Replace laptop CPU?

I bought this http://www.amazon.com/Gateway-NV55S03u-15-6-Inch-Laptop-Ebony/dp/B0051OLCH0

I already replaced the Atheros wifi adapter because the thing wasn't working very well, it constantly had interference and would lower speed. The Intel 5300 is far superior now and gets steady download speeds.

I was wondering if I can open the damn thing up, remove the processor that's the A4 and replace it with an A8 but still use the stock heatsink, fan system it has. What do you guys think? I've never taken a laptop apart before but I think I could. I would have bought this one had it been available at the time

http://www.amazon.com/Gateway-NV55S04u-15-6-Inch-Laptop-Ebony/dp/B0051OLC4S

 

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I couldn't find any information online on whether that motherboard will support an A8-3500. Personally, I don't think the upgrade is worth the $150 and the trouble...and you might run into some heat issues. You will probably only see a minor improvement in performance, if any at all. I have some experience with working on Gateway laptops, but not with the newer models. They can be a little difficult to get apart. If you don't have any experience, you might not want to try it.

If you do decide to try, one good trick is to put the screws in a plastic ice cube tray. It lets you keep the groups of screws separated, and helps keep track of the order you took them out.

Considering your track record with destroying computers...I would just save the $150 for you next machine.

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Laptops are notorious for throwing up roadblocks at any attempts to upgrade them. The BIOSs tend to be locked down, to prevent customers from messing about, and generating customer service calls. They don't generally bother to include support for anything other than what it was originally equipped with.

By way of example, I recently rescued an HP laptop from the dumpster. It would power on, but had no display, and no BIOS beep codes. It used a Socket A AMD CPU, and from hard won experience, I recognized the symptoms as a dead CPU. In my junk, I happened to have an XP2500+ mobile CPU. I installed that, and the computer booted up! But; it originally had an XP2400+. The one I installed was slightly faster, and had a 14x multiplier rather than a 13.5x. As a result, it would only run at 1400 MHz (14x100), rather than the intended speed (14x133). The only way to get the bus speed back to what it should be was to buy the correct CPU. Luckily, since this is pretty obsolete stuff, that was only about $9.00 shipped from Ebay.

This is pretty typical of laptops.

 

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Ahh...a man after my own heart!

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If you hunt round online, you'll likely find a blog that someone has done with a blow-by-blow on how to pull that particular laptop model apart. One thing you have to make sure you understand about disassembling laptops, they are fiddly, time consuming and having screws where you'd likely not find them easily.

So if you pull it apart try not to use too much force, anticipate finding screws were you didn't expect (even if you have a list of where the screws are suppose to be), This will save you causing further damage to it.

As for "does stock work?" sounds like you should throw the same question over at the overclockers forums, just when they tell you to use Toothpaste as a cheap heatsink paste, realise that is a technical troll that will just cause your system to fry.

 

This question from a curious observer.....

What is this fascination with 'improving' upon the base model, whatever it happens to be?

If one is going to muck about, why not design and build one's own system from scratch?

That way, presuming one has done their homework, all of the components will be compatibly matched to each other in performance.

I watched hubby built a sophisticated media computer in our kitchen a few years ago. The cost was less than half of buying one and the unit has exactly the features he wants, with the capacity to upgrade or change built into the design.

I'm a computer dummy, so I don't design or build them. I find a user friendly laptop on the shelf, after spending considerable time in comparing their performance with a few on-line 'test' sites. Then I put the extended warranty on it and so far it has worked for me.

 

As a general rule, laptops aren't really designed to be upgraded...you can add some ram to them, but that's about it. Desktops are far easier to upgrade, and sometimes you squeeze a couple more years of use out of an older machine by adding some ram, upgrading the processor, or adding a new video card.

At one time, it was far cheaper to build your own system, than buy a pre-built system (back when computer companies didn't sell systems for less than $1000)...but the price of pre-built systems has come down so much..that's not always the case anymore. It's still cheaper to build a "Ferrari" system yourself..than buy it pre-made...but a plain ole "Chevy" computer in some cases is just cheaper to buy.

 

Thank you, MacGyver, as there is some logic to that perspective and computers have gotten much less expensive to acquire in recent years.

And here I thought that the urge to tweak and customize was one of those largely gender biased genetic things, lol....

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Oh there's that part of it too...just like the guys who spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on their cars, just to knock a tenth of second off their quarter mile times..some computer guys do the same thing to their computers....just for "bragging rights".

 

LOL.....the 'Peacock paradox'.

The application of energy and resources to a circumstance where the observable effect is inversely proportional to the advantage gained.

Unless of course, you are in the company of Peahens, in which case the advantages conferred are subjective to the perception of said females.

"Bragging rights" has long been considered a competitive advantage to the male of our species.

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Nope everything you wrote is 100% correct. "Upgrading" is often a bad idea. Particularly with a name brand machine, with proprietary parts (that won't work if meddled with sometimes).

Even for a "gamer", the only upgrade that usually matters is the video card nowadays. CPU speed affect bottle necking the video card, most enthusiasts know how to overclock a CPU to not need a cpu upgrade either.

 

Upgrading a laptop is very tedious work and the end results are never what you hoped it to be. I upgraded two of my laptops a while back after I was through, the difference in performance wasn't that obvious. And from what you plan to do, I think you might bump into some heating problems as well. I'd stick with the A4.