Need help with he Toshiba Satellite A500/03p

[Dwayne961]

Hi i need a little info on this laptop. if any one can help it will be much appreciated. i would like to know what the mother board of this laptop is called, and if the laptop can be upgraded with a better processer like the intel core 2 duo T9900 @ 3.06 GHz or the Intel core™ i7-820QM. The system Specs are (Processor- Intel core 2 duo P7350 @ 2.00 GHz, FSB 1066 MHz, L2 catch 3MB. Operating system is Windows Vista Home Premium. Memory (RAM) 4 GB DDR2 800MHz. 500GB Hard drive. Graphics is a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650 with 1 GB memory.) Any help on what ive asked or any usfull knowledge about the laptop or on the graphics card, anything. thank you and this is my 1st post on anything ever so i'm not to good at it

 

[buwish]

In general I don't recommend attempting to upgrade the internals of a laptop, as it is a major PITA. Never the less, in regard to the CPU it probably cannot be upgraded to an i7, as the core 2 is on a 939 socket, while the core i7's are socket 989. Your best bet is to just buy the laptop that comes close to the specs you want or customize one if you have preferred brand that offers such an options

 

[outlw6669]

^ +1 Much more trouble than it is worth.

As for the Core 2 => i7 idea, the i7 has a vastly different architecture than your current Core 2.
Even if you could fit an i7 on the board, the chipset would never be compatible with it.

A 2Ghz Core 2 CPU is still fairly powerful for day to day usage.
Unless you are gaming or doing some really CPU dependent work you probably would never be able to tell the difference between a 2Ghz Core 2 and 3Ghz Core 2.
Perhaps you should try cleaning your startup items, unnecessary apps or reinstalling Vista completely to speed your system up?

Another thing that would make your system feel much more snappy would be a SSD...

 

[prelude2250]

if you want to upgrade anything other than ram, hd, add-on cards then get a desktop.

 

[Dwayne961]

Ok so i now know that i can't use the i7 processor, thanks but i will want to play games on it, so do you know if the motherboard supports the intel core 2 duo t9900 @ 3.06 GHz? Like will it work. I haven't got the laptop yet but but i want it to be a good ish game and every day task laptop. If it can i would get some1 who knew how to change it if it will work properly

 

[Dwayne961]

In general I don't recommend attempting to upgrade the internals of a laptop, as it is a major PITA. Never the less, in regard to the CPU it probably cannot be upgraded to an i7, as the core 2 is on a 939 socket, while the core i7's are socket 989. Your best bet is to just buy the laptop that comes close to the specs you want or customize one if you have preferred brand that offers such an options

Thanks for replying but still wondering will the processor be able to be changed 2 the T9900 @ 3.06GHz with no problems? Since there both core 2's and just ones faster if not is there any way else to do it maybe?

 

[frozenlead]

T9900:
http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLGEE

P7350:
http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLB53

As you can see, the thermal specs for these two CPUs is pretty different. Depending on how well designed your cooling system is on the notebook, you're taking a big risk. The T9900 also consumes much more power.

That being said, the two are socket-compatible, and it's likely to be compatible with the chipset you have.