Replacing a laptop CPU with BGA socket

[sharkaroid]

As far as I know, one can replace a GPU that's soldered to the motherboard, and reballing is essentially that.

 

What happens, however, if I try to desolder a laptop's CPU and replace it by another one with the same socket?

 

For instance, imagine I have a laptop that has an i3-6006U processor, which has a FCBGA1356 socket.

If I happen to have found another laptop with an i7-8650U, which uses that same socket, would I be able to exchange them (assuming that the resoldering of the terminals has been done correctly)?

Or would I most likely encounter issues with other hardwares? As far as I know, this does not happen in desktop hardware, so it possibly would not affect the laptop version.

[Blue4130]

1 minute ago, sharkaroid said:

As far as I know, one can replace a GPU that's soldered to the motherboard, and reballing is essentially that.

 

What happens, however, if I try to desolder a laptop's CPU and replace it by another one with the same socket?

 

For instance, imagine I have a laptop that has an i3-6006U processor, which has a FCBGA1356 socket.

If I happen to have found another laptop with an i7-8650U, which uses that same socket, would I be able to exchange them (assuming that the resoldering of the terminals has been done correctly)?

Or would I most likely encounter issues with other hardwares? As far as I know, this does not happen in desktop hardware, so it possibly would not affect the laptop version.

With the correct equipment it's possible. I had a shop replace a laptop cpu. Worked fine for years after. 

[JogerJ]

Replacement with a same model/gen, possible but doesn't even make sense economically. Finding a replacement CPU is hard enough you're more likely to find replacement motherboard with CPU included, which at that point why bother.

 

Forget newer gens, chipset likely won't support it

[Helpful Tech Witch]

if the power delivery is up for the task, i dont see why nqot.

[RONOTHAN##]

The biggest issue I see with this is BIOS support on the board. It might theoretically be possible, but if the BIOS doesn't support the new CPU, the motherboard just won't know what to do and won't POST. If you flash a custom BIOS to the board with support for it, yeah, it's possible, but it's likely not worth the effort and headaches trying to get it to work. 

[LIGISTX]

50 minutes ago, Helpful Tech Witch said:

if the power delivery is up for the task, i dont see why nqot.

 

46 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

The biggest issue I see with this is BIOS support on the board. It might theoretically be possible, but if the BIOS doesn't support the new CPU, the motherboard just won't know what to do and won't POST. If you flash a custom BIOS to the board with support for it, yeah, it's possible, but it's likely not worth the effort and headaches trying to get it to work. 

These two things are going to be the issue. 
 

If the VRM wasn’t designed to provide enough power, and/or the BIOS doesn’t support it, your going to have a bad time. 

[sharkaroid]

21 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

The biggest issue I see with this is BIOS support on the board. It might theoretically be possible, but if the BIOS doesn't support the new CPU, the motherboard just won't know what to do and won't POST. If you flash a custom BIOS to the board with support for it, yeah, it's possible, but it's likely not worth the effort and headaches trying to get it to work. 

 

20 hours ago, LIGISTX said:

 

These two things are going to be the issue. 
 

If the VRM wasn’t designed to provide enough power, and/or the BIOS doesn’t support it, your going to have a bad time. 

Can I update the BIOS with the old processor if I happen to find one that's compatible with both?

I'm almost sure the two consume the same power. Will check on Ark!

 

21 hours ago, JogerJ said:

Replacement with a same model/gen, possible but doesn't even make sense economically. Finding a replacement CPU is hard enough you're more likely to find replacement motherboard with CPU included, which at that point why bother.

 

Forget newer gens, chipset likely won't support it

Is there any way to know which CPUs does a given chipset support?

[RONOTHAN##]

1 minute ago, sharkaroid said:

Can I update the BIOS with the old processor if I happen to find one that's compatible with both?

Theoretically yes. Just good luck finding a BIOS with all that information listed. Laptop manufacturers in particular are terrible with providing info about what a particular BIOS does, what it doesn't do, and even providing updates at all. Since this is such a niche use case and, at least on desktop, 6th gen and 8th gens, while physically compatible, are not supported in each other's BIOS without finding a modded BIOS on the internet somewhere. 

 

You can look into the process for modding Z170/Z270 to support 8th/9th gen Intel, that should mostly apply (at least BIOS side). 

 

That said, this likely isn't worth the time or effort to do unless you just wanna say that you did (respect). It'll likely be more economical to just sell both laptops and buy one working one with a newer CPU on it.