Customising laptops?

SlashBucket · March 26, 2020

Hello one and all.

I recently watched a YouTube video where someone took an old Thinkpad laptop and fully upgraded everything inside, claiming that it would then become a pretty decent laptop. This got me thinking, can you do this with any other old laptops? And if so, where does one go to start learning about what things can and can't be upgraded? I always believed that you could only really change out RAM and HDDs as they aren't standardised motherboards so you would be unlikely to find another CPU that might work etc.

So, I dug out my old Acer Aspire 5920 (quarantine is making me want to play with PC things for entertainment). And that is one big chunky laptop which to me looks like it has just as much internal space, if not more, than the 14inch Thinkpad this fella was working on.

Is upgrading an old laptop really possible? And are there places you can go to get tips or is it really just something you can only do if you really know your stuff?

Any advice appreciated, even if it is just leave it to the pros haha.

5x5 · March 26, 2020

Only some laptops have the option to replace the CPU. And you also need to check the BIOs for a compatible M series CPU. As for the GPU, very few laptops have MXM slots for GPU upgrades. Anything after 2015 is all going to be certainly soldered and it's going to be inpossible