"Sleeper" Laptop?

[Bruno_A]

Hello guys, first of all, the laptop I'll talk about isn't a sleeper by any means. You'll understand the title at the end of the post. I've been doing some work on an old laptop and thought I'd share it with you guys. Basically, I wanted to recover a Windows 8 and Windows 10 product key from a laptop I had laying around that I didn't use, and after I recovered the keys, I went to the next laptop I had laying around, a pretty old laptop (about 9 years old) with a cracked screen which originally came with Windows Vista. Now, why in hell would I want a Windows Vista product key? Well, because I had nothing else better to do and mainly because I could. When I turned the laptop on I noticed there was no hard drive, as I reused it for another laptop, so I had to use an old 120GB Hitachi hard drive I had somewhere, and once I got it to boot into windows 10, it legitimately seemed like it was about to fly away and you'll understand why once you see the cooler. The laptop features a dual core Pentium T4200 @ 2.0GHz, an ATI Radeon HD 3400 and 3GB of DDR2 800MHz RAM. I'll leave you guys some pictures now.

 

When I first booted into windows, I performed a Cinebench benchmark and wasn't surprised at the score, given that it's a dual core Pentium at 2GHz running at 99ºC on load.

 

 

 

After the benchmark, I turned the laptop off and let it cool down a bit so I could then open it up and check the fan for dust and replace the thermal paste. As you can see from the pictures, the laptop was pretty dirty.

 

 

 

And here's the reason for the 99ºC CPU temperature, the fan just couldn't properly exhaust the heat from the CPU and GPU due to the excessive dust. Never seen anything like it...

 

 

This is what came off from the fan!

 

 

 

It's much cleaner now, and you can actually see the heat marks from the heatsink fins, lol.

 

 

 

After cleaning the fan, I swapped the thermal paste on the CPU and GPU, as the thermal past had the same consistency as a rock. To my surprise, the GPU isn't actually soldered on the board and instead uses a mobile PCI-E port, which means the GPU could be upgraded/swapped. Nice.

 

 

 

With all this messing around, I ended up breaking the power port, but luckily, I was able to fix it with a piece of paper. I know, it's pretty janky, but it works.  

 

 

 

After reassembling the laptop, I immediately noticed it was MUCH MUCH quieter (didn't sound like it was about to take off) and the temperatures were also MUCH better. The cinebench score didn't change, though, weird.

 

 

 

Sorry for the long post. As you can see, the laptop is pretty old and it's barely usable today, scoring just 90 on Cinebench, BUT, could I possibly give this old laptop some life by turning it in kind of a "sleeper" build? Why the quotation marks? Well, the fastest CPU available for this motherboard (PGA 478) is a Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9300, a quad core CPU at 2.5GHz with 12MB of L2 cache and also there's a chance I can't just slap any mobile PCI-E graphics card, can I? If I could, it would be awesome, as I've seen many sleeper desktops, but never seen a "sleeper" laptop before. It would be nice if this very old laptop could run a few newer games right now, such as CS:GO, and maybe some GTA V at very low settings, and others.

Let me know what you think about this.

 

Many thanks, Bruno.  

 

 

 

[Zando_]

Looks cool! IDK about GPUs, but reviving old tech is pretty awesome. 

[Bruno_A]

Just now, Zando Bob said:

Looks cool! IDK about GPUs, but reviving old tech is pretty awesome. 

Totally agree, the fact that such old hardware can still be very usable and even to play some games, amazes me!

[themctipers]

if it has two mini pcie ports, yes put in a gpu

 

idk if your laptop can handle a cpu upgrade because of the higher power consumption 

 

 

 

 

your laptop beats my laptop, i am sad (cinebench) 

core duo can't even run cinebench 

[Zando_]

Just now, bruny06 said:

Totally agree, the fact that such old hardware can still be very usable and even to play some games, amazes me!

Yup. @AshleyAshes is doing something similar, turning an old laptop into a desktop:

 

And I should try and get my old Q6600 system up and running.

[Coombzy]

Just now, themctipers said:

if it has two mini pcie ports, yes put in a gpu

 

idk if your laptop can handle a cpu upgrade because of the higher power consumption 

 

 

 

 

your laptop beats my laptop, i am sad (cinebench) 

core duo can't even run cinebench 

^ this, you'll probably find that a new power unit is needed a long with a new battery which is hard to match.

[Bruno_A]

3 minutes ago, themctipers said:

if it has two mini pcie ports, yes put in a gpu

 

idk if your laptop can handle a cpu upgrade because of the higher power consumption 

 

 

 

 

your laptop beats my laptop, i am sad (cinebench) 

core duo can't even run cinebench 

I'm using the power brick from my i7 4700mq and a gt740m laptop, it should be able to handle the extra Watts, right?

[themctipers]

Just now, bruny06 said:

I'm using the power brick from my i7 4700mq and a gt740m laptop, it should be able to handle the extra Watts, right?

i mean the motherboard's power delivery 4

you cant just shove a 45w CPU into a motherboard designed for 35w power delivery only 

[Bruno_A]

4 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Yup. @AshleyAshes is doing something similar, turning an old laptop into a desktop:

 

And I should try and get my old Q6600 system up and running.

That has crossed my mind as well, but it would be much better if I could install a better cooler and overclock the CPU. Turning the laptop into a desktop sounds like a good idea, but I would lose the portability.

