Satellite Laptops :: A-Series models

[Beetle914]

I've had this Satellite for a couple of years now, and am contemplating an upgrade.  I've already upgraded to 1Gb of RAM, which is all this one will support. I initially bought 2 1Gb sticks and found out the hard way that it would only support 1Gb, which made for a HUGE disappointment, to say the least.  

Now I'm thinking about upgrading the 1.5 Gb processor and the 80Gb hard drive, but am concerned that I'll buy these and the system won't support them.   I'd rather just go ahead and buy a new laptop than go through that type of disappointment again.

Any suggestions?

[cee_64]

Maybe the A55-S1063? 

I don't know for sure about the Processor upgrade.  That gets a bit tricky due to bios compatability.  It's possible, but I have no idea which ones will work.

As for the hard drive there is no way to know for 100% certantly if that bios supports native 48bit addressing for drives larger than 137gig or not without trying one.  To be safe you should select a 120gb hard drive or smaller.  For a few bucks you would be able to purchase an external enclosure to put that drive in to use as a backup drive later so that wouldn't be a totally wasted expendature.

[Beetle914]

Yes, it is a A55-S1063.

I already have a pair of separate 80Gb (external - desktop) IDE hard drives that I use for backups, etc.    I was just wanting to upgrade the one onboard.  Mostly I wanted to upgrade the processor from the original 1.5Ghz Celeron M, but I was going to upgrade the HDD at the same time.  

If I can't do any significant upgrades to this one, and by all indications I might just be spinning my wheels, I should probably just wait a few months and buy a newer laptop that has better performance qualities than this one.  

[cee_64]

Waiting and replacing the entire laptop would be a better solution overall.  There isn't enough that you can do to make that system perform much better than it already does so any significant amount of money wouldn't provide much of a return on your investment.

[PV9685]

While this may be a dead thread.... I have in my posession a friend's A55-S106 and am looking at CPU interchangeability. Well, to me it seems quite logical to extend the lifespan of P4 and these Pre-core architecture machines.

Well - BIOS support is key. I would imagine that voltages across the board would be supported on most motherboards. Except LV/ULV chips. So assuming forward compatability there is potential for upgrading some cpu's to 1.75x or greater output. For example - assuming a 400MHZ (pentium M 765)/533MHz (pentium M 780) bus and Socket 479 the max looks to be a pentium M 765/780. Now, those CPUs are almost up to par with the low end Core2's. Thats up to par with what is really a good minimum spec for today's machines (early 2010) and should last for another year or two without being incredibly slow.  Slightly lower spec CPUs than the 765/780 can be found on eBay for around $10 or less shipped. Unfortunately the highest spec CPUs on a given platform are always a horrible price on ebay. the 765/780's are like $100 right now which is a joke.

But, take it down a couple notched and you can get around a 2GHz Pentium M with the 2MB cache for $10. That would be around 1.5x output of a system originally equiped with a 1.4GHz chip. that's not all that bad. (albeit, not all that good really) but, most people use computrs for simple productivity stuff and playing around on the web. My friend's Celeron M 1.4 is running "FarmVille" on facebook at an "almost" acceptable rate - increasing the cpu output to 1.5-2.0x output would make it perfectly acceptable and unnecessary to replace the computer for at least 2 more years (assumption).

This means that $10 for a chip and $10/$20 for 256/512MB of ram (has 512 currently) would be cheaper than the depreciation of a new $400 laptop over the next two years - of which a $400 laptop would only be 1.5X the cpu ouput of the Pentium M 2.0-2.2 range.

BIOS support... I think the hardware support is all set, it all comes down to what the BIOS wants to do. it can either run the chips as an "Unknown CPU" or fail. Who wants to spend $10 first? lol - I may try it. or I may try to read through the BIOS file data and try to see if I can figure out any clues.

Laptops are unfortunate as they are not generally perceived as CPU upgrade candidates. VERY ANNOYING.

[PV9685]

However...

"While the Intel 855GME chipset supports all Pentium M CPU's, the Intel 855GM chipset does not support 90 nm 2MB L2 cache (Dothan core) models" - Quite unfortuante. hmm..

[cee_64]

See  http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=209284 for more information on what cpu's that chipset can accomodate.  That thread and that entire forum would be your best source of information on what you could update to. 

[PV9685]

Great resource - Thank you VERY much. Deciphering what Intel cpu will fit which intel socket and chipset combo is tough... not to mention will it even POST.

On a side note, I think the laptop I was researching has the 852 chipset and "supposedly" a Celeron M 1.7 may be the max. Weird how the compatability "works".