My Everex XT5300T (the same beastie more or less is sold by OCZ as an OCZNBAN17DIYA) came with an Athlon 64 X2 TK-53. I just dropped in a Turion TL-62. I decided to note this because when I started considering trying this, Everex had nothing useful to say about it, and what little I could find on the net seemed to indicate that it either couldn't be done, or that a faster chip would probably run too hot. Hopefully other interested parties will find this post and be thereby heartened in their quest.
Let me first note that I tried a Turion RM-70. It's a nice-sounding chip, but not backwards-compatible. AMD should really call it something other than a Turion.
The Athlon TK series are sort of dumbed-down Turion TLs: they have 512K L2 cache instead of 1024K, and the TL-62 at least has five settable speeds (800 1600 1800 2000 2100), whereas the TK-53 just has three (800 1600 1700). Also, according to Wikipedia, the TK series don't support AMD-V, which probably means they are no good for virtual machines.
Judging by what baud-rate a kernel compile looks like (for those who remember back to things like 1200-baud terminals), it is quite a bit quicker, more than one would expect from an extra 400Mhz (x 2) of CPU. I figured the cache would make more of a difference than the clock speed. Another nice thing is that I've got two OCZ DDR-800 sticks in this thing, which with the old cpu, memtest86+ saw as 340MHz (DDR-681). The new chip turns them into 420MHz DDR-841. Definitely a quicker box, well worth the trouble.
The OCZ version of this laptop is a DIY thingie, meaning you are meant to finish it to your own satisfaction. While they ship it with the TK-53 cpu, they have a very nice DIY Handbook which shows not only how to add memory and disk, but also how to change the cpu. I picked up some Artic Silver Ceramique themal paste for about $2.50 and a Turion Tl-62 for $55, both from Ebay.
I was worried I might have a cooling problem (the TK-53 is listed as a 31 Watt TDP chip and the Tl-62 is 35 Watt TDP) but the Tl-62 is running if anything cooler than the TK-53 (the high-grade thermal paste may be helping with that). Judging by how cool the TL-62 is running, I'm sure I could get away with a TL-64 (not worth switching to go from 21.Ghz to 2.2 Ghz), and maybe anything up to a TL-68. If anyone tries anything faster than a TL-62, please let me know your results.
The exact chip I have is the TMDTL62HAX5DM. The DM is a later stepping than the DC, so that may be a factor in how hot or cool it runs, but probably not.
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2 comments:
Thanks for post, My old xt5300t is starting to not keep up with me anymore and I was looking at upgrading it for fun and to extend its usefulness. There is little info online as to what will and will not work so I'm gonna have to just see what I can do...goal is to push it to its peak since it is nothing but a home file/print server.
Mine died this summer due to the well-known Nvidia chipset problem (I will never buy anything from FIC on Nvidia again if I can help it). Just brought it to a place where they claim they can fix it for $150, no charge if they can't.
It ran great for a year after the upgrade.
Don't forget dual-DDR and a 7200 rpm drive.
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