Double check that I'm not being a total twonk.

I've been sorting out a laptop for one of the ladies at work (virus issues)
The Laptop is an Asus X58L http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=sIyltiuq3sE6NBuf it's really nice looking but rather slow.
At first I thought there was still some issue being caused by viruses, however she said it's always been a bit slow, so a quick double check.
2ghz single core celeron 575 http://processorfinder.intel.com/det...px?sSpec=SLB6M
and only 1gb ddr2 677mhz single stick, trying to run vista :rolleyes:

So I'm thinking a new cpu and some more memory would be a good idea.
With a bit of digging around I can get hold of a c2d t5800 http://processorfinder.intel.com/det...px?sSpec=SLB6E for £30
and another SO-DIMM 1gb ddr2 677mhz memory stick for £15
She thinks £45 to try to get a bit more ommph out of this laptop is a fair amount. (and so do I)

However before I go and order these, I just want to double check that this is a sane idea.
I went for the c2d t5800 as it's on the cpu list for that model so has the best chance of working, or am I missing a major compatibility issue?

You will need to check if SpeedStep will work properly with the motherboard otherwise the CPU will be stuck at the lowest multiplier. You could probably still use NHC to get it to work properly in Windows though.

Also the Mobile Core2 T5800 has a 800MHZ FSB whereas the Mobile Celeron 575 has an FSB of 667MHZ.

The Mobile Core2 T5750 has a 667MHZ FSB:

http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=33915

Confident it the right processor; CPUz check and followup?
Confident on changing a CPU in a notebook?
XP and ram an easier alternative?

Apart fom that it will give a huge performance boost; all in all a good idea.

Why not try just the RAM first? Most 'normal' folk think you've worked some geek magic when you install more & the realise how fast it's become!

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Originally Posted by Domestic_Ginger

Confident it the right processor; CPUz check and followup?
Confident on changing a CPU in a notebook?
XP and ram an easier alternative?

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if you mean is it the celeron 575, yes.
Changeing the CPU on a note book myself, yep done it before.
XP and ram are a possable alternative.

@CAT
Thanks, I'm sure that was 677mhz :undecided I might of got confused with the T5850 (but I can only find that new for £88)
And didn't think about the speed step, my big worry is that the 800mhz cpu versions of the X58L might use a different motherboard.
I could get a T5750 for £23 slightly slower but a better chance of compatibility or a t3400 pentium dual core http://processorfinder.intel.com/det...px?sSpec=SLB3P for £20

OK now I don't know :undecided
How much issues would a t5800 cause or would the slightly slower and cheaper t5750 be better?

@Rob B
It's the CPU as well as that's getting hammered esp at startup when it's sitting there at 90% load for a good 30sec at startup while kaspersky scans stuff and with the general amount of background processes you get running on modern laptops & vista it really does need a dual core just to boost the responsiveness.

what rob says, more ram, forget the cpu upgrade. its a laptop, ram is about all you should consider upgrading its no pc after all.

Sorry but I know that 1gb of ram and a 2ghz pentium dual core is far snappier than this.
Big problem with newer OS and software now, they are running far more junk in the background which is ok on multiple core cpu's where thread cycle list gets broken up over the cores but on single cores it causes a big responsiveness spike.

Just clearing out the adobe preloaders and autoupdaters (yes plural exe's now) has had a noticeable effect :rolleyes:

I would check what processors the other models of the X58L series use too. Of course make sure that they are the similar age ones to the laptop that you are currently looking at!

The Mobile Core2 T3400 does only have 512KB of L2 cache per core when compared to the Mobile Celeron 575 but IMHO it will still be a decent upgrade.

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Originally Posted by Pob255

Sorry but I know that 1gb of ram and a 2ghz pentium dual core is far snappier than this.
Big problem with newer OS and software now, they are running far more junk in the background which is ok on multiple core cpu's where thread cycle list gets broken up over the cores but on single cores it causes a big responsiveness spike.

Just clearing out the adobe preloaders and autoupdaters (yes plural exe's now) has had a noticeable effect :rolleyes:

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So optimise the software. Move stuff away from start up and into weekly scheduled tasks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pob255

if you mean is it the celeron 575, yes.