[Bruno_A]

1 minute ago, themctipers said:

i mean the motherboard's power delivery 4

you cant just shove a 45w CPU into a motherboard designed for 35w power delivery only 

So, a CPU upgrade is impossible, then?  

[themctipers]

Just now, bruny06 said:

So, a CPU upgrade is impossible, then?  

upgrade to the best CPU that will take 35w i think

check TDP of the pentium 

[Zando_]

2 minutes ago, bruny06 said:

That has crossed my mind as well, but it would be much better if I could install a better cooler and overclock the CPU. Turning the laptop into a desktop sounds like a good idea, but I would lose the portability.

Yeah. Keeping it as a laptop is pretty cool IMO, but you may hit a power limit like @themctipers and @Coombzy pointed out. 

[Bruno_A]

1 minute ago, themctipers said:

upgrade to the best CPU that will take 35w i think

check TDP of the pentium 

Unfortunately, the fastest 35W TDP processor is a core 2 duo at 3.067GHz, which would still be bad. In order to get the best performance, a core 2 quad would be neded, but those start at 45W TDP.

[Bruno_A]

Just now, Zando Bob said:

Yeah. Keeping it as a laptop is pretty cool IMO, but you may hit a power limit like @themctipers and @Coombzy pointed out. 

That would be no bueno. I'll make some more research on this. Meanwhile, if anyone knows anything about this, please let me know!  

[Bananasplit_00]

I'd slap a 45W chop in it if it's on the CPU support list for the motherboard. Otherwise the microcode needed probably dosent exist either so it won't work regardless. 

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, bruny06 said:

That would be no bueno. I'll make some more research on this. Meanwhile, if anyone knows anything about this, please let me know!  

What laptop type/model is it?

[Bananasplit_00]

As for GPUs, I'm pretty sure there is some motherboard thing / GPU thing that is needed, those are MXM formfactor I'm pretty sure

[Bruno_A]

Just now, Zando Bob said:

What laptop type/model is it?

It is a Toshiba sattelite A-300 276.

Specs:

T4200 @ 2.0GHz, 2C/2T

3GB of 800MHz RAM

ATI HD 3400

[Bruno_A]

3 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

As for GPUs, I'm pretty sure there is some motherboard thing / GPU thing that is needed, those are MXM formfactor I'm pretty sure

Yes, apparently it is MXM, according to this. Although, this GPU is also MXM, why is there a difference in the "pins"?

[Bananasplit_00]

1 minute ago, bruny06 said:

Yes, apparently it is MXM, according to this. Although, this GPU is also MXM, why is there a difference in the "pins"?

Literally says it in the article you linked different revisions of the standard. They are not cross compatible as far as I know

[Bruno_A]

14 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

Literally says it in the article you linked different revisions of the standard. They are not cross compatible as far as I know

Well, that's a shame...

[AshleyAshes]

3 hours ago, bruny06 said:

That has crossed my mind as well, but it would be much better if I could install a better cooler and overclock the CPU. Turning the laptop into a desktop sounds like a good idea, but I would lose the portability.

The objective was to repurpose/recycle a six year old i7 2630qm laptop as it was being retired and replaced with an i7 7500u based laptop.   So the loss of portability is fine.  Also, in my build, you gain the ability to use the 16x PCIE 2.0 slot.

[Bruno_A]

13 hours ago, AshleyAshes said:

The objective was to repurpose/recycle a six year old i7 2630qm laptop as it was being retired and replaced with an i7 7500u based laptop.   So the loss of portability is fine.  Also, in my build, you gain the ability to use the 16x PCIE 2.0 slot.

Ohh, that's a game changer. You could hook up a 1050Ti and there would be no need for a PSU.  

[AshleyAshes]

1 minute ago, bruny06 said:

Ohh, that's a game changer. You could hook up a 1050Ti and there would be no need for a PSU.  

You may wanna look at the thread.  What I did is pick up a used 'Industrial' (Think ATMs and Kiosks and stuff) ITX motherboard that uses intel mobile parts, including an intel mobo socket.  So it's a 'desktop motherboard' that takes a mobile CPU and memory, but offers up standard connects like ATX power, full 16x PCIE 2.0 slot, and such.  (And a bunch of other stuff that'd be industrial specific, like a tonne of serial ports, GPIO pins, LVDS connectors, Cfast, optional AT power options, ect)  So it still needed a standard desktop power supply, meaning it also has enough power for any desktop GPU.   I'll be testing a Vega 64 in it in the fall.

[Bruno_A]

1 minute ago, AshleyAshes said:

You may wanna look at the thread.  What I did is pick up a used 'Industrial' (Think ATMs and Kiosks and stuff) ITX motherboard that uses intel mobile parts, including an intel mobo socket.  So it's a 'desktop motherboard' that takes a mobile CPU and memory, but offers up standard connects like ATX power, full 16x PCIE 2.0 slot, and such.  (And a bunch of other stuff that'd be industrial specific, like a tonne of serial ports, GPIO pins, LVDS connectors, Cfast, optional AT power options, ect)  So it still needed a standard desktop power supply, meaning it also has enough power for any desktop GPU.   I'll be testing a Vega 64 in it in the fall.

Ohhhh, sorry for not reading, I'll have a look at it now. As for the motherboard, those tend to be really expensive, I know this because when I was thinking about building my desktop PC, I wanted to reuse my i7 4700MQ, which is still not bad. If they didn't cost over 200$, it would be something I would consider as well.