Will A CPU Upgrade Help My Compaq Presario M2010US?

[Harvey]

I was paid for some work with a Compaq Presario Model: M2010US. It's in great shape, and I'm sure upping the RAM from 256 MB to 1 GB will help a lot, but I wonder if it would be worth upgrading the CPU from a Celeron M 350 to a Pentium M?

This model may use the same motherboard as <a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c00311139&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=464088
">model M2007US</a> with 1.50 GHz Pentium M Processor 715A, but I'm not sure since this model has a different wireless setup.

So far, I've figured that appropriate Pentium M CPU (Dothan core) upgrades MAY be:

1.50 GHz: 715
1.60 GHz: 725
1.70 GHz: 735

Questions:

1. Am I looking at the right Pentium M models?

2. Will upgrading to a Pentium M improve the performace enough to be worth it, or should I just stick with adding more RAM?

3. Which chip form (socket, etc.) does this machine use?

4. Anything else I should know?

TIA. :beer: :thumbsup:

 

[DrMrLordX]

I believe you are looking at the proper CPUs, yes. Upgrading your CPU will help you by giving you more raw clock speed and doubling your L2 cache. It won't be a huge boost, but it might help you out if you get one of the faster models. The greatest weakness of the old Dothan cores (and Banias) was multitasking during day-to-day use, so running a faster Dothan won't really help in that department. I don't think you can run a Yonah chip in that socket, though.

I forget exactly which socket Dothan used, but I believe it was a version of socket 478 or 479 that was not pin-compatible with desktop s478 processors.

 

[Amaroque]

Going from 256 MB to 1GB will have a much greater impact on overall performance, and system responsiveness than a CPU upgrade.

If you are running XP, your system is severally bottlenecked by lack of RAM. Paging active data from RAM to HDD all the time is very sloooow.

 

[996GT2]

Try the RAM upgrade first (in fact, get 2 GB if you can...hot deals section has some nice deals on SO-DIMMs)...I doubt you will feel the need for a CPU upgrade of a few hundred MHz after that.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: 996GT2
Try the RAM upgrade first (in fact, get 2 GB if you can...hot deals section has some nice deals on SO-DIMMs)

The motherboard has a max of 1GB. Good thinking, though, if it didn't.

Originally posted by: Amaroque
Going from 256 MB to 1GB will have a much greater impact on overall performance, and system responsiveness than a CPU upgrade.

I agree; nothing seems slower than paging, especially when you're waiting on a 4200 RPM drive.

 

[Harvey]

Thanks, guys. :beer: :thumbsup:

I agree that a RAM upgrade is the first step, and a both that and a better hard drive are "stock" upgrades that don't go beyond the original specs.

I've learned a little more about the machine. Specifically, it definitely uses the same motherboard as the P4 M based M2007US, except that it doesn't have a couple of sockets for features included on that model, so my list of possible Socket 478 CPU's is right. For now, that's just info I'll save that for a day when I have both the ambition and the spare cash to try it, but RAM and drive are first.