Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

[ratdude747]

Question/Idea: I have a heavily modded Asus X83V laptop that I'd like to upgrade the CPU in. It's already had a high-res screen (1400x900) and Intel 7260 AC/BT card hacked in. HDD swapped for a 7200 Seagate unit too.

It currently has an intel T9550 2.66GHZ C2D in it. Not a bad CPU for the era, but the fact it was a hand-me-down from a buddy's upgrade of another laptop has wanting to bump it a bit.

The thing is despite this being a consumer laptop, it was built like a barebones unit; one or two covers removed gives access to everything short of the internal BT option (which I don't have)... it even had provisions for a TV Tuner no less... its the most feature packed 14" laptop from 2009 you'll ever find. Anyway, between that and that it has a beefy cooler (shared with the GPU card, a Nvidia GeForce 9300M 512MB):



(picture pulled from ebay, the CPU pad is the one exposed in this picture)

...that it seems like I could probably swap in a core 2 quad unit.

I did some ebay hunting and found that for $36 or less shipped (from china) I can get a Q9000 core 2 Quad (2.0GHz)... the other two (the Q9100 and QX9300) are $100+ a pop and from the looks of things only marginally better.

My BIOS is up to date (and FWIW, SLIC'd).

So the question is... will it work? It looks to physically, electrically, and thermally be doable (the CPU pad, as in the picture, is full copper and appears to be big enough for the twin dies in a C2Q). What I don't know is if the BIOS will like it. I do know that the BIOS seems pretty tolerant of things in general (c'mon, it let me switch to a non-stock screen resolution and a definitely non-stock WiFi/BT card without any complaints)...

Anybody have experience with C2D swaps on desktops or laptops? Is BIOS compatibility generally an issue?

[ratdude747]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

Still wasn't sure if the cooler would fit, so I did some image hunting and some manipulation with Gimp.

First, I found a teardown video which allowed me to get a screenshot with the cooler mounted to the CPU:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc2WunwY7Ek



I then cropped it to the area of interest:



I then found a picture of the Q9000 CPU from the review of a MSI laptop review:



Finally, I cropped/rotated the CPU image, and scaled the images so the CPUs match in size. Finally, I overlayed the CPU image (reduced opacity) over the laptop image:



Looks like it would fit, not by much. given the square marks on the C2Q, I wonder if that cooler size is a standard given by intel? They seem awful close...

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

Any laptop that has the PM45 chipset will take a C2Q. You already have a 1066 FSB processor there so the requirements are met - the older 965 chipset only supported FSB 800.

Btw, you have the 9300M GS not G. Otherwise the laptop would have died long ago as the 9300M G is simply a rename of the 8400M GS, and we all know the story behind that.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

you're going from 35w to 45w, and assuming the microcode is compatible. With all this laptop seemed to have integrated, lets hope they didn't cheapen out on the vrm

[Uranium-235]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/i...8201948AACc0LI

this person didn't have much luck but he did a C2E and not a C2Q

[ratdude747]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

you're going from 35w to 45w, and assuming the microcode is compatible. With all this laptop seemed to have integrated, lets hope they didn't cheapen out on the vrm

Actually it seems ASUS did a good job on the motherboard

I've attached some pictures I found of the motheboard. VRM look beefy? (I'm not a laptop VRM expert)...

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

you're going from 35w to 45w, and assuming the microcode is compatible. With all this laptop seemed to have integrated, lets hope they didn't cheapen out on the vrm

Actually it seems ASUS did a good job on the motherboard

I've attached some pictures I found of the motheboard. VRM look beefy? (I'm not a laptop VRM expert)...

looks like only 2 phase power for the cpu... going from 35w to 45w tdp means an extra 5w of load per phase for the vrms. u can get away with it if u try putting mosfet heatsinks for the soic 8 leg mosfets. there are 4 on each side of the board for a total of 8. hopefully, the mosfet heatsinks fit in and dont block the laptop covers.

was also searching for a list of mobile c2quads on wikipedia when i saw sumthing on there u might wanna pay attention to:

Notebook Core 2 Quads are designated Socket P' [sic] and are not pin compatible with standard Socket P motherboards. They can be arduously modified to work on some Socket P motherboards, such as Lenovo ThinkPad T61 and HP HDX9000.

Source: Wikipedia - List of Intel Core 2 microprocessors. take note of the additional apostrophe behind the "P".

so the cpu pinout on mobile c2quads is different from their duo counterparts. if it doesnt work unmodded on the first try, u may have to do a pin mod by shorting or taping some pads on the cpu to get it to work... all the more reason to get the cheapest one u can find in case it totally cannot work at all!