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I meant the one you are upgrading too. Apologies; I'm beginning to realise how diffidult it is to get my point across.

How about a snappy linux install? Tell her its virus proof. If shes a charming lady you'll definately be able to see her again as she'll definately need help!:O_o1:

Yeh, I agree stick to putting more RAM in. 1GB for windows vista is a nightmare :angst: Vista Certification program at its best ;)

Also like the others said again, if you can get a hold of a 'legit' copy maybe put XP or Win7 on, even Win7 will run pretty happy with just 1GB of RAM and should be more than fine with 2GB.
*edit* If you have a copy, a fresh install of Vista might even be a good idea, you can get disk images for clean installs on the net and just use the Lisence Key on the bottom of the machine...

Let us know how you get on with the CPU upgrade if you decide to go ahead with it anyway, some pictures showing how many 'spare' screws you have left over after reasembling the machine would be a good laugh :P

Goldfish92

Extra gig of ram + either XP or 7. Don't bother upgrading the processor, a 2GHz celeron should be fine with a better OS. I've got a 1.86GHz Celeron + 2GB running Win XP at home and it's snappy as you could want. Don't go wasting money on hardware to solve a software problem... :)

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Originally Posted by scaryjim

Extra gig of ram + either XP or 7. Don't bother upgrading the processor, a 2GHz celeron should be fine with a better OS. I've got a 1.86GHz Celeron + 2GB running Win XP at home and it's snappy as you could want. Don't go wasting money on hardware to solve a software problem... :)

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This!

I bought my sister a laptop with the exact same processor in it, but it only had 1GB of RAM and my laptop had 3GB in it, so I took a gig out of mine and put it into hers and it was instantly faster.

RAM = win :D.

Her laptop is running W7 btw.

If you can get the T3400 for £20 like you have mentioned it is worth it IMHO. The Mobile Celeron 575 lacks SpeedStep whereas the T3400 does. Having upgraded a few notebooks myself the presence of SpeedStep means the notebook will not only tend to run cooler and with less fan noise but will also have improved battery life.

Make sure you do your research beforehand!

CAT there was a reason I put a link to a page on the Asus website in my first post

Quote:

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Processor & Cache Memory
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T5900/T5850/T5800/T5750 : 2.2 GHz - 2 GHz, 800/667 MHz, 2 MB L2 cache;
Intel® Pentium® Dual Core Processor T3400/T3200 : 2.16 GHz - 2 GHz, 667 MHz, 1MB L2 cache
Intel® Celeron® Dual-Core Processor T1700/T1600 : 1.86 GHz - 1.66 GHz, 667 MHz, 1MB L2 cache
Intel® Celeron® Processor 585/575 : 2.16 GHz - 2 GHz, 667 MHz, 1MB L2 cache

Chipset
Mobile Intel® GL960 Express Chipset + ICH8M

Main Memory
DDR2 667 MHz SDRAM, 2 x SODIMM socket for expansion up to 3072MB SDRAM

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While it's only vista home so no downgrade to xp, I could get hold of a lisence via work for £37 but I'm not sure it'll make that much difference.
One thing I have done is change the default power scheme so that when you press the power button or click the one on the start menu it actually turns off not go into sleep mode, which was part of the reason for the virus issues in the first place, it was not being actually rebooted so updates where not being applied and the virus was not being cleaned off correctly :rolleyes: don't you just love vista for that.

As to moving stuff out of the startup I have, but there's still a lot in there, most of it are hardware based drivers and utilities which have to be run (this is becomeing very common on all brands of laptops)

For just £38 I'm going to go with the T5750 and a 2nd gb of memory.

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Originally Posted by Pob255

For just £38 I'm going to go with the T5750 and a 2nd gb of memory.

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£38 and how many hours labour? i would ask myself.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pob255

While it's only vista home so no downgrade to xp, I could get hold of a lisence via work for £37 but I'm not sure it'll make that much difference.

...

For just £38 I'm going to go with the T5750 and a 2nd gb of memory.

