Who says GL960 doesn't do penryn or 800 MHz FSB ???

[hansbehrends]

Hello Notebook enthusiasts,

I just thought I'd share this success story with you guys. I have read how some people have taken cheap laptops and beefed up the processor. I thought that was adventurous, but a nice move in terms of longevity in case it succeeded.
The reports of upgraded laptops were few - and all about Acer 5315 laptops (some Wal-Mart special with Intel GL960 chipset and Celeron M540).
The Celeron M520 and up are Socket P processors, as are the Pentium Dual Core processors. All are Merom-L chips.
Some said the GL960 doesn't do anything other than Celerons and Pentium Dual-Cores, doesn't do 800 MHz FSB, etc. etc. WELL this GL960 Penryn project was a success.

OK here's the beef: I got this Sony Vaio VGN-NR220E (NR200 series) which features the cheapo GL960 chipset. The laptop also featured a Pentium Dual Core T2330 1.6GHz (Merom-L Core 2 Duo with half the L2 cache and no virtualization technology). It also came with 1GB of system memory and Windows Vista (that was slow).
I bought this laptop off of someone who had it at the pawn shop - for $150.

Thought I'd do the experiment since the thing was cheap - $150, why not have some fun. On ebay, I bought a brand new Penryn T8100 2.1 GHz (Penryn-3M, it features 3MB L2 cache). Triple the L2 cache of the Pentium Dual Core! Got it for $120. I also ordered 2GB of system memory from the egg, doubling what was in it before. I have read about the limitation of the GL960 chipset to 3GB max. (No one has ever gotten 4GB to work).
Also, I needed to replace the keyboard in the laptop since it was badly gunked up, the original owner did not take good care of it. That was another $30 on ebay.

Today, the keyboard arrived (had the other parts already waiting). I took the darn thing apart - it was difficult since I did not really know what I was doing (but I have previous experience in taking apart a laptop). I was careful, but it was harder than it needed to be because I had no access to any sort of maintenance manual that explained how to take it apart. I can tell you that I LEARNED A LOT about opening VAIO NR series laptops, and if any of you plan to do the same thing, contact me - I will save you headaches.

Anyway, I removed the T2330 Pentium Dual-Core, plopped the T8100 Penryn processor into the socket and put it back together. Installed the new memory. I made one mistake and hibernated instead of shutting it down, and because I swapped the memory, the hibernation file was no good.
Turned on, and the machine WAS FLYING!! It now screams. I put the Core 2 Duo sticker on and Presto! $150 + $120 + $30 + $30 = $330 for a Penryn Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz. SUCCESS!!
CPU-Z is showing a Core 2 Duo Penryn with 2109 MHz and an 800 Mhz FSB, whereas before, it was 1600 MHz and a 533 MHz FSB. The CPU Temperature was at around the same - 43 C. 45 nanometer parts do run a little cooler.

I will post pics if anyone is interested. I am sure the entire VGN-NR200 series will open the same, NR220, NR240, NR 260E/S etc etc.

[hansbehrends]

Quick follow-up to my own post,
getting in a new processor is EASY,
what was hard to do was swapping the keyboard, but I could still save you from potential problems if you contact me about this particular series of laptops. I have pics too if you'd like.
Take care, happy computing.

[powerpack]

Congrats but we are aware of this already. Nice to hear another success story.

[quinielascom]

Quote myself with a similar case:

Originally Posted by quinielascom

The thread is a bit old but i only want add another successful upgrade:

Acer Aspire 4320

Original Processor: M530 1.73GHz/533MHz/1MB (SLA2G)
Upgrade to: T7100 1.80GHz/800MHz/2MB (SLA4A)

Original RAM: 512MB 533MHz
Upgrade to: 2GB 667MHz

And both Everest & Bios still report chipset as GL960 but processor is working fine at 800MHz Bus with normal speedstep and RAM works at 667MHz speed another thing battery life is longer that before, temperature processor is about 10C less.

Thanks.