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Presario 2500 supports SpeedStep?

post #1 of 11
10/8/06 at 4:10am
Thread Starter 
I recently upgraded a friend's notebook (Presario 2596US) from a Celeron 2.6 GHz to a Pentium 2.66GHz. Not an upgrade in terms of speed, but the cache is four-fold larger.

The compelling reason I did this was for SpeedStep, as my friend was complaining that battery life was short and the unit was too hot. I bought the previously-mentioned Northwood Pentium on Ebay that was supposedly pulled from a Presario 2500 and installed it. (Btw - disassembling a notebook down to the CPU is not for the faint of heart!)

The unit now works fine but it was quickly apparent that the Pentium I installed was a desktop CPU (SL6PE), so there is no drop in voltage or clock speed when on battery. Btw, the unit actually runs cooler because I think I did a better job of installing the heatsink and thermal tape than the factory did. Then I started researching the line of Northwood Pentia and quickly became confused.

For starters, I can't figure out from HP's literature what type of Pentium (other than Northwood non-HT) belongs in this notebook. At times they say a regular Pentium, then a "mobile Pentium", and in some datasheets a Pentium-D. One of their datasheets even indicates they meant for SpeedStep to be used, but I can't find enough convincing evidence of that yet.

What I would like to install for my friend is a CPU which, when on battery, drops to a lower voltage and saves her battery and her lap, as this thing is uncomfortable to hold after a while. I know that the SL72x series of Northwoods does this.

What I don't know is if the 2500 supports this. The board is apparently designed for HP - with a ATI Mobility Radeon IGP345M (Northbridge) and ALi 1535Plus (Southbridge).

I'd appreciate any help anyone can offer. I'm not eager to disassemble this thing again, but would do it if I can save battery life and heat dissipation.
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post #2 of 11
10/14/06 at 12:05pm
the 2500s use desktop p4's.

i believe they use the 400mhz system bus p4's
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post #3 of 11
10/14/06 at 2:18pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks - that's what I was gathering doing my research. I should have added that not only does the SL6PE Pentium have four times the cache of the comparably-clocked Celeron, it also is running at 533MHz bus speed. There is definitely a benefit there. The system is running well and if my friend has a problem with battery life I will advise her to buy a new battery as hers is now three years old.

My information from HP was convoluted at best. They don't seem that knowledgeable or interested in supporting this type of upgrade. I got answers ranging from "this is very difficult and not adviseable" to "you need a mobile processor to fully utilize the power-saving capabilitites of your notebook" to "the 2500 does not support a CPU upgrade nor Speedstep".

Their literature is also confusing (from their service manual):

Compaq Presario 2500
Processor Mobile Intel Pentium 4 (2.0-, 2.3-, 2.4-, 2.53-, 2.66-, 2.8-, and 3.06-GHz)
Intel Celeron (2.6- and 2.8-GHz)

Yet later in the same document they say this:

Compaq Presario 2500:
1.8-, 2.0-, 2.4-, 2.53-, 2.66-, or 2.80-GHz Intel Desktop Pentium 4 processor-D with
Intel Speed Step technology, 512-KB L2 cache, and 1.2- to 1.3-V core low-power
processor with 400-MHz processor system bus

http://schwinger.harvard.edu/~motl/h...manual4700.pdf

At this point, I am going to leave it alone, advise her to buy a new battery, and save her ducats for a new laptop in a year or two.

Thanks again!
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post #4 of 11
10/14/06 at 2:48pm
she probably would be fine with just a celeron
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post #5 of 11
10/14/06 at 3:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mokuloa
Thanks - that's what I was gathering doing my research. I should have added that not only does the SL6PE Pentium have four times the cache of the comparably-clocked Celeron, it also is running at 533MHz bus speed. There is definitely a benefit there. The system is running well and if my friend has a problem with battery life I will advise her to buy a new battery as hers is now three years old. My information from HP was convoluted at best. They don't seem that knowledgeable or interested in supporting this type of upgrade. I got answers ranging from "this is very difficult and not adviseable" to "you need a mobile processor to fully utilize the power-saving capabilitites of your notebook" to "the 2500 does not support a CPU upgrade nor Speedstep". Their literature is also confusing (from their service manual): Compaq Presario 2500 Processor Mobile Intel Pentium 4 (2.0-, 2.3-, 2.4-, 2.53-, 2.66-, 2.8-, and 3.06-GHz) Intel Celeron (2.6- and 2.8-GHz) Yet later in the same document they say this: Compaq Presario 2500: 1.8-, 2.0-, 2.4-, 2.53-, 2.66-, or 2.80-GHz Intel Desktop Pentium 4 processor-D with Intel Speed Step technology, 512-KB L2 cache, and 1.2- to 1.3-V core low-power processor with 400-MHz processor system bus http://schwinger.harvard.edu/~motl/h...manual4700.pdf At this point, I am going to leave it alone, advise her to buy a new battery, and save her ducats for a new laptop in a year or two. Thanks again!
mokuloa, Don't know if it would help you at this point, or if it contains the info you seek, but you can (sort-of) get a feel for "what" cpu was installed, may be installed , what motherboard is installed in what machine from: HP Partsurfer http://www.partsurfer.hp.com/cgi-bin/spi/main The above wouldn't apply in your case, but it does sometimes give you info for researching what "may" work. On your comments about the info from HP being convoluted at best, They don't seem that knowledgeable or interested in supporting this type of upgrade. Hardly any laptop mfg supports such upgrades offically, nor are any of their people going to have un-offical info that they can point you to because they want you to buy a "new" laptop... (Another thing to consider is the laptop is 3 + years old- and any person that would know of such swaps that worked at HP would be long gone..) One question though on the upgrade, you mentioned "heat", the unit running cooler... well doesn't the Celeron 2.6 GHz have a lower TDP than the desktop CPU (SL6PE) Pentium 2.66GHz?.... Seems like the overall heat output would be higher and the cooling system would be overworked.
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post #6 of 11
10/14/06 at 4:19pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the information. HP lists their part number for CPU upgrades, not the Intel sSpec number which would be of immediate and pertinent help. Of course they would rather supply a drastically marked-up CPU either to make a profit or persuade someone that a newer unit is more desirable than an upgrade.