[ratdude747]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

looks like only 2 phase power for the cpu... going from 35w to 45w tdp means an extra 5w of load per phase for the vrms. u can get away with it if u try putting mosfet heatsinks for the soic 8 leg mosfets. there are 4 on each side of the board for a total of 8. hopefully, the mosfet heatsinks fit in and dont block the laptop covers.

was also searching for a list of mobile c2quads on wikipedia when i saw sumthing on there u might wanna pay attention to:

Source: Wikipedia - List of Intel Core 2 microprocessors. take note of the additional apostrophe behind the "P".

so the cpu pinout on mobile c2quads is different from their duo counterparts. if it doesnt work unmodded on the first try, u may have to do a pin mod by shorting or taping some pads on the cpu to get it to work... all the more reason to get the cheapest one u can find in case it totally cannot work at all!

Funny, all that I'm seeing is that the Q9000 at least is regular old Socket P.

Noted on the mosfet heatsinks, I'll look into that.

Edit- Not sure how much of an upgrade it really is.. the Q9100 also has double the L2 Cache (6M vs 12M shared between all cores), which leads me to believe that the Q9000 is a dog, given the slow clock speed. I can get a T9800 for about the same price (2nd nicest mobile C2D)... Which would have 6M cache (only shared between two cores, not 4) and a higher clock speed.

IDK here... I think I've gone mad from boredom. Can't stop modding/tweaking!!!

[diif]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

What jobs are you doing on this laptop that require faster processing/more cores? If you want to see a difference put in a SSD.

[ratdude747]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

What jobs are you doing on this laptop that require faster processing/more cores? If you want to see a difference put in a SSD.

Nothing. SSDs are expensive; the one I do have in service is undersized and if anything I'd upgrade that system (which is my main laptop with an ivy bridge i7).

[dmill89]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

Nothing. SSDs are expensive; the one I do have in service is undersized and if anything I'd upgrade that system (which is my main laptop with an ivy bridge i7).

It depends what your definition of "expensive" is, 240-256 GB SSDs are going for $70-80 regularly these days, and if you look out for sales you can find them for $50 sometimes, 480-512 GB SSDs are going for $130-140 regularly and around $100 on some sales, and if you don't need a ton of space 120-128 GB SSDs are easy to find at ($40-50).

An SSD definitely makes a big difference, my employer recently gave me a new work laptop (Lenovo T450) with an i5-5300u which while much more efficient (Lenovo claims a 19 hr. life from the 9-cell battery) is not actually much more powerful (less than a 5% difference) than the HP ProBook 6460b with an i5-2540m that it replaced, but the T450 has an SSD and is substantially faster than the 6460b with a mechanical HDD because of it.

It is also worth noting that a Q9000 is slower on single threaded applications than a T9550 or T9800, so unless the applications you are running can actually make use of the extra cores you will not see any performance increase (and may actually have a slight decrease).

I'd also recommend researching that Seagate 7200 rpm drive, I know some series had defective/failure prone controllers and are prone to dying without warning. I had one of these (a Momentus 7200.4 500GB ST9500420AS) in the Lenovo T520 that was my old personal Laptop and it died with absolutely no warning and after some research I found it was a common issue with this series of drives (and other Seagate 7200 rpm drives) and made sure not to replace it with another Seagate (this was 2012 so SSDs were still expensive enough that an HDD made more sense).

[ratdude747]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

It depends what your definition of "expensive" is, 240-256 GB SSDs are going for $70-80 regularly these days, and if you look out for sales you can find them for $50 sometimes, 480-512 GB SSDs are going for $130-140 regularly and around $100 on some sales, and if you don't need a ton of space 120-128 GB SSDs are easy to find at ($40-50).

An SSD definitely makes a big difference, my employer recently gave me a new work laptop (Lenovo T450) with an i5-5300u which while much more efficient (Lenovo claims a 19 hr. life from the 9-cell battery) is not actually much more powerful (less than a 5% difference) than the HP ProBook 6460b with an i5-2540m that it replaced, but the T450 has an SSD and is substantially faster than the 6460b with a mechanical HDD because of it.

It is also worth noting that a Q9000 is slower on single threaded applications than a T9550 or T9800, so unless the applications you are running can actually make use of the extra cores you will not see any performance increase (and may actually have a slight decrease).

I'd also recommend researching that Seagate 7200 rpm drive, I know some series had defective/failure prone controllers and are prone to dying without warning. I had one of these (a Momentus 7200.4 500GB ST9500420AS) in the Lenovo T520 that was my old personal Laptop and it died with absolutely no warning and after some research I found it was a common issue with this series of drives (and other Seagate 7200 rpm drives) and made sure not to replace it with another Seagate (this was 2012 so SSDs were still expensive enough that an HDD made more sense).

IIRC my HDD isn't one of the crap ones.

Most of the cheap SSDs I see aren't intel... they're some brand with a sketchy reputation. I don't run shitty parts. I just don't.

[dmill89]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

IIRC my HDD isn't one of the crap ones.

Most of the cheap SSDs I see aren't intel... they're some brand with a sketchy reputation. I don't run shitty parts. I just don't.

