CPU Upgrade

GA² - Good Answer and Good Advice (Bondy always seems to have a fairly rudimentary computer question for us here when there is a raft of info at his Googletips).

I actually googled it! Its just I couldn't actually find anything that said that it was better to go for an older chip which has better specs.

P4 chips always run hotter too. P4 945 3.0 is sweet but the P4 960 3.4 rules.

I would make sure your laptop's motherboard can except those upgrade options. Your bios would for sure have to be upgraded & be compatible.

Steve

Check www.Intel.com. First you need to know what CPU you got in your laptop. Intel.com will have tools to do that. Then you'll need to find one compatible. You'll want to get one for laptop due to power usage. A desktop CPU will cut down your run time on battery.

There are a lot more different then clock rate between a Celeron and Pentium CPU. Again www.Intel.com will have everything.

The other problem will be taking the CPU out and reinstall it. Laptop and designed not to be serviced by user. If you've never taken a laptop apart before, don't even try unless you don't mind buying a new one. CPU is difficult to remove in laptop. You'll need to pull the heatsink off with force. Sometime it'll pull the CPU out since they're glued together. It'll be easier to remove when CPU is still hot after use. You'll need heat transfer compound between CPU and heatsink. You need to buy some since it doesn't come on the CPU.

GA from me.

The first one here with knowledge AND common sense!! Well done.

I have a celeron D 1.4GHz. Does the desktop one also work at a hotter temperature? A desktop CPU won't cut down my battery life considerably - at the moment it is only about 3 mins!

The battery is at best defective......probably due to being severely overcharged (connected to the mains) most of its life. Fatal.

Desktop CPUs generally use more power than similar laptop CPUs.....

I almost always recommend replacing the laptop as a system. Save yourself a lot of potential problems. The chipsets are as important as the cpu. A year makes a lot of difference in performance improvements. Eg. drive speed amd size, video, Ram speed and size, power consumption. Most computer manufacturers are making great deals now. Just watch out for closeouts. By the way, stay away from celerons too.

GA from me.

Makes sense.....and fits in with my infos.....

Many people buy a Laptop for the completely wrong reasons, working at home for example. A normal PC is far better for such work, it is usually twice as fast for the same money, with more storage AND can be upgraded bit by bit when needed......

A Laptop is designed for portable use, usually with no mains connection. This it does well....

As I mentioned earlier, Laptop batteries should not be charged all the time, it ruins the battery, usually before it is 2 years old.....either pull out the mains cable when the charge reaches 100% and replace it at 10% or remove the battery when at home/mains connected.....

I have never found a Laptop that didn't overcharge when always connected to the mains, even expensive ones.....on my Toshiba I can remove and replace the battery while running with no problems at all......that may not be true for all though.....