I agree completely with your HP support comments as well - the laptop is two generations out of date and turnover at support sites is fairly rapid. That, coupled with the fact that they get graded on the rapidity of response and closure do not make a good formula for support of older systems.

I do give one HP rep kudos for sending me a fairly informative Ebay link about the 2500 motherboard.

As for the heat dissipation, I also found it odd that the SL6PE Pentium (66.1W) seems to run cooler than the SL6VV Celeron (62.6W). The only comment I can make about that is when I took the heatsink off the Celeron, the tape seemed coated with a tarry substance and did not seem that it had the good, smooth adherence that I am used to with other tapes or grease.

I made sure to clean both the heatsink and heat spreader of the Pentium with alcohol before I used some Magaland tape I got at Fry's. I was also careful to evenly torque the holding screws for the heatsink. It doesn't make thermodynamic sense but both my friend and I noticed that the laptop is much more comfortable to hold and the fans don't operate as often. Using RMClock, I did not notice T1 throttling using the Pentium using this test:

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/...ing/index.html

It is possible that the Celeron was running too hot because of the tape/heatsink problem and was throttling. I didn't check that.

Go figure. It works and is quite serviceable for her, so at this point I don't want to tempt fate by going back into it.
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post #7 of 11
10/14/06 at 11:23pm
Yep, they list only a HP part number... Like I said not allot of info, but helpful sometime.

On the Celeron.... running hotter... Most factories are sort of sloppy on how the apply thermo tape. Using it instead of thermo grease. Since both have pretty much the same TDP , the SL6PE Pentium (66.1W), and the SL6VV Celeron (62.6W) the only thing it could be is the thermo compound was used up, not applied right/sloppy.

On the system I'm typing on now,(desktop) it was very un-stable unitl I scrapped off the tape, and applied thermo grease between the cpu and the heatsink.


PS: On last thing... I'd think compaines that gear their products towards "gamers" would be more in the "know" about what cpu fit's what, what can be upgraded... and will add in the desktop world of NON-OEM stuff they would keep abreast of new cpu's being released.

Laptops are pretty much as-is , where is...
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post #8 of 11
10/15/06 at 7:53am
most factory heatsinks use crappy thermal paste or a pad. whenever im working on a unit, i always remove that crap and put on artic silver thermal paste. it works wonders! some systems come in with over heating issues, and wa-la the fix is some artic silver
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post #9 of 11
11/3/06 at 4:00pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by [NFO]N0S
the 2500s use desktop p4's. i believe they use the 400mhz system bus p4's
According to the Compaq Presario 2500 datasheet, the Presario 2500 came with either a desktop Celeron 2.0-2.2, Mobile P4's@400 MHz FSB from 2.0 to 2.4 or Mobile P4's@533 MHz FSB from 2.53 to 3.06. I am in the same situation in that I wish to upgrade the processor in my Presario 2500 to something a bit faster and more power efficient than the 2.0GHz desktop Celeron it came with. What I would like to do is install a P4-M instead of a Mobile P4. What I question is whether or not the processor will work. It has similiar voltage requirements to the Mobile P4 and they are both Speedstep processors, although I can't tell they use the same version Speedstep. Has anyone tried replacing a Mobile P4 with a P4-M in their laptop? Is this a drop-in or are there other factors I haven't considered?
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post #10 of 11
11/25/06 at 12:30am
Well, since I couldn't find any concrete info regarding my question, I picked up a 2.4 GHz P4-M and swapped it into my laptop. Unfortunately, I seem to be stuck with the same 12x multiplier that desktop users end up with when they install a P4-M. Which is strange, because as I stated earlier, the Presario 2500 came from the factory with a Mobile P4 which is also a SpeedStep processor and both are Northwood cores.

I've changed the Power Options in the Control Panel in an attempt to force the CPU into 2.4 GHz full power mode (24x), but so far it hasn't budged from 1.2 GHz (12x)

Any ideas?

I realize that I can achieve the same speed by using a Mobile P4 instead of this P4-M, but they suck twice as much juice and I have a feeling that this problem can be solved.
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post #11 of 11
11/26/06 at 12:46pm
Does anybody know if the SpeedStep software is installed even if a non-SpeedStep processor is detected when installing XP? Is it possible that I would need to reinstall XP since this laptop originally had a desktop Celeron processor in it when I installed XP?
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