CPU UPGRADE IT'S POSSIBLE ?

[idata]

Hi , i have a MSI CX600X-055EU notebooke with an Intel Pentium Dual Core T4200 , my question is can i replace with another processor with a bigger cache and a bigger speed. I've searched some processor and what i found is:

Specifications

T4200: Litography:45nm MaxTDP: 35W Socket: PGA478 PackageSize: 35x35 ProcessingDieSize: 107

T7500: Litography:65nm MaxTDP: 35W Socket: PPGA478;PBGA479 PackageSize: 35x35 ProcessingDieSize: 143

P8600: Litography:45nm MaxTDP: 25W Socket: PGA578 PackageSize: 35x35 ProcessingDieSize: 107

From your point of view , which proccesor do you think would fit better T7500 or P8600 ? Please don't send me to mainboard support forum , cause i've asked there too.

[DSilv11]

This is truly a question for MSI.

The real answer is what ever the hardware and BIOS will support.The T4200 is a R stepping PGA478 socket with a CPUID of 10676 and a 800mhz FSB (and 1m cache at 2.0ghz)The hardware will require a PGA478 chipIt most likely requires 800mhz FSBThe system BIOS may require a cpuid of 10676 Sometimes BIOS relies on cache size BIOS may or may not reconize a core2 or celeron.This page lists all the Penryn core CPU that might, maybe could if your lucky work http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?codeName=26543 http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?codeName=26543You would also need to find a boxed version since I don't think you need a tray of 10 processors.Sorry this does not help you any. There is always a chance that someone on this forum may have tried it at some time, but you would likely get a better responce on that in the general forumI hit MSI web site looking for any kind of manual or documatation and got nothing at all on a CX600.

I even checked Intels find a board that works with this processor and got nothing. http://processormatch.intel.com/CompDB/SearchResult.aspx?ProcNbr=T4200 http://processormatch.intel.com/CompDB/SearchResult.aspx?ProcNbr=T4200 &Lang=en-US

[idata]

At minimum, the replacement CPU will have to be able to fit in the socket (pins & dimension). From what you wrote down, it'd seem your socket is PGA478. I have no idea what this means... I normally run CPU-Z to get the socket name (e.g. Socket: 479 mPGA, which according to Intel is PBGA479). From the processors you listed, it would seem you don't know what socket means. If your processor, T4200, uses PGA478 then how can PPGA478 or PGA578 be compatible? A good question could be what's the difference between PGA478 and PPGA478?

As for FSB, it depends on your motherboard's Chipset (e.g. i945PM. Use CPU-Z for identification). From my readings on various forums, it'd seem that the rated FSB is the maximum achievable FSB. So if you plug in a:

• 667MHz FSB cpu => you'll be under-utilising your system's max potential.
• 900MHz FSB cpu => your system will only be able to use 800 of those.

...but hey i could be wrong, i'm assuming it's same rule as matching RAM DDR speed to FSB. I like testing things but if it were me i'd buy a cpu with same FSB. One thing for sure is don't exceed the 35W rating because this is what your heat-sink & fan were designed to cope with.

Anyway, I searched for mobile processors that fit in socket PGA478 and got this list [http://www.intel.com/support/processors/mobile/pentiumdualcore/sb/CS-029981.htm?wapkw=(PGA478) Intel].

A quick browse revealed that you won't gain much in terms of speed or cache. But if you fancy a 300MHz boost, go for this one [http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Pentium_Dual-Core/Intel-Pentium%20Dual-Core%20Mobile%20T4500%20AW80577GG0521MA.html CPU-WORLD] and get it from [http://computers.shop.ebay.co.uk/PC-Components-/3667/i.html?_nkw=T4500&_catref=1&_fln=1&_trksid=p3286.c0.m282 eBay]. Be sure to check around! Four months ago I upgraded my CPU to 2GHz, just to find a 2.33GHz CPU two days later!! Anyway, so my speed gain was 500Mhz and me like it.

It's sad intel doesn't help us find upgrade paths, e.g. "I have this CPU x, what can I replace it with? Spare me the BIOS & vendor restrictions blabla."

[DSilv11]

When you are asking on an Intel forum about how another vendors product works, you want absolute answers?

Try calling Shell Oil and asking exactly how much worst gas mileage you will get using their regular instead of premium gas in your Subaru.

Shell might runs some numbers on the octaine and tell you ~ 5%

If you ask Subaru, they will be able to tell you that your car will not run on regular so don't try it.

Only the primary vendor knows what can and can not be done.

If you have the money to blow, sure, just buy any processor that will fix and see what happens.

I would estimate the chance as below: ( total guess work here based on my experiences)

1. It may work perfectly. (20% chance)
2. It may work at a reduced functional level, but better than the original (20 % chance)
3. It may work at a functional level less than the one your replacing. (20% chance)
4. It may not boot at all (35% chance)
5. It may fry the new processor or mother board. (5% chance)

Since it is difficult to recognize condition 2 & 3, you could say it is 60/40 that it will work...

The closer you stay to the original CPU the better the chance it will work.

