Question Toshiba L755D-128 and Connexant 20587 11-Z

[fatfas]

After 2 decades of reading the questions of others in the hopes of getting my answer this is my very first thread/post.

I had a Toshiba L755D-128 Laptop from around 2012. I dug it out and I found it to be like Win98 type slow and the only media I tested was youtube which was constantly glitchy and barely able to play a 720p video but a 420p works fine.

There was also a loud fan and the sound cutting out and only returning if I constantly plugged in headphones

So I did the following:

1. Upgraded RAM from 6GB to 8GB (DDR3 and of x2 different manufacturers if that is worth noting)
2. Upgraded the HDD to a 250GB SATA3 SSD
3. Upgraded to Windows 10
4. Opened device up and cleaned out the Fan (90% completed)

The laptop is an AMD A4 3300M with Radeon Graphics 1900Mhz 2 cores and 2 logical processors (Circa 2012)

After these touch ups the fan is not particularly loud now and Youtube works (only 420p comfortably)

But the sound STILL cuts out. I did not the Sound IC does get hot when it cuts out at that location where the IC is.

The IC is a connexant CX20587-11 chip

I have also ordered some rubbing alcohol and thermal paste which I planned to use for the CPU and Heatsink.

I did come across a youtube video:

View: https://youtu.be/QcPWwM1ZQvI?feature=shared


He proposes applying paste on the Chip and then applying some metal (copper, Aluminum etc) on the chip to keep it cool.

My question is:

Is this approach viable and sensible?
With the exception of buying another chip and trying to solder (no experience) do I have any options to bring my sound back permanently?

i am assuming the CPU pasting will address the Video stuttering - Is this right to assume?

Any advice or steer or info you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

I Just need to know is it time to walk away or should I keep at it?

I dont mind the effort as its kinda fun and I'm boosting my skills

Peace out.

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Upgraded RAM from 6GB to 8GB (DDR3 and of x2 different manufacturers if that is worth noting)
Would've helped you if you sourced a dual channel memory ji with a matched pair. Would help bring out some performance in your aging laptop. You could look into Elpida rams that come out of Apple iMac's, however the highest ram speed your platform will be able to get to is DDR3-1066MHz.

Changing the thermal paste and pads to something higher quality will mean lower temps but a 2 decade old laptop with that processor won't net you anything beneficial apart from being a resource drain.

What OS are you working with? might want to install drivers you got for Vista in compatibility mode if you're on Windows 7. Right click installer>Properties>Compatibility Mode>Windows XP.

 

[fatfas]

Thanks for replying.

This orignally was a win7 laptop?

I tried to watch a movie online and although the sound has the same problem (i.e. Sound cuts off and returns after pausing or muting for few mins)
os still there graphics wise the 720p movie worked fine but is still glitchy on youtube.

I disabled the hardware acceleration tickbox on edge setting as well.

Are you suggesting finding an older version of the sound driver?

I think Win10 will not let me saying its not digitally signed..

thanks!

 

[noiceturtle55]

Something that can really help with getting youtube working better on these old laptops is getting the chrome extension called h.264ify. This will trim back the video codec so that it runs better on older hardware, plus you can run videos in 30fps to improve video smoothness. Basically, this will take the load off of your cpu and puts more load on the gpu, which will help a lot with these old systems. I have an old toshiba laptop with an e-300 cpu (which is just as slow, if not slower than the a4-3300), and installing h.264ify helped out a lot, and reduced the cpu load from 100 percent from playing a 720p video all the way down to 50 percent usage, in addition to making the videos run a lot smoother.

I would still recommend re-pasting, as that will definitely help out your laptop and allow it to cool better, but there's no guarantee that it will improve performance. Installing software like h.264ify that will allow you to tweak the software to be less demanding will probably be your best bet here.

I've also had a lot of success from installing lightweight linux distros such as lubuntu on these old laptops, would probably be more secure than windows 7 and would probably run a little better too.

 

[fatfas]

Something that can really help with getting youtube working better on these old laptops is getting the chrome extension called h.264ify. This will trim back the video codec so that it runs better on older hardware, plus you can run videos in 30fps to improve video smoothness. Basically, this will take the load off of your cpu and puts more load on the gpu, which will help a lot with these old systems. I have an old toshiba laptop with an e-300 cpu (which is just as slow, if not slower than the a4-3300), and installing h.264ify helped out a lot, and reduced the cpu load from 100 percent from playing a 720p video all the way down to 50 percent usage, in addition to making the videos run a lot smoother.

I would still recommend re-pasting, as that will definitely help out your laptop and allow it to cool better, but there's no guarantee that it will improve performance. Installing software like h.264ify that will allow you to tweak the software to be less demanding will probably be your best bet here.

I've also had a lot of success from installing lightweight linux distros such as lubuntu on these old laptops, would probably be more secure than windows 7 and would probably run a little better too.

The extension worked a treat, thanks man!

Now just the sound saga to solve and I cna handover laptop to my dad to enjoy lol