Dane.Kouttron

Upgrading a Laptop Processor

Quick Project:  Upgrading A Dell 8200 Processor

What? :The hood ornament
Chances are if you still have a dell inspiron 8200 its out of warranty anyway, so why not upgrade the processor for 15 dollars worth of parts? The pentum 4m series isnt hard to come by interms of scrap parts.

    [This project is available in a pdf for easy printing/ viewing]
Part 1: Getting The Goods
Part Site Cost
New processor (pentium4 m, sl65cj) 1.8ghz ebay/a friend/ a parts laptop ~$15
Torx screwdriver
Thermal compond

1: opening up. here's the bottom of the laptop. yep, its a beast. 2 marked (phillips) screws go strait through to the keyboard.

2: The procrssor's: im upgrading from 1.6 to 1.8 Ghz. note that both cpu's are rates at 35Watts, so there is no need to add in any extra thermal systems. also, they are from the same series and only differ in multiplier configuration.
3.
After removing the underside screws, the keyboard slides out (from the lcd side first). this reveals the mainboard innards as well as the processor and socket. in this photo i had allready removed the heatsink.

4: heatsink The heatsink removes with 2 torx screws and slides out of the way.

5. Locking in the processor The processor only fits in in one direction. mine came from a friend who literally put it in an envelope and mailed it, so i had to straiten some pins. make sure everything lines up
6. Rebuild everyting and test everything out. remember to use thermal compound at the processor heatsink interface. Run cpu-z to see the difference

 

Results:
Cpu-Z results:
1.6Ghz=
1.8Ghz=


This article as a pdf file (easy for printing)

Dane.Kouttron
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 
Electrical & Electrical Power
631.978.1650

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