I guess if it "Feels Good:" do it. You can worry about the consequences later...

[idata]

Maybe you should rent a giant crab shell and live in it like a hermit? If u like to sit on ur hands that's good for you. Keep your fear mongering to yourself. The replacement CPU I pointed to costs only £50 ($80), plus whatever cost for cleaning products & thermal paste. Worst thing that can happen is the laptop won't boot, then he'll have to put back the original CPU and sell the T4500 back on eBay.

As for "fry the new processor or mother board," what next? it blows in your face? Clearly u've never done a laptop CPU upgrade before and u r still sitting on the fence...

[DSilv11]

To each his own. Please disregard my answer to your question as I obviously know nothing. /message/116055# 116055 http://communities.intel.com/message/116055# 116055

""All opinions expressed are my own. No warranty expressed or implied. Feel free to disregard any thing I say. (at your own risk) :)" "

[idata]

From your help I realised that knowing a "serial number" & providing "technical help" are probably mutually exclusive. Seems you are not well versed on the latter.

According to you, people should stay stuck with their out-of-warranty, decrepit 1.66GHz Lenovo/Sony or 1.83 GHz Macbook, when in fact the Lenovo/Sony guy can upgrade with a T7200, T7400 or T7600 (depending on power rating & cash in hand) from eBay. And so can the Macbook guy if he wants a T2700. I read these successful upgrades all the time. Only thing is that it's a pain to get the dis-assembly manual, remove heat-sinks, clean up & apply thermal paste. It is frankly a pain. But no where did we get some sit-on-the-fence guy who publishes random bs stats to scare people.

[DSilv11]

You sure like reading a lot into things.

Try reading what I wrote instead of what you think it said.

I recommended ASKING the vendor what their product supported.

That is it.

I then went on to explain the parameters that COULD cause issues in case he wanted to make a risk call and try it.

I am, by intent, not trying to sell him a bill of good or some used processor off ebay.

Any chance the other eBay link is your listing?

I have not worked on a MSI CX600X-055EU

Have you?

This is not a Lenovo or Sony or even a kaypro II where the product specifications are readily available

or based on your total lack of experience, you are OK with just telling some poor guy to whom $80 could be a lot of money to just spend the $$$ and see if it works?

How about pointing him to a site where someone who has upgraded a MSI has a post? I looked and did not find any.

Perhaps look at the processor he was considering? Both would be a far stretch for working, The P8600 is not even a PGA478.

Any of the T4xxx family would have a reasonable chance of working, but I would not ask someone else to speed their money on it without knowing it would work, but the T4500 was a custom SKU which is why it is not listed with an order number on the Intel link you posted.

For a newbe to the forum who's only post is a very basic question that is answered in many places both on the Intel site and others, you seem to like to bash peoples technical abilities while asking for their help.

I believe there are about 500+ folks who's question I have answered in this forum who would disagree with you as to my technical ability, but my new rule is to ignore snot nose kids who post rude and uncalled for quips based on their weeks of experience in High School computer camp.

Compared to me, you have that little experience So see now you can ignore me too

Have a nice "feel good" day..

[idata]

He came to this forum because he is in the early stages of an upgrade. Clearly he's a ground-zero noob, so it's perfect to ask around & assess the situation. If it wasn't for me then he'd only have your lame answer to rely on, and this is why I felt the need to step in.

From reading your last reply, I can tell you this: Your knowledge of laptop internals is very poor. That's why you are scared to open it up, maybe you never have and stick to easy RAM and HDD upgrades. This is no feat.

The T4500 is available from 3 sources on eBay, what are you talking about custom blabla? Did you even check the link I supplied?? Maybe you should. It will save on typing non-sense.

Read this [http://www.xoticpc.com/laptop-manufacturers-really-makes-laptops-ip-11.html xoticpc] if you want to know who makes laptop. From it, my guess is that not only will it be easy to upgrade the MSI (fingers-crossed, by unscrewing the keyboard) but there's a possiblity for GPU upgrade (however at a cost $400+ for parts).

Oh and thanks for the thread digression, I guess it says a lot about you & your ego.

[idata]

"Spare me the BIOS & vendor restrictions blabla."

Are you serious? While you may classify what Doc_SilverCreek is posting as "fear mongering", I would call it a reality check. There is likely a bit more involved in swapping CPUs than simply fitting the correct socket.

Even in my desktop socket 1366 CPU mother board, which can only use i7-900 series CPUs, there is a setting in the BIOS for individual CPU models, and a caveat that the BIOS can be used with the i7-900 Extreme Edition CPUs, which is not a given for 1366 mother boards. This is on a non-OEM PC mother board that is meant to be used with multiple CPUs.

A laptop PC's mother board is the extreme opposite of this, and is made specifically for the laptop OEM and will have very limited BIOS options. I too would be very reluctant to state which CPUs are useable in this mother board, given that we have little to no information about it. While you seem to have no problem with buying a CPU that you are uncertain will work in your mother board, IMO most people would not do that, I certainly wouldn't.

