Toshiba Satellite U500 PSU82C 01H00G Component Upgrades

[jennypurr]

I have a Toshiba Satellite U500 PSU82C 01H00G and although I love the size of the computer, it is soooo slow! I am interested in upgrading the components (motherboard, CPU, etc) but I can't find any information on if this is possible with this model and if so, how to tell which parts are compatible. Thank you for any help!

 

[Eximo]

It is a laptop. You pretty much get what you get. Even if you could upgrade it, it would not be cost effective as it is 10 years old.

To replace a P9700 CPU's performance would be basically ANY cpu model available. That includes low end Celeron and Pentium branded computers.

An entry level i3 processor would be about triple the performance.

So the better question is, do you have $250-300 to spend on an a new laptop? For a little more you could get an i5 ultrabook with a nice SSD and 10 hour battery life.

 

[Eximo]

This isn't bad at all: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Lenovo-ideapad-330s-15-6-Laptop-Windows-10-Intel-Core-i5-8250U-Quad-Core-processor-20GB-4GB-16GB-Intel-Optane-Memory-1TB-Hard-Drive-Midnight-Blue/444500759?u1=b308e721-5fc0-4fcd-9322-cc6d9bfdc296&oid=623524.1&wmlspartner=Es5Ekr9eEBk&sourceid=28003507362293986180&affillinktype=10&veh=aff

Black Friday/Cyber Monday is also coming up, so you might be able to get some doorbuster models quite cheaply.

 

[jennypurr]

It is a laptop. You pretty much get what you get. Even if you could upgrade it, it would not be cost effective as it is 10 years old.

To replace a P9700 CPU's performance would be basically ANY cpu model available. That includes low end Celeron and Pentium branded computers.

An entry level i3 processor would be about triple the performance.

So the better question is, do you have $250-300 to spend on an a new laptop? For a little more you could get an i5 ultrabook with a nice SSD and 10 hour battery life.

 

[jennypurr]

I don’t have the money for a new one unfortunately, though I know of course that would be the best. (The Walmart one is nice, but out of my price range, especially considering I’m Canadian and our dollar is currently worth a bag of rocks, lol!) I recently upgraded the MB and CPU in my own laptop (I’m hoping to get this one fixed up for a family member) and it works great now so I was hoping to be able to do the same to this one. I have no idea whatmotherboard would work with it though. Thank you for the suggestion though!

 

[Eximo]

The motherboard that works with it is the one it has. Very little modularity between laptop chassis. Usually purpose built, any motherboard swaps supported would effectively be buying a whole new computer, might as well just find that model for sale on ebay.

You might be able to upgrade the CPU if you don't mind taking it apart, depending on the CPU it has now. Otherwise, the basic normal upgrades of memory and drives are your options. An SSD is never a bad idea, that can make quite the improvement to the desktop experience.

Buying parts for it, while seemingly cheap, is going to add up with shipping and all that.

Depending on the use case of your family member a cheap tablet or chromebook might be a good alternative. If it is just basic PC capability, you can also look at Intel Atom based netbooks. They also sell Atom processors in stick format(google stick computer), all you need at that point is a monitor or TV and peripherals.