Hi, My roommate bought a P3 700Mhz T20. Nice machine. He wants me to upgrade the CPU but I know little about this machine. He found a P3 866Mhz CPU on ebay, his machine has 256k cache, the cpu on ebay has 512k of cache.

I guess I need to know what kind of socket the P3 is available in and what may or may not be compatible. All help appreciated.

Thanks.

It won't work, that laptop needs a 495 pin processor (looks like a regular processor with a larger part soldered to the bottom of it with the CPU pins on it - no square in the middle) and what your roommate is looking at is a 478 pin tualatin processor.


edit: here's a brilliant reference page with pictures: http://www5b.biglobe.ne.jp/~oh_lavie/cpu/cpu_1.htm
You'd need a MicroPGA2 processor, and the one that your roommate was looking at is the Micro FCPGA.

Thanks, that's exactly the info I needed. I love this forum!

Too bad it wasn't a T21. I had a 2647-9AU that came with a 850 MHz part. Itakes all of 15 minutes to swap it out and install the new one. I found a 1.0 Ghz part on eBay and bought it for I think... $70 shipped. Two weeks later, when I knew the Frankenstein treatment worked, I sold the 850 MHz chip for $75 + shipping. Go figure.

When I sold my T21 on eBay, it stood out from all the other 800MHz and even 900MHz units because of four items; the SXGA+ graphics, 512MB Ram (max'd), a new 40 Gig GNX drive, and... that 1.0 Ghz cpu... which I think proves the theory that faster is better!

EDIT: MDBrown... a little research on eBay shows there are a good number of SL53L 850MHz MicroPGA2 cpus available. I think the criteria was that the notebook had to also have the speed-step technology and 100 MHz FSB. As James has always advocated increased memory outweighing a miniscule bump in cpu power, your friend might want to ramp up the memory... unless you can find a 900 MHz part... maybe that's worth messing with. I did it because the price I got the 1.0 Ghz chip for was very low, and then I just sold the 850 at market value.

Mike