Regarding buying a CPU through eBay... I'm glad that has worked out fine for you, but I wouldn't do that in a million years, Gawd only knows what you will end up with, IMO. You must know that all CPUs of the same simple model number are not the same, there are all kinds of specs that can be different. Don't you think that OEM PC manufactures receive batches of CPUs from AMD or Intel made specifically for them, that no one else normally has access to? There is much more in this world than meets our little eyes, more than we will ever know.

Component swapping in laptops is at the cutting edge of PC hobbiest, as well as rendering one's warranty invalid, it takes a great deal of knowledge to do it correctly. IMO, and I'm sure the manufactures, they are not intended for that type of activity. Apple is a perfect example of this, open one of those up and your support and warranty is history.

Doc is being careful with an relatively inexperienced person and is trying to educate them about the potential problems and issues, in other words, reality. You believe all that is nonsense, but live in a world outside of the legal obligations and restrictions that exist between corporations, and the subtle but real technical realities that exist with these components. As I am sure the laptop manufactures will tell you, they are not intended to be tinkered with. You can, but you do so at your own risk.

[idata]

Warranty is not a problem , I could do the upgrade after warranty expire, I only wanted to know if they are compatible , but now I understand that is not 100% sure even if all specifications are the same , and it's a risk that I must assume , now I will think more . Thanks alot , and you must not argue about this thing.

[idata]

You are wise cipi, yes there is no point in arguing over this. In case this got lost in all the posts, the main thing you must match is the CPU socket. If you look at the following page of Intel Mobile CPUs:

http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?familyId=41878 http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?familyId=41878

You'll find your Pentium T4200 CPU about half way down the page. Your Pentium T4200 is a PGA478 socket CPU according to this list. Of CPU's closely related to yours, the Pentium T4000's, there are only three that are a bit faster than yours. The fastest, the T4500 is only 0.30GHz faster than yours, with the same FSB and cache size. It might work in your notebook, but IMO would not add very much to it's speed. Actually, I don't see anything in that list that is significantly faster than your T4200, and will also fit in your PGA478 socket, and have a maximum TDP of 35 Watts.

The P8600 you listed is described here:

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=35568&processor=P8600&spec-codes=SL3BV,SLB3S,SLB4N,SLGA4,SLGDZ,SLGFD http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=35568&processor=P8600&spec-codes=SL3BV,SLB3S,SLB4N,SLGA4,SLGDZ,SLGFD

Notice that PGA478 is listed as the correct socket, as well as another, the 479. I don't know if that makes a difference. The P8600 seems like it would work from the specifications, although it's rated FSB is 1066, CPUs will usually function at a lower FSB frequency, such as 800MHz, if your mother board will only run that high. The TDP is fine, but there may be issues with the BIOS, etc, since it is from a different line of CPUs.

I don't know a great deal about mobile CPUs, maybe Dr Feel Good can help you out with the details.

If you really want a performance boost, get an SSD for your notebook, that will make a much greater difference than a 0.30GHz CPU speed increase.

[idata]

Umm you are re-stating what I posted in my first comment (# 2. Feb 14, 2011 12:53 PM), why?

Anyway, I've had two laptops over 8 years and yes I've upgraded both and thanks to people selling CPU parts on eBay. Replacing RAM and HDD can only get u so far, even the expensive but fast SSD drives. If your problem is computation (e.g. running Flash, 3D, multi-tasking), then SSD is clearly useless. I regularly scout the web for laptop upgrades stories, esp GPU and BIOS but not CPU. The latter is quickly becoming a done and dusted problem! I'm not sure which era you guys are from...

As for "Regarding buying a CPU through eBay... I'm glad that has worked out fine for you, but I wouldn't do that in a million years, Gawd only knows what you will end up with, IMO." Ok, some people have a brain and they tend to use it before completing purchase, e.g.:

• Are Returns accepted?
• If no returns, is the processor accompanied by a CPU-Z or CPUID snapshot? If not, ask the seller for a JPG.
• When the CPU arrives, check that it matches the picture on the eBay page. If it doesn't contact seller before attempting anything.

Clearly you ain't from the laptop upgrades area. It is not in the Laptop Vendor's interest to tell us how to upgrade a laptop (excl. ram+hdd). Use your brain if you got one, they want us to buy a new laptop!! And somehow their cpu supplier has its hands tied, so they can't advise either. It ain't like desktops, we don't get to buy OEM mobile processors. So we have to make do with what's available to us - mostly eBay or posting a request on a forum. NewEgg tries to help from time to time with the OEM thingy but they sell out really fast.

Hopefully Google will pick up this thread and people will be able to see who was fear mongering and who trying to help. I'm done with you lot.

[idata]

Hi , i'm back. I've tried to replace my t4200 with a t7500 but it hasn't boot at all(the problem could be litography -t4200: 45nm ||| -t7500: 65nm) , only power but black screen. Later this day i've tried with an t9300 , and it worked , i bought my t9300 with t4200+130$(100 e) . I think is a good deal , at least now i have from 2ghz and 1 MB cache a 2.5ghz and 6 MB cache . So that concludes my question , cpu upgrade it's possible, but u need to find a perfect fit at almost all specification.

Thanks for answer.