I agree I would avoid the off-brand crap, but I wouldn't only buy Intel these days either, most major brands should be pretty safe (with a few specific series with known issues to watch out for). I have 2 Samsung 830s, a 128GB in my desktop (with a 1TB mechanical HDD for storage) and a 256GB in my Dell Precision M4600 Laptop and have never had an issue with either. I also have a 128GB Toshiba SSD in my secondary Laptop (the T520) with no issues and a SanDisk UltraII came in my work T450, it is too new to comment on reliability, but my company has been ordering new laptops with SSDs for the last two years (mostly SanDisk with some Samsungs too) and the failure rate is substantially lower than the older laptops we had with mechanical drives (likely due to shock, most people take their laptops to meetings, etc. , so they get knocked around and dropped a lot).

[Uranium-235]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

Edit- Not sure how much of an upgrade it really is.. the Q9100 also has double the L2 Cache (6M vs 12M shared between all cores), which leads me to believe that the Q9000 is a dog, given the slow clock speed. I can get a T9800 for about the same price (2nd nicest mobile C2D)... Which would have 6M cache (only shared between two cores, not 4) and a higher clock speed.

Passmark T9550 - 1796
Passmark T9800 - 1932
Passmark Q9000 - 2554
Passmark Q9100 - 3201

[ratdude747]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

I agree I would avoid the off-brand crap, but I wouldn't only buy Intel these days either, most major brands should be pretty safe (with a few specific series with known issues to watch out for). I have 2 Samsung 830s, a 128GB in my desktop (with a 1TB mechanical HDD for storage) and a 256GB in my Dell Precision M4600 Laptop and have never had an issue with either. I also have a 128GB Toshiba SSD in my secondary Laptop (the T520) with no issues and a SanDisk UltraII came in my work T450, it is too new to comment on reliability, but my company has been ordering new laptops with SSDs for the last two years (mostly SanDisk with some Samsungs too) and the failure rate is substantially lower than the older laptops we had with mechanical drives (likely due to shock, most people take their laptops to meetings, etc. , so they get knocked around and dropped a lot).

I see. I had always heard that aside from intel and maybe crucial, SSDs were trouble. Still, since that laptop is more of a modding toy than it is a workhorse, I'm not too keen on SSD'ing it (maybe down the road if I have an extra one big enough). Not to mention I'd probably have to re-install the windows 7 side, which would be a PITA as there are some very hard to find drivers used that I'm not 100% sure I have backed up (and knowing my luck, I'd lose them anyway).


---

Noted on the passmark scores... although I think running a C2Q would be a slick mod more than anything. Right now I'm in an offer war on a Q9000... if that goes nowhere, I'll probably nix the idea.

[diif]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

I

Nothing. SSDs are expensive; the one I do have in service is undersized and if anything I'd upgrade that system (which is my main laptop with an ivy bridge i7).

No they are not. There are several good makes and $70 will get you 120Gb.
And no, you'd clone the drive or take the drivers off to put on the new install.

All hard drives are crap compared to SSDs. Yeah they tend to give no warning before they fail but it makes no difference if you have your data backed up.

You'd see and feel the difference instantly with an SSD, not so with a different CPU. The hard drive has been the bottleneck in most systems for a few years now.

[dmill89]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

You'd see and feel the difference instantly with an SSD, not so with a different CPU. The hard drive has been the bottleneck in most systems for a few years now.

^This, The I7 2860QM in my Precision M4600 is nearly twice as powerful on paper as the I5 5300U in my work Thinkpad T450 (Passmark 7278 on the I7 2860QM vs. 3827 on the I5 5300U), but you really have to load it up with many applications/tasks running simultaneously to notice a difference. An SSD will make a big difference in speed regardless if you are running 1 application or 10, while a with a CPU you will really only see a difference under load (and the HDD will still be a bottleneck if what you're running needs to read/write to it).

[dmill89]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

I see. I had always heard that aside from intel and maybe crucial, SSDs were trouble.

Not really the case any more, most of the major brands seem pretty reliable (aside from possibly OCZ, especially their TLC drives).

Personally I've never had an SSD fail, the 128GB Samsung 830 in my desktop is now over 4 years old, and the 256GB in my M4600 is 3 years old (and the M4600 was a business off-lease, so it has relatively high hours). I have had 2 mechanical laptop drives fail however, the 500GB 7200rpm Seagate Momentus in my T520 was only a little over a year old when it died and a 120GB 5400rpm Hitachi Travelstar in my old R61, but it was nearly 5 years old and this was the Laptop I had in college so it was heavily used and moved around a lot, so I can forgive that for the most part.

[ratdude747]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

You all seem to be missing my point. I was considering the swap more because I could, not because it would yield a massive gain. This laptop isn't my main workhorse; it was built for tinkering.

[Uranium-235]

Re: Mobile Core 2 Quad Question

you have THAT wife and you're tinkering with laptops? Tinker with her dude