i'm looking for a cpu upgrade.

Thnx m8

I bought a Turion TL-60 2.0 Ghz. I couldn't find anything faster than 2.0.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=140295201218

At $45 buy-it-now with free shipping that seller is a lot lower than others selling the TL-60. I saw one of his old auctions that had already ended so I sent him a ebay message asking if he had any more and he said he would put up a new listing the next day. You might want to do the same to see if has any more.

If you can't find a 2.0 the 1.8's seem readily available and cheaper too.

[nickfat]

Can you post your m/b info?

[Lenny]

Can you post your m/b info?

What do you mean?

[nickfat]

What do you mean?

i mean m/b chipset & BIOS version

[jp197]

To be honest, I'm a bit surprised that you'd need much of anything to stream simple video from the net. If you are not seeing performance gains out of a switch from single-core to dual-core, I would then think that it is likely more dependent on your GPU. Perhaps an update of the drivers would improve the smoothness of playback? Just seems odd to me as I stream nearly anything from my laptop which was the cheapest one I could find a couple years ago with a 1.7 Celeron using the GMA950 Intel video chipset. Just seems very, very odd that you'd have any trouble streaming video... at least to me.

[Lenny]

To be honest, I'm a bit surprised that you'd need much of anything to stream simple video from the net. If you are not seeing performance gains out of a switch from single-core to dual-core, I would then think that it is likely more dependent on your GPU. Perhaps an update of the drivers would improve the smoothness of playback? Just seems odd to me as I stream nearly anything from my laptop which was the cheapest one I could find a couple years ago with a 1.7 Celeron using the GMA950 Intel video chipset. Just seems very, very odd that you'd have any trouble streaming video... at least to me.

Have you tried the Hulu HD videos or anything HD from abc.com running full screen? I can run videos in a window no problem. It's the full screen HD content which seems like the challenge. Like I said though the dual core has made a difference. Also connecting directly to my home network over wire rather than wireless helped as well. The laptop video is ATI 1100 express. The abc.com HD content runs full screen 30 fps now so I'm pleased with that. I have to investigate Hulu further to see if I'm only getting 20 fps because of CPU limitations or something else like bandwidth.