Would it be possible to upgrade my hp compaq presario cq56?

[seraphim22]

So recently I bought a hp compaq presario cq56 for £80 (only thing in my price range at the time), looked at a glance ok at 2.3ghz. It also came with a clean install of windows 10. However upon reflection I can barely have two youtube pages open without cpu running at 99%. This is not good enough as you will know. My memory usage at the same time is around 35% according to task manager so ram seems to be fine, I have added 3gb myself.(total 6gb)

I searched around and it doesnt look like I can overclock, or would want to. But I would like to hopefully upgrade the cpu(a friend mentioned "ultimate" upgrade kit? no idea what this is), how would I go about doing this and could anyone tell me what would be the best cpu I could put into this laptop. I would have about £100 to spend if the new cpu would be good enough.

My specs according to specky are as follows:

Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
CPU
AMD V140 58 °C
Champlain 45nm Technology
RAM
6.00GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 532MHz (7-7-7-20)
Motherboard
Hewlett-Packard 1604 (Socket S1G4)
Graphics
Generic PnP Monitor (1366x768@64Hz)
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 Series (HP)
Storage
298GB Hitachi HTS725032A9A364 SATA Disk Device (SATA) 35 °C

Another issue I think I may have is random system programs using rapidly changing amounts of my cpu, service host:local systems, system interrupts, windows audio device graph isolation, windows explorer and a few others all have rapidly changing cpu consumptions.(once again according to task manager).

I also have the harddrive from a samsung np3530EC running windows 8.1 and have swapped this harddrive into the cq56 just to test it out and it does seem to work, if this would make a difference.


Ps. Please dont suggest I buy a new laptop for now, This will be a funish project at least and I like the laptop in general. Plus I have star wars knights of the old republic 2 running, just not very quickly!

Ps. community here looks great, hope someone can help with my problem.

Thanks in advance! So you know, I'm not that good at computer tech, but I know the basics.(I think haha). I can try to provide more details if required.

 

[Sergeant_Sneaky]

CPU's in laptops aren't generally replaceable, you could contact the manufacturer and ask though. I think the best investment would be an SSD to make it feel faster, but with that CPU I don't know how that will help. I would recommend running a selective start of windows, with no startup items and check if your laptop runs faster, if it does, there is a program slowing it down.

 

[getochkn]

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02657369

Page 75 shows what you can upgrade to in terms of the CPU. The fastest being

AMD Athlon II N370 processor (2.5 GHz, 1-MB L2 cache, 1066 MHz, 3.2 GT/s)--dual-core 35 W

Currently you have

AMD V140 processor (2.3 GHz, 512-MB, L2 cache, 1066 MHz, 3.2 GT/s)—single-core 25 W


So this would give you another core, 200mhz faster.

Amazon UK has them, assuming your in the UK by your pounds currency amount.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Athlon-Dual-Core-N370-AMN370DCR22GM-Champlain/dp/B00G90SY3A


The GPU is built onto the board and can't be upgraded.


So 20pounds will get you a dual core instead of single core. Taking apart a laptop can be daunting and it's easy to break all the little cables and ribbons, but can be done.


How much that will help you, I dunno. A bit I guess. Sounds like a fresh install of windows might help as well.


Going back in time, have 80 pounds to buy a laptop and 100 pounds to upgrade it, 180 might have gotten you a decent laptop, but really that's about all you upgrade. Adding more RAM isn't going to help.

 

[seraphim22]

Thanks geto, exactly the kind of answer I was hoping for.

So you think the n370 would be best for me? Sounds good, could you explain however exactly what it would mean for me, to upgrade to 200mhz faster and what in simple terms- two cores have over my current single core cpu? Would this allow better performance to have multiple youtube tabs etc?

With the n370, would it be worth upgrading the 2gb ram stick to a 4gb version, for a total of 8gb ram?, currently have 6gb in the laptop.

When you say a fresh install of windows would help, this laptop has supposedly had a fresh install of windows 10 on it, isnt that good enough? How would I go about changing the operating system? (I understand this could be quite a big question, mark the answer with * so I know this relates )

Taking the laptop apart shouldnt be too much of a problem, i've done it many times just to see exactly what is under there and if there is anything I can clean etc! (I've had many laptops and many problems with them! One thing despite taking the laptop apart I have not done though is do anything with the cpu. So taking it out and replacing it, will be new to me! Will it simply clip in, like the ram does?

 

[getochkn]

I meant that your current CPU is 2.3ghz single core, and the fastest you can put in is 2.5ghz, dual core. The extra 200mhz won't make a huge diff, but the 2nd core would.

2gb extra from 6gb to 8gb ram won't make a difference.

just meant youtube shouldn't be pegging the cpu to 100%, but it's been a while since i've used an old pc. lol.

I think you would see a bit of performance increase, but I would try to figure out what's lagging the windows so much first.

 

[seraphim22]

Is there any software I could download that could give you this information? Right now with this page, two ebay tabs, amazon tab along with my antivirus(mbytes pro and windows defender?) running, I am averaging at about 35-50% cpu usage mainly from "firefox"+"system", also doing basically nothing while writing this post and watching it, windows explorer has spiked my cpu to 99% for a few seconds then disappeared. Memory is at a constant 37% usage.

I will purchase the cpu you recommend and let you know how I get on in a few days time, any additional advice on replacing cpu's would be appreciated. Will it be a good idea to use thermal paste?