Acer Aspire 7741g - soldered CPU?

[itnorfolk]

Checking ebay, and I found this, twice the price of the one advertised at 1.6GHz, but both 720QM - so are they not the same thing?

INTEL CORE QUAD i7 720QM 2.8GHz 8M 1066MHz MOBILE CPU

[downloads]

2.8GHz is max frequency Core i7 720QM can do with only one core under load (TurboBoost)
Seller uses the highest freq possible to make good impression on buyers- see here for details.

BTW Core i7 720QM has 6MB cache- not 8MB that ebay auction title seems to suggest.

[itnorfolk]

Ah I see... So he is trying to make it worth more money! lol..

Do you think I would notice much difference between my current CPU and the i7?

[kizwan]

Hey,

Thanks for answering so quickly, so will the i7 be noticeably faster?

I have the intel widget installed on my windows 7 and it shows ram and 4 cores - is this incorrect then?

Sorry, I'm getting a bit lost with these cores lol

Let me show you using wPrime.

i7-720QM:-


i5-450M:-

1. First result:-
   i7-720QM: running with 8 threads (1.6GHz - 1.7GHz @4 cores)
   i5-450M: running with 4 threads (2.4GHz @2 cores)
2. Second result:-
   i7-720QM: running with 8 threads but with 1024M test (1.6GHz - 1.7GHz @4 cores)
   i5-450M: running with 4 threads but with 1024M test (2.4GHz @2 cores)
3. Third result: only 1 thread selected in wPrime setting
   Most of the time it is not only 1 thread (core) is active. Other background process also required CPU processing power, which means other cores are active too. So, when more than 1 core active, it will not Turbo Boost to maximum. In fact, in real world you will not see it Turbo Boost to maximum very often.
4. Fourth result: HT disabled & only 1 core enabled in BIOS (or using msconfig)
   When only 1 core enabled, other cores are put to sleep. So, CPU will be able to Turbo Boost to maximum.

In summary, when running multi-threaded application, 1.6GHz quad core processor is faster than 2.4GHz dual core processor.

You see your i5-460M is 4 cores because of Hyper-threading (HT). You CPU is actually dual core because it have 2 physical cores. i7-720QM is a quad core processor, with HT you'll see 8 cores. Whether you really need quad core processor is depend on the software/games you use. If you're running multi-threaded application, quad core CPU will able to complete the task faster than dual core. Games like Crysis, SC2 & BFBC2, to name a few, will be able to utilized quad core processor. However, games performance still rely heavily on GPU than CPU.

i7-720QM max TDP is 45W while i5-450M, including i5-460M, max TDP is 35W. So, quad core will produced more heat than dual core processor. This is something you want to put in your calculation if you're deciding whether want to upgrade to quad core processor or not.

[itnorfolk]

Hey, I ordered the new processor and it's arrived. I installed it but since doing it my pc hangs after about 15 mins

Its not overheating and I've already read that you don't need to reinstall windows. What would you suggest to start fault finding?

[kizwan]

I would try, one by one, these:-
1. Reset BIOS to default: Enter BIOS, choose "Load Setup Default" (or similar) & "Save & Exit". Before windows load shutdown your computer. After several seconds, power on your notebook again.
2. Boot with live CD: Download any linux live CD & try boot with it. This is just want to rule out windows problem.
3. Reseat CPU & heatsink. You might want to reapply thermal paste, just in case.

[itnorfolk]

Hey Kizwan,

I reset the bios, no change.... Booted with ubuntu 10.10 - been using it now happily with no crashing etc for about 10 hours or so....

I'm guessing thats answered the question that windows is screwed... I'm thinking I need to do a fresh install now...

[kizwan]

I'm glad it's not hardware problem.

[BlueByte01]

Ohgod - you did what i did,

You see - i have a 7741zg (same build as yours but diferent graphics card)

The bios/boards are exactly the same ,
(kizwan would know better )

I put a i7 740qm on - IT WILL WORK, 100% it detects it - runs it fine
HOWEVER - your laptop will overheat like MAD,
I had to drop-down to a i5 ,
That i7 will overheat soo much that it will reach tjmax 100c and knock itself down 99% of the time its loading a game or anything CPU intensive.
It will go down to as low as 7x (which is minimum).
^ this is of course if you are playing games with it.

Anyhows - that laptop WILL take that CPU - no matter the bios (retail or modded)

ITs wierd couse i had the same problem as you when i put the modded bios on, and i had the i7 in for weeks , it crashed on loading the windows,

I got around it by booting into safe mode , and it simply stopped doing.

Try that.

Good luck!

[trisonic]

Hi

I have the same laptop and i want to upgrade mine too.
But i have a i3-380m with DDR3-1066/PC3-8500, can the 720qm support this ram or i need to upgrade it to 1333?

thanks