HP 255 G1 - APU/SoC replacement/upgrade
This laptop is just 6 months old and still under warranty, but owner lost the receipts. Had a dead short on the 3.3v rail which unfortunately was traced back to the APU (there's not much else on this motherboard 
). I have removed the APU and the short cleared and power supplies come up.
The APU is an AMD E1-2100, and it is actually a SoC, with the CPU, GPU, NB, SB integrated in one package. It's the only BGA on the board! Like here:
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Jaguar...20E1-2100.html
Now you can immediately see this is a very weak CPU. Weakest in the series actually. While browsing the service manual from HP and looking in the cpu-world database i noticed something interesting, all Jaguar APU/SoC chips are in the same package and have the same stepping. Only power consumption differs, with the slowest ones using 9W and the faster ones 15W. I first looked at this: http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Jaguar...20E2-3000.html then i found this: http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Jaguar...20A4-5000.html
I am thinking the following. Since the processors are all in the same package and have the same stepping, i'm quite sure they can be swapped between them. The cooler looks good enough for 15W too. I would be very surprised if there are any differences on the mainboard, since all options are offered by HP, it would make zero sense to have the OEM design a different mainboard for what is the same pinout SoC. Also, all of them have the same price for a new chip, so in my view there is no reason NOT to upgrade it to a quad core A4-5000.
So, what do you think, will this upgrade work?
). I have removed the APU and the short cleared and power supplies come up.The APU is an AMD E1-2100, and it is actually a SoC, with the CPU, GPU, NB, SB integrated in one package. It's the only BGA on the board! Like here:
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Jaguar...20E1-2100.html
Now you can immediately see this is a very weak CPU. Weakest in the series actually. While browsing the service manual from HP and looking in the cpu-world database i noticed something interesting, all Jaguar APU/SoC chips are in the same package and have the same stepping. Only power consumption differs, with the slowest ones using 9W and the faster ones 15W. I first looked at this: http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Jaguar...20E2-3000.html then i found this: http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Jaguar...20A4-5000.html
I am thinking the following. Since the processors are all in the same package and have the same stepping, i'm quite sure they can be swapped between them. The cooler looks good enough for 15W too. I would be very surprised if there are any differences on the mainboard, since all options are offered by HP, it would make zero sense to have the OEM design a different mainboard for what is the same pinout SoC. Also, all of them have the same price for a new chip, so in my view there is no reason NOT to upgrade it to a quad core A4-5000.
So, what do you think, will this upgrade work?
Anyway, the A6 quad is the only one with 25W TDP, i won't risk going that far. But the A4-5000 should work just fine.
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