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tbh I'd rather spend the £37 on an XP downgrade than a hardware upgrade - swapping from Vista to XP makes a world of difference to the responsiveness of a laptop, and frankly XP is a more user friendly OS than Vista anyway. I've done it twice now...

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Originally Posted by Pob255

... when you press the power button or click the one on the start menu it actually turns off not go into sleep mode ... don't you just love vista for that.

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People should really know better than to turn a computer off by pressing the power button :rolleyes: Anyway, that's not a Vista problem, it's a setup problem. Both my Vista laptops used to shut down properly when you clicked the "power" button in the start menu, so I think the fault probably lies with Acer there...

Oh, I should also say that before I replaced Vista with XP on this laptop (which is the Celly 1.86GHz / 2GB DDR2-533), it was running Vista pretty smoothly - I didn't downgrade for performance reasons...

I'm not talking about holding down the power button :P just pressing it, which sends a shoutdown command to the OS

And in vista the default setting for the start menus shutdown button is Sleep (laptops) or Hibernate (desktops) not shutdown, you have to manually change it, the setting is hidden in the control panel > power scheme > advanced options.
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/window...tasmpwrbtn.htm
This was changed in windows 7 the default is shutdown and it's changed via the "start menus & taskbar properties" a far more sane location as very few desktop uses would think to consider the power scheme settings would apply to a desktop.

Probably stupid to say this but I was under the impression that CPUs in a laptop were soldered to the main board ie no socket.

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Originally Posted by IAmATeaf

Probably stupid to say this but I was under the impression that CPUs in a laptop were soldered to the main board ie no socket.

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I think some are.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pob255

... in vista the default setting for the start menus shutdown button is Sleep (laptops) or Hibernate (desktops) not shutdown, you have to manually change it, the setting is hidden in <dumb place to hide settings ;)> ...

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Curious - both my Vista laptops (one Vaio with Vista Business, one HP with Vista Home Premium) *definitely* shut down from the start menu rather than sleeping... *shrug*

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pob255

I'm not talking about holding down the power button :P just pressing it ...

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Yeah, I assumed that was what you meant - personally I'd never assume that pushing the power button would turn off the computer, and would always go through start menu...

Just fitted the cpu and memory, it's very easy to get to the cpu on the X58L, just remove the back cover section, and you can get to the memory, wireless card, cpu and heatsink, no other sections need to be removed.

Ever thing was fine, however I spotted one odd thing, the original memory fitted is actually 800mhz but is under clocked to 667mhz.

I started running Cinebench to test it and the multiplier was staying at x6 ie 1ghz even when just plugged in (ie no battery) :(
However a careful check, it's the power settings in vista, how :censored: stupid is that, run the cpu at half speed at all times? even when plugged in and both cores are under 100% load. :rolleyes: no wonder this laptop was so sluggish.

Well I've going through the power settings to create a new sane profile, so speed step now works correctly when it's idle and low cpu usage, but kicks the speed back up when it's demanded.
The laptop is now far far nippier and much more responsive. :mrgreen: all told it's been a great success and for just £32 in the end. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pob255

Just fitted the cpu and memory, it's very easy to get to the cpu on the X58L, just remove the back cover section, and you can get to the memory, wireless card, cpu and heatsink, no other sections need to be removed.

Ever thing was fine, however I spotted one odd thing, the original memory fitted is actually 800mhz but is under clocked to 667mhz.

I started running Cinebench to test it and the multiplier was staying at x6 ie 1ghz even when just plugged in (ie no battery) :(
However a careful check, it's the power settings in vista, how :censored: stupid is that, run the cpu at half speed at all times? even when plugged in and both cores are under 100% load. :rolleyes: no wonder this laptop was so sluggish.

Well I've going through the power settings to create a new sane profile, so speed step now works correctly when it's idle and low cpu usage, but kicks the speed back up when it's demanded.
The laptop is now far far nippier and much more responsive. :mrgreen: all told it's been a great success and for just £32 in the end. :)

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Glad it all went ok for you, what cpu did you fit?

ah, nevermind!