Replacing Laptop CPUs

[eidolon171]

I keep seeing folks here in the Tom's community saying,

"You cannot upgrade your laptops CPU."

A statement usually followed up with,

"Laptop CPU's are soldered onto the board."

And yet, for the past 5 years I have been upgrading laptop CPU's and have only ever encountered a soldered processor once (inside a Dell mini netbook) out of the roughly 50 different laptops I've opened. The aforementioned commentary is demonstrably false, and I think our community should consider a new approach to answering questions regarding this topic, an approach which takes into consideration the more accurate detractors of laptop CPU upgrades: such as cooling, and bios compatibility.

 

[th3p00r]

I don't think anybody say that, the graphic is soldered onto the motherboard, not the CPU. That also depends on the motherboard if it allow to you upgrade to your specific CPU, otherwise, you can only replace it.

 

[Wolfshadw]

Welcome to an open community where anyone can answer anyone's question. One person gets an answer and suddenly it's gospel. Want to see poor commentary? Just google "Bottleneck" + "Tom's Hardware". Now THERE is some poor commentary!

The problem is forums like these can turn into virtual grapevines. One person says something correct and legitimate (like Laptop BGA socketed processors are soldered to the motherboard and cannot be upgraded) and somewhere down the line, a vital bit of information gets left out. (like Laptop socketed processors are soldered to the motherboard and cannot be upgraded). A little bit further, it's cut down to pure gibberish (like laptop processors cannot be upgraded).

We would literally need a team of thousands to go through and correct all the misinformation that can be found here on Tom's, but we do the best we can to correct this information when it's found. When YOU come across it in new threads (don't go resurrecting old threads for this), feel free to chime in with the correct information. The more often the correct information is posted, the more times it will be seen and the more often the correct information will be repeated.

-Wolf sends

 

[InvalidError]

If you are mainly dealing with older thick laptops or desktop replacement laptops based on desktop parts, sure. Newer thin-and-light laptops, especially Broadwell and newer, are all BGAs to save vertical height.

 

[jaguarskx]

Depends on exactly which laptops you are referring to. For example, starting with the Intel 5th generation Broadwell mobile CPU, all laptop with Intel CPUs have CPUs that are soldered into the motherboard. The exceptions are a handful of boutique laptops that uses desktop Intel CPUs instead of mobile Intel CPUs.

 

[robert600]

I keep seeing folks here in the Tom's community saying,

"You cannot upgrade your laptops CPU."

A statement usually followed up with,

"Laptop CPU's are soldered onto the board."

Yes .... don't get me started on this .... it's so annoying. Coming in a close 2nd to this 'advise' is how 2 sticks of ram must come from a 'paired set' to work together.

 

[Viking2121]

I've replaced CPU's quite a few times on laptops, I recently got me an older HP 4430s with a really weak Celeron CPU, its a dual core at 1.6ghz sandy bridge, although it quite usable on Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 is really a poor experience with the CPU at 100% almost the entire time Chrome is open, where on Win 7 CPU hardly pegs out 100% even watching youtube at 1080p.

I ordered a sandy bridge i5-2410m to replace the Celeron, The cooling will handle the CPU as many others have installed the same CPU or better in this laptop and it kept it fairly cool.

The problem is most laptops it's a pain to change out the CPU, and you can't always guarantee it will work as some manufacturers will not update the bios or purposely lock the bios to only work with selected CPU, I have a few Dells like that. Also some laptops you have to take apart everything to get to the CPU, A lot of laptops these days are like that, some are pretty easy to upgrade.

I typically do not work on laptops at my shop unless it's someone I know well or if it's for myself or some really easy upgrade or repair, most of the time you can break the plastic tabs that hold them togeather and it won't go back togeather propery and the customer could throw a fit and it could be a headache, and again, you can;t always guarantee a new part like a CPU will work on the laptop.

This laptop I replaced the CPU fan and upgraded the CPU to some higher clocked Core 2 Duo to better fit the 9800m that was in it. It was a high-end laptop around 2007, some Toshiba Quasmo, I had to take it apart that much just to replace the failing CPU fan and CPU itself.

 

[Jeff Mongillo]

I've replaced CPU's quite a few times on laptops, I recently got me an older HP 4430s with a really weak Celeron CPU, its a dual core at 1.6ghz sandy bridge, although it quite usable on Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10 is really a poor experience with the CPU at 100% almost the entire time Chrome is open, where on Win 7 CPU hardly pegs out 100% even watching youtube at 1080p.

I ordered a sandy bridge i5-2410m to replace the Celeron, The cooling will handle the CPU as many others have installed the same CPU or better in this laptop and it kept it fairly cool.

The problem is most laptops it's a pain to change out the CPU, and you can't always guarantee it will work as some manufacturers will not update the bios or purposely lock the bios to only work with selected CPU, I have a few Dells like that. Also some laptops you have to take apart everything to get to the CPU, A lot of laptops these days are like that, some are pretty easy to upgrade.

I typically do not work on laptops at my shop unless it's someone I know well or if it's for myself or some really easy upgrade or repair, most of the time you can break the plastic tabs that hold them togeather and it won't go back togeather propery and the customer could throw a fit and it could be a headache, and again, you can;t always guarantee a new part like a CPU will work on the laptop.

This laptop I replaced the CPU fan and upgraded the CPU to some higher clocked Core 2 Duo to better fit the 9800m that was in it. It was a high-end laptop around 2007, some Toshiba Quasmo, I had to take it apart that much just to replace the failing CPU fan and CPU itself.

I am preparing to replace the CPU in my older Toshiba (A215-S5849) from the original Turion 64 x2 TL-60 to the highest viable level replacement of that line, the Turion 64 x2 TL-64 that I found on amazon for like $25. Once I put together my regular desktop, this 10+ yr old laptop gets a new brain. There are a limited few laptops that won't or can't be upgraded, but that are infinite numbers of laptops that CAN. Don't worry about that. 😀

 

[J_E_D_70]

About the RAM, I don't see many saying it won't just that it's more a sure thing. I've personally experienced two sets of ram with identical specs not working. Seperately great, together not at all. I would call that reasonable advice.

 

[InvalidError]

There are a limited few laptops that won't or can't be upgraded, but that are infinite numbers of laptops that CAN.

On the Intel side of things, all mobile CPUs since Broadwell are BGA-only, soldered directly to the motherboard. The "limited" number of non-upgradeable laptops is rapidly increasing while the "infinite" supply of upgradable laptops may come to an abrupt end if AMD ditches mobile sockets too.