Is laptop upgradable?

[theplanb]

My dad owns p233 MMX compaq armada 1592DT laptop with 32mb ram.
Is it possible to upgrade this thing to..say.. pentium3 by just swapping what's inside of it?

 

[GameQuoter]

no.

you might be able to put some more ram in, but that's it. you'd be better off getting a new laptop.

 

[hans007]

if it uses an mmc-1 modules (my dads compaq presario p2-300 does, as do some p166mmx class machiens.) you can upgrade up to a celeron 466.

 

[theplanb]

mmc-1 modules, ey?
What's mmc-1 modules??
How much would that cost, where can I get one and do you think it's worth it?
Do you think I can upgrade it maself?
I've never opened a laptop before..

 

[hans007]

you have to find out if it supports mmc 1 modules first. lots of laptops used tape carrier packages that are non removeable. There is an article on mobile cpu's at tom's hardware guide in the archives of the cpu section. read that. look online. mmc cartridges are cheap on ebay, maybe $50 for a 400mhz p2. but see if your laptop can support them first . on my dads presario 1920 the keyboard flipped up after you hit a little lever and the cpu was right there. dont know about yours, i'd do a lot of research

 

[theplanb]

All I could find about the laptop is that it has a mainboard called..
System board 586/233 MMX 2.5V (part number 255246-001)
All these models use the same board.
1573, 73D, 73DM 1592DT, 92DMT, SB5233 DT, SB5233DMT.

Configuration code and model name is BT54/1592DT with 12.1" TFT display.
Got 32MB (non-edo) memory.
Apparently if you pop the keyboard, you can see the empty memory socket for upgrade but not cpu...

 

[Jiggz]

Except maybe for the Ram there's basically nothing upgradeable about laptop. But then you might wan to check this link Link

 

[Mikendi]

Some laptop CPU's can be upgraded, but not all. My Toshiba's 380 K6-2 is a "down" chip that cannot be removed. Some PII's/PIII's can be upgraded, but since 233 was the end of the socket7 line for Intel I don't know. Things like votage & heat/cooling requirements may make it impossible.

 

[jaywallen]

Because notebooks are so tightly integrated, design-wise, upgrading the CPU can be a pretty iffy proposition -- even if the mounting technology allows it. The biggest reliability issue related to a CPU upgrade will be, of course, heat. OEMs generally try to run their notebooks at the ragged edge of reliability, heat-wise, because of power conservation issues. (They want to optimize battery life.) The BIOS temp control settings that were designed to work with that p233 will probably have the unit's fan(s) (God, I hope it has fans!) cranking away at 100% all of the time to dissipate the heat. And that's if you're lucky. If the control algorithm is set up to use some hokey method other than direct temperature control, your Dad could feel that he has a toaster on his lap!

If you decide to pry this puppy apart, see if you can download a service manual for it. I don't know if Compaq makes such info available to end users, but Dell and Toshiba and IBM have downloadable PDFs that document how to take the little critters apart and put them back together again. Some of the designs are ingeniously evil in that you will break some little catch or tab if you don't proceed in a certain order when disassembling the unit.

Good luck!

Regards,
Jim