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    HP Pavillion DV6-3032TX CPU Upgrade

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Marksman30k, Jul 17, 2014.

  1. Marksman30k

    Marksman30k Notebook Deity

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    OK
    I've just finished Laptop surgery, patient is alive and well.
    For those that have a HP DV6-3032Tx family (i.e. 3xxx series), I can confirm the following processors are compatible with the latest BIOS:
    i3-390m
    i5-520m
    i5-540m
    i7-620m
    i7-720QM
    i7-740QM

    Anything else causes the laptop to blackscreen on startup.

    HP's microcode support is severely lacking. I just tried an i5-480m and it didn't work.
    If you are going for a CPU upgrade, the i3-390m is the best bang for buck, it's going on ebay for about $40 shipped. the i5-540m is probably the most powerful version that doesn't break the bank, it retails for about $60 shipped. Don't bother with the 620m or the quadcores, they are both expensive (in the case of the 620m) and run very very hot relative to the speed (the quadcores).

    I'm in the process of modding the BIOS to remove the quadcore microcodes to free up space for additional i5 Microcodes.
     
    Marksman30k, Jul 17, 2014
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  2. saturnotaku

    saturnotaku Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Not surprising considering the fact that they whitelist WiFi cards, severely limiting upgrade options.
     
    saturnotaku, Jul 17, 2014
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  3. Marksman30k

    Marksman30k Notebook Deity

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    I suppose the same could be said for all other OEMs (except maybe Clevo, Alienware or maybe Dell) since the CPU upgrade shouldn't even be attempted in the first place. Though of the big OEMs, ASUS seems to have the best CPU support. I was surprised my ASUS N61JQ was able to run the i7-920XM, my K43 was also never supposed to support anything above i3s but the i5-480m was perfectly usable.
    I guess the best indicator of CPU upgradeability is how varied are the SKUs of the same base design since they tend to use the same BIOS across that range.
     
    Marksman30k, Jul 17, 2014
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  4. Tsunade_Hime

    Tsunade_Hime such bacon. wow

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    Only HP and Lenovo whitelist WLAN cards. Dell, Acer/Gateway/eMachines, ASUS I haven't really found are super picky about upgrades.
     
    Tsunade_Hime, Jul 17, 2014
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  5. Marksman30k

    Marksman30k Notebook Deity

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    Just an update, Laptop randomly died after flashing modded BIOS. After trawling the darkest bowels of the internet, I've discovered the issue is the Modded-BIOS which enables GPU switching as default for some reason, recovery is impossible because the BIOS 512K recovery EEPROM is totally bananas (i.e. it has never worked, thats extremely worrying if this is the standard of HP engineering)

    Ordered a new 4Mb Main BIOS EEPROM and see how it goes.
     
    Marksman30k, Jul 31, 2014
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