Can I upgrade Dell Inspiron laptop CPU?

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Spencer Brown

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Jan 26, 2014
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Okay, so my friend (who's young) has an old Dell Inspiron 1300 laptop that he is intent on upgrading (I know its pretty old to be worth the effort but its also a learning thing).

The laptop currently has a Pentium M 740 CPU at 1.73 GHz(533 FSB), which he wants to upgrade. As far as I can tell, this is the fastest CPU the Inspiron 1300 ever shipped with, the lower-end ones having Celeron M's with a 400 FSB speed.

From looking at CPUs on ark.intel.com , I can see there are some faster Pentium Ms (like the 770 and 780) that appear to have the same socket and FSB speed as the one in the laptop, and my question is if these CPUs will work in the laptop or if there are other compatibility factors that need to match.

Also, (asking this both for this laptop and in general) does the motherboard have to support 64 bit for it to take a 64 bit CPU? Because if (in this case) it doesn't matter, we could theoretically go with like a Core™ Duo Processor T2450 or T5200, which appears to be the same socket and FSB (although with some other specifications slightly different) and (the T5200) is 64-bit (which he would prefer if it would work).

Thanks very much for anyone willing to answer this thread
Spencer
 
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Rogue Leader


As I said, you cannot. Dell BIOSes do not support CPUs other than what was available from them as an option when the...
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Rogue Leader

Rogue Leader

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Dec 22, 2014
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Don't waste the time.

First off if that was the fastest CPU that was offered its also the fastest CPU the BIOS will allow.

Also many of those lower end laptops have the CPU soldiered to the board.

Either way there is no chance of anything faster working. If it works well enough use it as is, otherwise buy something new.
 
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JalYt_Justin

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Laptop CPUs, especially older ones, are usually soldered to the motherboard and can't be replaced/upgraded without damaging the motherboard. Besides, there are too many factors that could go wrong when trying to upgrade a laptop, as most consumer grade laptops are put together with the bare minimum specs to run the hardware, even if the CPU was upgradeable.
 
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azaran

azaran

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Short answer, yes you can swap out the CPU on that model. If you look for Dell Inspiron 1300 cpu upgrade on youtube you can see the process. It's probably the simplest CPU install/uninstall I've ever seen on a laptop.

As for if it's worth it. Probably not. The FSB of the Celerons was slower than what the Pentium M needed, they shipped with different motherboards. So while you could physically put one in, you wouldn't get the performance of the CPU.
 
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Spencer Brown

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Jan 26, 2014
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This laptop has the Pentium M CPU and motherboard. I am asking if I can upgrade from a Pentium M to a newer/faster Pentium M or something like a Core 2 Duo.


 
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Rogue Leader

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Dec 22, 2014
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As I said, you cannot. Dell BIOSes do not support CPUs other than what was available from them as an option when the system was sold.

That Laptop is useful only as is. Not only that its not worth spending money on.
 
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