Upgrading my CPU - Acer 7738G from t6500 to t9300 (Question 1 of 3)

Hello, first day posting so be gentle please.

Have a t9300 from an HP Pavillion that died, and figured I could best put it to use in my new Acer 7738g, which currently has a t6500. I've heard it's possible but the whole socket M/socket P thing has me scratching my head...any input?

Also not sure if the 7738 is one of those take-everything-apart-to-get-to-the-CPU jobs or just uncrew the base... and then eventually the heat sink to get to the CPU...anyone with experience with this series?

any recommendations on brand/amount of thermal paste?

thanks in advance for any and all info

Adding a second hard drive to my Acer 7738G - Help Please!

Hello, first day posting so be gentle please.

Just bought this laptop and I have a couple of loaded 120g 7200rpm drives from my HP Pavillion which died. I read the Acer's reviews which told me about the secondary hard disk bay and I'm thinking cool - plug and play.

I unscrewed the bay panel, which is where the difficulty starts

I had to modify the little drive-to-unit adapter thingee (connector/interposer?) so that the drive could be connected. Fine, done. HOWEVER, now I can't close the bay panel cause it's got these four protrusions in the middle (which look like mini chair legs).

I call up support, thinking this is a design flaw. The impression I got after speaking with them, however, is that Acer doesn't want anyone putting in their own parts. and that if you want to have an additional drive it has to be external. Why bother having a second bay if it's just a tease? (rhetorical) And if I want the part replaced I would need to ship the whole laptop. Phooey.

So... does anyone know a person/vendor that sells hard disk bay panels, since I have the feeling I'm just going to saw off those protrusions but I want a backup in case I need to send it in for warranty and sawed-off parts wouldn't be a good look.

The second choice, I guess, would to try to pick up a hard drive caddy that will remain fixed and leave the bay panel on the side, or maybe someone has a better idea??

thanks in advance for any and all info

Flashing the BIOS after CPU Upgrade - Please walk me through this (Quesion 3 of 3)

Hi it's my first day posting please be gentle.

I'm probably, if I get the go-ahead from forum users, going to upgrade my Acer 7738G to a T9300 which was previously in my HP 9700 pavillion. I've been reading that I may have to 'flash the BIOS' after the upgrade to get everything working. Can one of you experienced kind souls tell me how I find out if I need to do this and if I do, what and when I need to do, and what version of BIOS, if applicable, I should use and where do I get it?

Thanks in advance for any and all info.