del inspiron 1520 cpu

Hoping you guys may be able to advise, I have owned my 1520 for a few years now, I was thinking about replacing my cpu, I think i currently have the "Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T5250" 1.5ghz

Could you recomend what would be a good upgrade.

Many thanks

Joe

It depends on what you do and your budget, IMHO these two are reasonably sufficient CPUs.
Intel® Core
Intel® Core

EDIT:
Price for T8300 is almost double what you you'll pay for T7250 on ebay and I don't think it's worth for a 400MHz increase and extra 1MB L2 cache. T7250 will be a good upgrade.

do you think i will notice the difference with the 7250? £40 aint a bad price at all.

Is it quite straght forward to replace the cpu, I am used to replacing memory but not done cpu before. Also I think i have read that you should download new version of bios, is this correct?

I have found this video for changing cpu in 1530 and I assume it'll be similar, as for the BIOS,you have already a C2D cpu in your laptop and there's no need for an update. HTH.
YouTube - Changing the CPU in a Dell XPS M1530 Laptop

dont know anything about bios so thats good news. Ill have a look at the you tube clip, many thanks.

Also where can i get thermal paste? is it easy to apply?

Yes,avoid flashing BIOS. You'll find instructions for applying thermal paste in youtube,it's not too difficult but make sure that you apply a tiny amount.
Here's an example of AS5 from ebay again:
ARCTIC SILVER 5 CPU VGA Thermal Compound Paste 3,5g NEW on eBay (end time 06-Jun-10 22:10:12 BST)

are there any other improvements/upgrades that can be made on my little 1520?

Whats this overclocking i am starting to read about?

Re: Dell inspiron 1520 cpu

joeturbo said:

Hoping you guys may be able to advise, I have owned my 1520 for a few years now, I was thinking about replacing my cpu, I think i currently have the "Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T5250" 1.5ghz

Could you recomend what would be a good upgrade.

Many thanks

Joe

Click to expand...

Upgrading a CPU is not as straight forward as you may think.

The motherboard has to be compatible with the new CPU, this can be a major problem, especially with older PCs.

I would recommend you upgrade the motherboard and CPU at the same time, just because its easier and you can have more freedom in choosing a processor you like.

This does come with downsides however:
You will need new RAM,
You will need to reinstall Windows,
You may need to get a new sound/LAN/graphics card if they were integrated into the old MB.

What do you use your PC for mostly?
If you edit home movies or play demanding 3D games then I'd go for something quad core, maybe an Intel I5 but if you are just a casual email sender, internet browser etc. this would be a waste.

Maybe a 2.66-3.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, these can handle pretty much everything a casual user can throw at it with a bit of room to breath.

The other thing you have to take into account of is your budget.

If you have any questions or need some explanation to any of this please ask.

Oli

Hello joeturbo,
Overclocking is done from the Bios, your Bios will probably be locked by the manufacturer, so you wont be able to OC your machine.

Memory is always a good way to improve system speed, if you can upgrade that too you should see an improvement in overall system speed.

Hope this helps, good luck and post your results.

Osholt,

I dont really fancy changing the motherboard,cpu,ram,graphics card, at that rate i maight as well get a new pc. Looking on wiki it seems like dell sold my laptop (the 1520) with many different cpu speeds. I am guessing that as long as i stay with one of the cpus that were a option originally there should be no problems swapping them?

This is from wiki

"Processors (1520): Intel Pentium Dual-Core T2310 or Intel Core 2 Duo T5250, T5450, or T7250, T7500, T7300, T8100, T8300, T9300 or T9500"

stoney,

Thanks for the reply, I have already increased the ram to 4gb, was just looking to see if i could improve performace at all. I am currently getting BSOD quite regularly so would like to get this sorted first, I have created a thread on this if you have any ideas of the cause it would be great.

http://www.vistax64.com/general-discussion/278187-dell-inspiron-event-log-errors.html

Cheers

Joe

Hi
I recently have upgraded my Dell Inspiron1520 laptop processor to Intel core2 duo X7900 extreme processor and the rams to 4GB (2x2GB).
The ram upgrade made huge difference.
For CPU first I had some issues with the speed wich run in very low speed but I figure that Dell put special property in this laptop to protect overheating of the CPU wich prevent CPU from running in high speeds so simply you can overcome it with program name ThrottleStop (It is not overclocking of CPU it just use the full power of your processor) and you can install RealTemp program to follow up temperature wich usually will be in normal range even when gaming and if it get high you can use external fan (you can adjust CPU settings to find best performance and low heat settings).
If you still use this laptop these upgrades will help you very well.

maybe a better choice would have been an Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 rather than the Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme X7900, Thor000.
the T9500 is slightly slower than the X7900 but the T9500 runs much cooler than the X7900 (and even cooler than the T5250); X7900 has TDP rating of 44 watts while the T9500 has a TDP rating of 35 watts; somewhat noticeable difference in power consumption as the T9500 uses less power than the X7900 (and the T9500 has a little bigger L2 cache) - CPU-World comparison between T9500 & X7900 processors
I put a T9500 cpu on my cousin's HP dv6648se laptop replacing the T5250 (already had a compatible bios update F5A to support T9300/T9500 cpus & win7)