CPU Upgrade Studio 15

I just finished a CPU upgrade from a T6400 to a P9500, I had my doubts if the CPU would work but works beatifully (2.53ghz 6mb cache). I picked this one because of the 25W (vs 35W) TDP, so that the fans would kick in the least possible, I have an intel G2 SSD and oce you gte used to a quite laptop there is no going back. The upgrade took about an hour and you have to remove the MB to get to the CPU. Just wanted to share

Studio 1555
P9500 4gb ram
ATI4570 512mb 1080P
Intel G2 SSD

 

Where'd you get the CPU from? How much did it cost?

 

Glad to hear it all went well. I also upgraded my 1555's CPU, from a T6400 to a P8600.

I bet you're loving that SSD. I ought to look into one of those.

 

Bought the CPU in Ebay for $150, really wanted one the the "P" for the 25W vs 35W TDP.
The system flies with the SSD

 

That's not a bad price at all for that CPU. I paid $250 last year for my old T9500, which had 35W TDP, 800MHz bus speed, and the only advantage was 2.6GHz speed.

 

Very nice indeed. I'll think about this when I want to upgrade in the future. How much did the SSD cost you?

 

i've noticed that Studios with the Radeon graphics, it's the GPU that will start the fan up. Once that GPU temp hits 51C, it'll spin, then it'll stop at 44C. From what I can tell, the CPU temp doesn't get hot enough (well the GPU will hit 51C before the CPU will hit whatever temp it is that'll start the fan).

 

Just so you know, a P9500 at load is going to generate a lot more heat than a T6400 can. At idle there may be a difference but it would be minute.

 

My P8600 under full load doesn't generate any conspicuously greater amount of heat than my old T6400, or the T9500 before that.

 

That just means you have a good cooling system and these chips don't put out a lot of heat to begin with. I'm just saying that because the OP thinks that by buying a processor that has a lower TDP it will consume less power / generate less heat, but that is just plain wrong. Hopefully he got the E0 stepping.

 

How long does the battery last after upgrades...

 

The machine is definitely spinning up the fan less (with the SSD can definitely hear when it does), under full load I am generally playing agame or encoding so don't really care, but for or stuf like but for surfing or word the fan barely kicks in. I have not tested the battery yet but will do so soon.

In teh end, sold my old cpu for $90 spent $150 in the ne wone and had fun taking it apart so I definitely think its worthwhile

 

So these are socketed CPU's right? I have an Inspiron 1320 and in the maintenance guide it has a part for "replacing CPU" so figured I should be able to do it too. However, I asked a Dell tech and he "guessed" that it was soldered on. In any case, a few questions:

1) Any special issues with the heatsink?
2) Any problems getting the cpu in/out of the socket?
3) What thermal paste did you use?

 

The 1555's CPU is definitely a pin grid array, which fits into Socket P, and I am certain your Inspiron 13 is the same. Your Dell tech obviously doesn't know too much; the majority of Dell laptop processors are of the drop-in pin grid array type. As far as I know, the only ones that use soldered ball grid array connections are the Inspiron Mini netbooks with their Intel Atom processors, and the Adamo with it's ULV processor. Perhaps the upcoming Inspiron Z-series as well.

As for your questions:

1) No issues. It came off without struggle.
2) Same here. I just released the CPU from the socket with a flat head screwdriver to loosen the lock, and pulled it out. My replacement CPU went into the ZIF (zero insertion force) socket easily, and locked in place.
3) I used Arctic Silver 5.

 

Thanks Mastershroom!

My 1320 came with a T6500 but I really wanted a p-anything for the lower TDP and virtualization (so pissed at Intel for changing the spec online AFTER I bought the laptop). Only have a year warranty so I'll probably do this afterwards and upgrade to Windows 7 at the same time. Or maybe before so if I break something I can claim it was their fault!

Now if I can just find a backlit keyboard that fits too I'd really be all set...oh plus an SSD.

 

when i called Dell and asked if my warranty was still in effect even though I had already openedup the laptop and replaced the CPU myself, they said yes as long as nothing was broken after i put the computer back together.

 

Correct. However obviously the parts you've replaced wont be covered and more importantly you might need to wait longer for replacements due to the fact they will have to confirm that any faults occurring are not as a result of your upgrade. You might not though; for example if something is going wrong with your powers supply and you've upgraded your CPU, you'd be fine. If your computer was overheating though, that might be a different story.

