Can I put a bigger processor in my laptop?

TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
edited March 2005 in Hardware
I've got a Dell Latitude CPi-A366XT laptop, and it works good with the 366 Mhz P2 in it.

I wonder if I can put a bigger processor in or change the motherboard / cpu combination to something faster.

I was looking on eBay, and I saw several of my type of motherboard for sale. Some of the descriptions said my motherboard will support up to a 400 Mhz P2 processor.

I also saw a 400 Mhz P2 processor for sale by itself. Can I just buy the 400 P2 and swap it into my laptop?

It looks like the CPU is part of a small circuit board, and you change the whole circuit board assembly.

My Latitude has the A15 BIOS revision, which is the most up-to-date version available.

I saw no options in my BIOS for overclocking (no surprise), so if I could put this P2 400 in that'd be like a 10% overclock. Better than nothing!

Will it work?

Comments

  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited March 2005
    The difference between a P366 and a P400 would not be noticeable, assuming your bios allowed the change.

    A P366 runs on a 66MHz FSB with a multiplier of 5.5. (5.5 X 66 = 366)

    The P400 runs on a 100MHz FSB with a multiplier of 4 (4 X 100 = 400)

    You'd have to make sure that your laptop's MB supported the 100MHz FSB. On top of that, you'd have heat issues at the higher speed. It's not like you can upgrade the heat sink...

    You can find a used P650 laptop on ebay for $129.99. You'd be better off putting the money toward something along those lines. Anything more expensive than that and you might as well spend around $700 and get a brand new one. :)
  • TimTim Southwest PA Icrontian
    edited March 2005
    Actually, the 400 Mhz processor was listed as 397 Mhz, so wouldn't that be a 6 multiplier and 66 Mhz FSB?

    Yeah, a bigger P3 would be even faster, but I've got my current Latitude tuned to the point of actually running pretty good.

    Since I got it, it's received a new keyboard, new 20 GB hard drive, Windows 2000 Pro operating system, Orinono Classic Gold wireless card, an Ethernet adapter card, and twin 4460 MaH battery packs. One is brand new, the other is almost brand new. And I maxed out the memory at 256 MB of Kingston PC100.

    A little more processor power is all I need. If that P3 board and CPU would drop into my Latitude's frame, I'd do that. But I'd need it to be cheaper then $130.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited March 2005
    Tim wrote:
    Actually, the 400 Mhz processor was listed as 397 Mhz, so wouldn't that be a 6 multiplier and 66 Mhz FSB?...
    I could be wrong, but I don't think there were any 66MHz FSB CPU's higher than the PII-366. :scratch:

    Either way, assuming you could just drop the new CPU in there and change the multiplier, you'd see an increase of 8.5%. If we were talking about processors in the 2-3 GHz range this might be significant; bumping the speed by a mere 33MHz is not going to be noticeable. If it turns out that the new CPU operates at a 100MHz FSB (and your laptop and memory can handle it) then that would be a tidy little boost in power.

    Since you're happy with the laptop and would like to keep using it, if you're sure the computer will handle the new chip (and the price is right) there's no harm in going for it.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited March 2005
    Tim, it's really not worth the hassle to try to change out the proc on your present lappy for such a little increase in speed. Save your bucks up and just buy a faster replacement instead of pouring more good money into that old lappy. It's past the point of upgrading making a significant difference now.
  • KometeKomete Member
    edited March 2005
    My desktop p2 400 was 4x100 oh and I over clocked it to 412!

    I remember when my uncle bought a brand spaken new p2 or something at 200mghz with MMX... ANd I acually drooled... sorry to go off topic.
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