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Inspiron 1520 CPU & Wireless Upgrades

Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Greendisease, Jul 22, 2008.

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Okay... I am pretty new to all of this upgrading stuff, but smart enough to do most of it myself. I initially had a Dell 1505, and whenit went bye bye, Dell replaced it with a 1520 under warranty...

They sent it with Vista which I did not want, so to compensate after my 2 months of complaining they upgraded almost every component in the system for me. Hence, leaving me with the system below....

I want to upgrade the processor, but before I do, is it worth it??? It's currently running the Core Duo 1.66, but I am not sure how much better I can go, and when do I have to say "Is 0.15 ghz more worth X $$$ ?"

Also, am I able to put the Intel 4965AGN in place of my existing wireless? It currently has the 3945ABG. However, I am streaming media around the house, and from recent research, it seems that N is a big plus for this...

Finally... do the 1GB Turbo Memory cards really help performance? I have read mixed reviews on them...

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am really new to the clocking, performance diagnosis, etc, but as of right now, I only have XP installed as I just got the 320gb drive....

Greendisease, Jul 22, 2008

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Andy Notebook Prophet

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You sure you have a Core Duo or is it a typo..?? I guess its a typo..

Download CPUz and upload all its info....

If it is the PM965, then theretically, you should be able to go upto the T9500, and maybe the X9000 too.
The T8300 and the T9300, have the best bang for the buck.... (A BIOS upgrade might be required before the upgrade)

You can use RMClock to monitor the CPU usage and temperature, and Orthos to stress the CPU to diagnose any problems with it....and RivaTuner to play around with your grafix card....You can also try out some HDD Diagnostic Tools from here....and use HD Tune for a synthetic benchmark of your HDD..!!
You can read about Turbo Memory here....
And read this thread....It gives some info about Wireless N upgrade, and you may have to read your model's service manual, and see if the two cards have a similar form factor - and to get wireless N speeds, you will need a wireless N router too..!!

Andy, Jul 22, 2008

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First of all, thank you for the quick reply... I knew just from the recent browsing on here that this site is a awealth of knowledge...

After running CPUZ, I dropped the dump at the end of the email...

Figured it was easier to dump it here rather than try to type it all out... hope i did it right Like I said... I'm still kind of a noob at all this diagnostic stuff...

Anyhow, any tips are appreciated... think I'll steer clear of the turbo memory for now.... and await suggestions for the processor...

As far as N - there is actually a slot for it from what I was told???

<html><head><title>CPU-Z 1.46 HTML report file</title></head><body bgcolor=FFFFFF>

CPU-Z 1.46 report file

Processor(s) &nbsp

Number of processors 1

Number of cores 2 per processor

Number of threads 2 per processor

Name Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo T5500

Code Name Merom

Specification Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5450 @ 1.66GHz

Package Socket P (478)

Family/Model/Stepping 6.F.D

Extended Family/Model 6.F

Core Stepping M0

Technology 65 nm

Core Speed 997.2 MHz

Multiplier x Bus speed 6.0 x 166.2 MHz

Rated Bus speed 664.8 MHz

Stock frequency 1666 MHz

Instruction sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, EM64T

L1 Data cache (per processor) 2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size

L1 Instruction cache (per processor) 2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size

L2 cache (per processor) 2048 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size

Chipset & Memory &nbsp

Northbridge Intel PM965 rev. C0

Southbridge Intel 82801HBM (ICH8-ME) rev. 02

Graphic Interface PCI-Express

PCI-E Link Width x16

PCI-E Max Link Width x16

Memory Type DDR2

Memory Size 4096 MBytes

Memory Frequency 332.4 MHz (1:2)

CAS# Latency (tCL) 5.0 clocks

RAS# to CAS# (tRCD) 5 clocks

RAS# Precharge (tRP) 5 clocks

Cycle Time (tRAS) 15 clocks

System &nbsp

System Manufacturer Dell Inc.

System Name Inspiron 1520

System S/N 39QNLF1

Mainboard Vendor Dell Inc.

Mainboard Model 0KY768

BIOS Vendor Dell Inc.

BIOS Version A09

BIOS Date 07/11/2008

Memory SPD &nbsp

Module 1 DDR2, PC2-5300 (333 MHz), 2048 MBytes, Hyundai Electronics

Module 2 DDR2, PC2-5300 (333 MHz), 2048 MBytes, Samsung

Software &nbsp

Windows Version Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition Professional Service Pack 3 (Build 2600) 

DirectX Version 9.0c

</body></html>

Last edited by a moderator: May 12, 2015

Greendisease, Jul 22, 2008

Andy Notebook Prophet

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You can upgrade to a T7500, which will be definitely supported..!!

Since you already have the A09 BIOS, you can try out the T8300 and the T9300, which have a good cost : performance ratio....and the penryn support was added starting from the A07 BIOS revision..!!
My D630 supported the X9000 with the A09 BIOS revision and I am pretty sure yours would too.. But I wouldn't advise it..!!

Go for the T8300 or the T9300 as a CPU upgrade, or a T7500 if you want to play real safe..

I am not sure about the N-wireless upgrade..

Andy, Jul 22, 2008

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Greendisease Newbie

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Thanks man - so glad i found this site - you guys are great!

Greendisease, Jul 23, 2008

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Inspiron 1520 CPU & Wireless Upgrades

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Andy Notebook Prophet

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Andy Notebook Prophet

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