Most people don't seem to have any problems though.

 

If you want the backlit keyboard, send an email to fabio_mejia[at]dell.com, and he'll set you up with an order form for the part. It comes out to around $43 including tax and shipping.

 

AH!!...I wish I had the technical know how for changing and upgrading CPUs!!.

 

It's not that hard if you follow the instructions step by step from Dell's online Service Manual. Just make sure you keep track of your screws.

The whole process of taking everything apart, swapping the CPU and putting it all back together takes me about 45 minutes.

 

hey mastershroom cud I hire u for a million bucks?


wait a minute...buying a new better improved laptop wud be cheaper..lol

 

How much time did it take the first time you did it?

 

the first time i did it took me 2 hours lol because i was watching TV at the same time, but after the first time, you rmember the sequence and it takes rougly 45 min all together.

 

The first time I took this thing all the way apart and swapped the CPU, it took around an hour and 15 minutes, accounting for the time to read Dell's online instructions carefully, double check everything, and organize and count all the screws for the first time. Since then it's pretty much been around 45 minutes every time, since I've committed the procedures and screw counts to memory.

 

yeah just make sure you read the guides, the thing with the guides though is that they're not step by step. you read one step, and that step will give you another step, and then another step. it's all in the guide though

 

Yeah, you should definitely use a tabbed browser if you don't already. I had like 8 Firefox tabs open the first time I did it.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong...but I thought the 1320 does not have an option for a backlit keyboard. Or can it use the 14z one?

 

My mistake; I was under the impression that the option did exist but yours just didn't have it. If there is no backlit keyboard, then it's highly unlikely that the 14z keyboard will work.

 

Thanks for confirming, Mastershroom.

If you don't mind, I have another question. Given that I have a T6500 with a 800 MHz FSB and RAM that matches, if I were to upgrade to a P9600 with a 1066 MHz FSB, would/should I change the RAM too? Perhaps it's one of those "stick it in and see what happens" kind of questions!

 

You should keep the RAM the same; the chipset likely doesn't support anything over 800MHz, and besides you can't get DDR2 SDRAM faster that 800MHz anyway I believe, the only way to get faster is to go to DDR3, which is not natively supported by the motherboard.

I wouldn't worry about the RAM frequency matching the CPU frequency, they'll sort themselves out.

 

Correct as usual, Fragilexx.

My 1555 is running a 1066MHz FSB with 800MHz memory. My processor before installing this one was a T9500 with 800MHz FSB. There is no significant benefit to be had from having a 1:1 RAM/FSB ratio.

 

Thanks Fragilexx! Great, direct answer. I appreciate it.

 

I concur, also went to 1066 bus from 800mhz, no need to change anything and no real change on ram performance from going away from th 1/1 ratio

 

OK, follow up question. Given that I have a T6500 in a Socket P and I want to upgrade. I have several options based on my priorities:

1) Lower TDP (currently 35w, prefer 25w or 17w)
2) Intel Virtualization as I plan to run Windows 7 64-bit but need to emulate a Win XP 32-bit environment for some applications
3) Speed must be at least 2 GHz, but that's really fast enough so everything else is just extra.

So I'm thinking of either a P9600, P8800, or a SL9600.

P9600: Fastest compatible chip with 25w TDP but expensive.
P8800: Appears to have same specs as P9600 but only 3MB cache, cheaper.
SL9600: Roughly the same speed as my T6500 but at only 17w TDP (less than half!). But not sure if it is Socket P compatible as I'm seeing conflicting information.

Any suggestions or advice? Thanks in advance

 

Get a P8600. 2.4GHz, Virtualization, and 25W TDP, and pretty inexpensive.

 

I would say its betwen the P8600 and P9600, P9600 will be about 10-15% faster depending on what you use it for. The SL CPUs do not work on the Studio 15

 

Between the P8600 and the P9600, I'm leaning towards the P8600 as it appears to be going for roughly half the price. Plus I'm really not doing all that much intensive stuff that I would notice the cache difference (see requirement #3).

So is it certain that the SL9600 does not work as a drop in replacement? I believe it's a Socket P but not sure what else I need to be "sure." Halving the TDP would be huge!

 

The SL processors are ball-grid array BGA chips that need to be soldered. The Studio 15 has a ZIF processor socket that requires a pin-grid array CPU.

 

Thanks guys! On the look out now for a well price P8600...