How easy is it to upgrade a Laptop CPU? If at all?

[gtd2000]

My mate has a Toshiba Pentium 266Mhz laptop which he might sell to me for a reasonable price.

I'm wondering about a K6-2 or K6-2+ CPU Upgrade in the future - Am I just dreaming or is this a possibilty?

I've fiddled about with overclocking etc on a desktop computers numerous times but know absolutely diddly squat about fiddling with laptops...I have also done the old beta BIOS upgrade on a TX motherboard to run K6-2 400's which works very nicely for an old system.

Any advice or websites that deal with this kind of information?

 

[Schola]

I don't think it would work because they package laptop cpu's differently then they do a desktop cpu. However maybe one of the experts here can give us a correct answer.
Schola

 

[AndyHui]

Definitely not possible to change a Pentium 266 MMX with a K6-x. Intel's mobile processors come in a completely different package call the TCP....tape carrier package....and sometimes includes the north bridge of the chipset as well.

There would be no BIOS support, no multiplier support, no voltage support....thermal specs are completely out.....don't bother.

A Pentium 266 MMX is not that bad....

 

[Alphacowboy]

Most likely... nope! Definately not any AMD processor will work. Intel has its own mobile processor socket it uses. AMD used the standard socket 7(battery killers!) for its laptops until just recently. If I remember right the 266 was the last Pentium class until they went to pentium II for the mobile processors which would be a different M/B design, so sorry to say, it ain't going to work!

 

[AndyHui]

The mobile Pentium I MMX goes up to 300MHz.

 

[gtd2000]

I thought as much.....never mind.. Thanks for the advice..

He's running win98se on it right now... I'm sure I could make that puppy so much faster by "upgrading" to win95

Worked a treat on my spare 233MMX system Until I decided to upgrade the BIOS for a K6-2 400 CPU...full of confidence having done it before... and it was dead when I switched it on again...

 

[Alphacowboy]

MEMORY.... how much does it have.... you would be surprised what 128-196MB ram will do on a laptop!

 

[gtd2000]

It's got 96MB right now....
Not too shabby for what will only be a wordprocessor and e-mail machine really..
How much is laptop RAM compared to desktop RAM?

 

[Alphacowboy]

its about double.... depending on what memory it takes, what model toshiba?

 

[vi edit]

I would not take it any farther than 128 if you are running only win9x. After that, it's really not worth the extra $$. Laptop memory is mucho expensive.

Also, as many of these guys have said, you can't pop an AMD in there.

I have seen laptops before, made by Prostar I believe that do allow for fairly easy upgrading. They have a flip open door on the bottom of thier laptops that allow you to yank out the CPU and drop in a new one.

Last time I checked, they had both AMD K6-2 and Celeron models that allowed for upgrading via chip swaps.

Your bigname manufacturers(dell, gateway, toshiba, IBM) won't allow you to upgrade your laptop this way, but several smaller name laptop sellers will.

 

[Alphacowboy]

vi_edit, actually some systems you could change the processor, like in my case I had a CTX ezbook with an AMD K6 333MHz... it was a standard K6 processor... seriously it was a socket 7 processor. It got no lemoned so I got a NEW Sony VAIO 540, now it is a PIII 500, same thing it is a standard micro PIII mobile socket. now I could pull the processor out and change it to say a 600 or maybe even a 750... but cooling it is the problem, they are the same processor as far as the design but the 750 is going to run a whole lot hotter than a 500. That is why the PIII 650+ usually have a different type of case with very interesting cooling techniques... IE:SONY

 

[vi edit]

The thing is, most namebrands like Sony and CTX used the mobile products. How often do you see computer shops/online vendors selling the mobile CPU's? Not too many. Also, I'd put my money on it that if you did upgrade it on your own, you'd void the warranty.

The computers that I mentioned, prostar in particular, used a standar socket 370 for the celerons, and used a plain old celeron 370 PPGA CPU in the laptop. You could order the CPU online from thousands of shops, and, you wouldn't have to worry about voiding your warranty because it was endorsed by the vendor.

 

[Alphacowboy]

Thats cool. I've found the 600MHz PIII mobile online for about 250, which isn't bad and truthfully I don't care about the warranty because I work for BB part time for just the discount (its like the national gard one weekend a month hehehe) I tore that CTX apart I don't know how many times trying to fix it, It would work for a month and then die again, for some reason if I took it apart and put it back to gether again it would be happy for a couple weeks then die again... I don't usually like extended service plans but a only paying an additional 400 bucks for a SONY laptop over the original 400 i spent on the CTX didn't bother me! (800 bucks for a 1800 dollar laptop!!!)

 

[gtd2000]

I'm not too sure of the model ...a 330 or something like that?
I'll check the model number..

 

[gtd2000]

It's a Toshiba CDT330 or 330CDT?