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    W3J, Merom, and RMclock

    Discussion in 'Asus' started by P A U L, Aug 11, 2008.

  1. P A U L

    P A U L Notebook Consultant

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    so, i opened a new thread because all the other ones i found were 2 years old and are closed threads.

    my laptop is currently on BIOS v211 on Vista Home Premium (x86)

    will this allow me to upgrade to a Merom processor without compatiblity issues?


    also, if i do put in a Merom, will it be worth my time to undervolt the CPU to try and extend the battery life? or is Merom built in a manner that'll use energy sparingly well on its own?

    i tried to undervolt my current CPU in the past, but somebody had mentioned it is not worth it because of the model (Core 2 T5500).
     
  2. D3X

    D3X the robo know it all

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    I don't see why a merom won't work as long as it supports it. The W3J is the Napa chipset, just look for the latest bios and you should be fine.

    Undervolting is always a good option for any notebook, the benefits are a win/win situation all around as long as it's fully stable. Actually, any CPU for that matter is worth undervolting, so it doesn't matter. I do suggest running Prime95 or Orthos for stability testing to prevent any BSOD or any quirkiness from undervolting too low.
     
  3. P A U L

    P A U L Notebook Consultant

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    do you know if Santa Rosa would work in my laptop?

    according to some threads from 2007, it won't because the pin count is different?

    but i've gotten confused as i read more old threads, partially due to all these weird "codenames" for the chips, and people saying Santa Rosa won't work, while another thread says, Merom is Santa Rosa, and another says, W3J will begin to be shipped with Merom to replace the regular Core 2 Duo I currently have.
     
  4. E.B.E.

    E.B.E. NBR Procrastinator

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    What we usually call "Santa Rosa" (T7{odd}XX series of processors) and later won't work in a Merom notebook.

    Undervolting won't save much batt life because the voltage on the lowest multiplier is locked. It will save heat when the processor is pushed, though, so it' still win-win. :)
     
  5. D3X

    D3X the robo know it all

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    Ok you are getting way too confused with the codenames for both the processor and the chipset/platform.

    Yonah, Merom, Penryn are processor CPU codenames.

    Napa, Santa Rosa, Montevina are chipset/platform/motherboard codenames.

    The reason you are getting confused is that each platform also had processor refreshes.

    Here is a simple breakdown:


    The Napa platform initially came with the Yonah processor, then later refreshed with the Merom processor.

    The Santa Rosa platform initially came with the Merom processor, then later refreshed with the Penryn processor.

    The latest Montevina initially come with the Penryn processor, will be later refreshed with the Nehalem processor.


    The W3J uses the Napa platform. So the highest possible processors that it can support are the Meroms with 667mhz FSB http://www.intel.com/distributed/modules/sitelets/centrinoduo_spec.htm. The highest available processor your notebook would support is the T7600 (2.33Ghz).
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 8, 2015
  6. P A U L

    P A U L Notebook Consultant

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    cool, thanks for that info