I hate to say it, but my Laptop just isn’t running like it once was. Everything seems so slow and takes forever to run. I tried a reinstall of OS X, but that didn’t seem to help. Things aren’t much better in Windows either (not that I would expect them to be). I’ve already upgraded this laptop (my Inspiron 1525) to the max of 4GB of RAM but it just doesn’t want to run fast. I mean, maybe I’m spoiled with the whole Quad Core Desktop and all, but still, I need SOME speed. So despite the fairly hefty price tag and the nuisance of tinkering around in my laptop, I’ve decided to upgrade the processor.
Currently, I’m sporting a T2370 1.73GHz Dual Core Processor with a 533MHz FSB, not exactly the finest babe on the block. Actually, she’s rather old and saggy, if you will. I’ve had my eye out on an upgrade for a while now and I’ve finally chosen the one. Yes, she’s the one for me. As soon as I save up enough money, which is hard now that I’m splurging on Apps for my new iPod Touch, I will be purchasing a T8300 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo Processor with an 800MHz FSB for my trusty Inspiron 1525.
At a price tag of ~$140, I really can’t go wrong and the speed increase is much needed. However, money is a little tight. Between the hosting costs of this site and the no job factor, $140 is a lot of money for a high school student. That is why I am asking all the dedicated DailyBlogged users to please make a small contribution to this project. Any amounts are truly helpful and plus, once I am able to purchase this processor, I will document the entire upgrade process with pictures, possibly some videos, and most likely some speed test as well. So now that you know why I need the donations, are you going to help me out? Plus, all users who donate will have their names included in the new Hall Of Donations page.
Update: I found a sweet deal on a T7300 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo with an 800MHz FSB for only $70 so I purchased it. When it arrives, which will probably be a week, I will document the entire upgrade process.
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January 12th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
Not even close. This Inspiron can go all the way up to a T9500 I believe. Basically, any Socket P Mobile Processor with an 800MHZ FSB is supported. Thankfully, all 1525′s have the same motherboard, regardless of whether it came with a Core 2 Duo, Dual Core, etc., so they all support the same processors. I would have loved to upgrade to the 9000 or even the 8000 series processors, but they were unfortunately way out of my budget. For $70, I’m satisfied with what I got.
January 16th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
Just got the WiFi card in the mail today. Gonna install it and take some pics and maybe, just maybe, this thing will actually work (After seeing it, I’m a little reluctant).
January 17th, 2010 at 12:26 am
Fortunately, it works! The BIOS simply recognizes it as “Broadcom Wireless” while OS X still recognizes it as “Third Party Wireless Card” in System Profiler. Anywho, it does work and I didn’t have to install any additional kexts. I’m going to fresh install Leopard to a new partition just to verify that the card works with the stock kexts cause, if it doesn’t, it’s a pointless upgrade (besides for the Wireless N support, of course). And amidst all my excitement, I forgot to take any pictures or document anything. The installation is quite simply though so I’ll gladly take it apart and repeat/document the procedure.
January 12th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Upgrades! I may try to score one of these babies in the future. I missed the boat on Black Friday netbook deals or I’d be writing another tutorial. Is this the fastest processor the 1525 holds?
January 12th, 2010 at 12:26 pm
I’m definitely interested in finding out the speed results as well. My 1.87 GHz 533FSB is slowing down big time, so if I can make a huge improvement for only $70 then I would be all over it!
January 12th, 2010 at 11:47 am
I’ll catch up with you soon, Thomas… In the meantime however, you were able to pull the former processor (whatever it was) and throw in the T7300 without issue? I’ve never even taken the 1525 completely apart so I’m not familiar with the design, but I assume it’s just a standard Socket P you’re dealing with.
Being currently at 1.6GHz I wouldn’t mind doing the same someday soon. Not to mention, I would highly desire the Supplemental SSE3, Execute Disable Bit, Dynamic Acceleration, and most of all the Virtualization Technology that T7300 would provide vs. what I’ve got now. I can’t run Parellels without VT. And, needless to say, it would be nice to be able to.
January 12th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
The upgrade was practically seamless; remove the bottom panel, unscrew the heatsink, turn the screw to unlock the processor, remove the old processor, and then repeat in reverse order once the new processor is in. It is also recommended that the thermal paste be reapplied. I recommend Arctic Silver as a tube of it can be had on ebay for less than $8 yet it performs extremely well. After the upgrade, the BIOS (version A16) automatically detected the new processor, as expected, and OS X/Windows were just fine with the change.
Speed wise, the new processor is great. The speed improvement was much needed and is quite noticeable in real world testing (running applications and what have you). iTunes is faster, Firefox is faster, Word is faster, and most importantly, my laptop boots faster. I may have some XBench scores at home, though there is a possibility that they were deleted. If I still have them, I’ll post them in a new comment. The only con I’ve noticed is slightly decreased battery life, but that’s a fair price to pay for such a monumental speed increase.
For the price, I truly recommend that anyone and everyone looking for snappier performance upgrade their processor. If enough people request it, I’ll gladly put together a guide with some pictures. If a processor upgrade is out of the question or has already been achieved, a RAM upgrade is the next step. I’ve already made the jump to 4GB and it alone was enough to impress over it’s previous 2Gb. In terms of RAM upgrades, the largest boost in performance was achieved from 2GB->3GB, and the final upgrade from 3GB->4GB was not as prevalant. So if you’ve already got 3GB of RAM, you should be good.
The next step in laptop upgrades would of course be to upgrade your Hard Drive to one of it’s 7200RPM brothren. This also decreases battery life, but is said to bare a large increase in speed (I upgraded to a 320GB 5400RPM Hard Drive, so I can’t verify this statement).
Finally, my most recent, and possibly the cheapest, upgrade I’ve made is jumping from 802.11G to 802.11n.I purchased a wireless card from a Macbook on ebay a couple weeks. Once I receive it and can confirm it works, I’ll be posting a guide on how to make the upgrade and the benefits (among them is native support for the card, which directly translates into no funky wirelless kexts). At $15, this upgrade is extremely wise to do… assuming it works, of course.
I realize I went off on a rant here when two simple questions were asked, but I feel upgrading your laptop is extremely beneficial and the more you know about the topic, the better.
January 9th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
Hey Thomas. . . Progress?
January 9th, 2010 at 8:25 pm
My god, did the stars align? There’s a name I haven’t seen appear in the comments for quite some time! What’s up man? How’ve you been? As for progress, I did receive my processor but I was so anxious that I completely forget about documenting the installation. Anyway, now that the thermal paste has had time to set, I’m extremely reluctant to remove it and document the installation. I am however getting a new WiFi Card (one used in real Mac’s in fact) so I will document that as it not only upgrade my capabilites to include Wireless N, but does not require any kexts other than the native OS X ones. But Wolfer, send me an email and maybe we can get caught up?