Processor also known as CPU
A processor also known as CPU (Central Processing Unit) is the brain of a laptop computer. The processor is one of the main components in a laptop. Laptop processors are made mainly by Intel and AMD.
The processor connects directly to the system board via a processor socket aka CPU socket as it shown on the picture below.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.
Question: Can I overclock the CPU in my laptop?
Answer: No, you cannot. In most laptops the BIOS doesn’t give you this option.
Question: Can I upgrade the CPU in my laptop?
Answer: Unfortunately, laptop manufacturer’s do not provide this information to general public. Yes, it’s possible on some laptops. You’ll have to find a new CPU which fits the same socket and try it.
Question: Are CPU failures very common?
Answer: No, they are not. CPUs fail rarely. If your laptop stopped booting, the CPU will be the last component to blame. Check the memory and motherboard first.
Laptop parts | Repair Man | 
December 26, 2008 2:56 pm
January 2nd, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Why would you upgrade processor? Its too expensive.
Max memory and install faster hard drive.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Anon,
Of course, upgrading from Pentium 2.0GHz to Pentium 2.2GHz doesn’t make a lot of sense. But what if it’s possible to upgrade your Celeron CPU to a Pentium CPU and boost the laptop performance?
I agree with you on upgrading the hard drive and memory. Max these components first and then think about upgrading the CPU.
January 3rd, 2009 at 3:34 pm
hi all!
i want to cleaning my laptop and replace thermal paste. what is good paste for laptops?
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:04 pm
neil,
I know that many people like Arctic Silver thermal compound. Google it and you’ll find it.
January 12th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
Fixing an old Sony laptop for my friend. The laptop shuts down while running multiple programs. I know that laptop overheats and would like to replace thermal paste but I cannot remove the heat sink.
I even purchased a service manual and doing everything right. I loosened all screws on the heat sink but still cannot separate it from the processor. Should I remove it with some force?
Thank you, Serge B.
January 13th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Serge Belov,
Most likely the old thermal compound has dried out and glued the processor to the heat sink. In some cases you’ll have to apply some force in order to separate the heat sink from the processor. When you do that, the CPU might come out attached to the heat sink.
If that’s the case do the following:
1. Very carefully separate the processor from the heat sink with a flat head screwdriver.
2. Unlock the processor socket on the motherboard, insert the processor and lock it in.
3. Now, when the processor is installed back into the socket and secured, you can remove the old thermal compound.
January 17th, 2009 at 12:28 am
[...] board, processor (CPU) and LCD screen are the most expensive parts in any laptop. In some cases, when one of these [...]
February 3rd, 2009 at 8:42 am
Do you know a good thermal grease for laptops? What is a good reliable brand I should buy?
February 3rd, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Russel R,
I’m work mostly with warranty laptops and use thermal grease supplied by the manufacturer but I know that many people prefer Arctic Silver thermal compound.
March 3rd, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Hi, I have a bad Fujitsu laptop that has a motherboard. From what I’ve read here, I understand that fixing a motherboard would be very costly and not worth it. So I’m wondering if I could sell some parts from my laptop. Would be able to separate and sell the processor etc?
March 4th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Leo,
Sure, you can sell many different parts from your laptop. You should be able to sell at least the following most common and requested parts: keyboard, memory modules, CD/DVD drive, LCD screen, screen inverter.
Most likely you can separate the processor. It depends on the model of your laptops.
April 28th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
excuse me, i just want to ask if what is the most expensive parts of laptopo. bcoz my auntie’s laptop was damage. she said one of its part has been broken.i just want to know if u have an idea if what it is. and my pictures and important documnets were saved ion her laptop. is there any way to get the pics even it is damage? is there any part to be removed in order to get my pics and docs again. my aunt said that part tht has been damege cost 20,000 pesos. may i know what is that part. .coz i really need those pics. please help me. Tnx and God Bless!!romanuel111@yahoo.com is my email add. .thats all tnx.
April 28th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
rojen salino,
The most expensive parts in a laptop are the motherboard and LCD screen.
You can recover your documents from the hard drive using an external USB eclosure.
1. You remove the hard drive and I assume it’s not damaged.
2. You install this hard drive into an external USB enclosure.
3. You connect this USB enclosure to another working computer.
4. When the drive appears in My Computer, you access the drive and back up all personal files.
Check out this post which explains how to access files using an external USB enclosure.
July 27th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Is there a “parts number catalog” of each notebook model?
I am trying to produce panel-pc’s using notebook parts, but the parts suppliers seems to don’t have this information.
September 26th, 2009 at 5:02 am
hi i have a toshiba satellite p100-160
it starts up after 2-3 min stays on for 15 to 20 min.
i have put now mem init now hard drive i can not find the them cut out to see if its that can you help please thx
September 26th, 2009 at 11:27 am
arty,
I would try to help you if I can understand what’s going on. Can you provide a better, more detailed explanation of your problem?
November 18th, 2009 at 8:23 am
hi repair man :
i got one toshiba with one processor 1.8ghz can i change for one bigger??
November 18th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
paulopopas,
Most likely yes, if there is one that fits the CPU socket.
November 26th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Hey. I was thinking of upgrading my processor in my Laptop, a Toshiba A305-S6905. It has intel cor 2 duo t6400 (2.0, etc) and was wondering if replacing it to the intel core 2 quad Q9000 (2.0 etc..) on the intel site, its the same socket. I think it would make a difference, do you?
Also, the laptop has 4gb of ram, may bring to 8 later, and runs win 7 64bit (yes, its a 64 bit system even though it came with 32 bit Vista)
November 28th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Steve,
To be honest, I don’t know if you will see any improvement in the laptop performance after this expensive upgrade. I’m working on 3-5 year old laptops and they work just fine for me.
You can boots the laptop performance if you upgrade from a 5400RPM hard drive to a 7200RPM hard drive and you’ll see the difference after that.
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:58 pm
In repsonse to Repair Man, Now after that upgrade to the harddrive (which I do notice a difference, by the way, Thanks), would that 4gb of additional ram be worth it? considering laptops have standard of 2 slots, and so far 2 2gb sticks are in, Would replacing them with 2 4gb sticks be worth it or not? and I’v checked with Everest software and it says that they can handle 8 gigs.
it has DDR2-800 in it (a corsair and a Samsung(came with))
Everest says these are supported memory types. DDR2-667 SDRAM, DDR2-800 SDRAM, DDR3-667 SDRAM, DDR3-800 SDRAM, DDR3-1066 SDRAM
any suggestions? or should I just leave it be.
December 2nd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Steve,
Yes, if the laptop can handle 8GB. I would go for it.
There shouldn’t be any problem with the OS because you are running a 64-bit OS.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
my laptop doesn’t beep and no display on the lcd. could this be a processor problem, or is the mother board fried?
December 14th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
I have a Toshiba Satellite A15-S129 that has a 2.4 GHz mobile celeron processor and it is easy to access it to replace it.
Is there a better or faster processor I could use, such as a Pentium 4?
December 14th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Duaine,
I checked parts listed for Toshiba Satellite A15 laptop and along with Celeron 2.4GHz they mention Pentium 4 2.2GHz for same motherboard.
I think you can use this one. This is my guess.
December 26th, 2010 at 1:07 am
I know, I’m asking questions about everything
. I have an AMD CPU. I’m going to build my own computer, would you suggest AMD or Intel? Intel is more credible to me, but I don’t know much about AMD. I suppose it would depend on what the computer is for?
January 4th, 2011 at 9:12 am
Evi,
I would go with Intel.
January 11th, 2011 at 12:30 pm
Yeah, I’ve figured that out since. Thanks for answering though. I chose an i5 Intel. AMD is nice when you want a budget computer
.
January 12th, 2011 at 3:20 am
i have compaq presario c795tu ,in my laptop lan is working but not bluetooth ,i want to know can i know that my laptop has bluetooth hardware or not without touching any hardware ,i dont want to do any opening and closing like opening keyboardetc ,through software,i lost my mannual also and compaq website is showing nothing,one thing more i want to ask that which is better XP or windows vista ,THANK YOU
January 13th, 2011 at 1:47 pm
hardik,
Take a look in the device manager. If you have Bluetooth module in the laptop, it will appear in the device manager.
If you don’t have it, you can buy a small USB Bluetooth plug. It’s small and you don’t have to disassemble the laptop.
March 3rd, 2011 at 11:37 am
I need a processor(cpu)Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 1.8 GHz for laptop Fujitsu Siemens Amilo pi 2515.can anyone find it for me?and how much this cost?help me please.
March 4th, 2011 at 8:38 am
Agron,
You can find a used T7100 CPU here for about $30-40.
March 27th, 2011 at 5:14 am
hi i have lenovo G460 laptop
CPU
Intel(R) Core(TM) i3 CPU M 330 @ G Hz
CPU Speed
You Have: 2.1 GHz Performance Rated at: 3.78 GHz
i want 2 upgrade my CPU can i do it . change my CPU 2 i7 processor thanks
June 30th, 2011 at 8:43 am
THIS IS A WARNING
Hi…
i am a gamer and have the latest gadgets for a computer
my computer box is large as 3 ordinary computer
i have 3 video cards , 4 hard drives with 2TB,
THX motherboard…
and probably about 400 games and 3000 movies
but when i saw that their is a intel icore i7 2900k best version (what a lie)
i got some money and bought it for about 600 which was a rip off -.-
but it was shit
i7 is shit
so i went back to icore i5 the best their is
October 16th, 2011 at 5:38 am
Hi can i replace the cpu in a toshiba satellite a660 17e
November 2nd, 2011 at 4:39 pm
@ brendan,
Do you mean replace it physically? Yes you can.
Take a look at this disassembly guide for Toshiba Satellite A660/A665 laptops.
http://www.irisvista.com/tech/laptops/Toshiba-Satellite-A665-A660/laptop-disassembly-1.htm
At the end of the guide you’ll see how to remove the motherboard. After that you can remove the heat sink and replace the CPU.
January 31st, 2012 at 11:44 am
i have a laptop, it will on but it will not display on the screen and check the ram it is ok, but when i lose the board from the system i try another processor it work, i decided to fixed it back with the processor i get it could not work but if i life the system board up from the carcass, it it will work and display on the screen and i fixed it back it will not work (please what is the problem)Sir help me