Coping with the Compaq CQ56-115DX - Life After the NVIDIA Settlement

[Mr. Fox]

HP laptops are not built to that standard. In fact, you could probably find several readers of this thread who believe HP laptops are not built to any standard whatsoever.

Amen, brother! Sorry... couldn't resist it.

[lvieira]

Just wanted to let everyone know about my upgrade on this machine. I bought an Phenom II Mobile X4 640 from starmicro inc and just installed it and it works like a champ. I paid 68.00 plus 8 bucks shipping. Now their website states it is a 3.0 chip but I can tell you for a fact it is a 3.2 as they have it incorrectly marked on their site. Here is the part # HMX640HIR23GM and here is their site if anyone else wants one...

StarMicro Inc. - AMD Phenom Mobile Athlon II X4 640, 3.0GHz, dual-core 1 MB L2 cache Socket S1 CPU OEM in AMD Mobile

[Wolfman-Iraq]

Just wanted to let everyone know about my upgrade on this machine. I bought an Phenom II Mobile X4 640 from starmicro inc and just installed it and it works like a champ. I paid 68.00 plus 8 bucks shipping. Now their website states it is a 3.0 chip but I can tell you for a fact it is a 3.2 as they have it incorrectly marked on their site. Here is the part # HMX640HIR23GM and here is their site if anyone else wants one...

StarMicro Inc. - AMD Phenom Mobile Athlon II X4 640, 3.0GHz, dual-core 1 MB L2 cache Socket S1 CPU OEM in AMD Mobile

lvieira

Impressive (3.2GHz), that's fast.

Here's a link to CPU World that describes your chip - FYI for anyone:

http://www.cpu-world.com/news_201/20...et_S1_CPU.html

[shinobi1]

Just wanted to let everyone know about my upgrade on this machine. I bought an Phenom II Mobile X4 640 from starmicro inc and just installed it and it works like a champ. I paid 68.00 plus 8 bucks shipping. Now their website states it is a 3.0 chip but I can tell you for a fact it is a 3.2 as they have it incorrectly marked on their site. Here is the part # HMX640HIR23GM and here is their site if anyone else wants one...

StarMicro Inc. - AMD Phenom Mobile Athlon II X4 640, 3.0GHz, dual-core 1 MB L2 cache Socket S1 CPU OEM in AMD Mobile

You have a darned impressive accomplishment there. And you scored on price, too!!

Does sound as if that setup might become a bit warm, though. If so, put on a coat and operate your laptop in a meat locker.

Really I have the same concern about most of the CQ56-115DX CPU upgrades. The laptop simply is not designed for the extra heat. I would not run the more powerful CPUs without a BIOS change. The fan operating algorithm needs to be changed so the fan runs continuously . . at the least. Gotta admit, I'm not able to do BIOS rewrites . . don't have the smarts. Still, it can be done for sure.

But I'd have no problems at all wearing out fans prematurely in order properly to support a more powerful CPU. Fans are cheap and can be replaced readily. It would be worth it. But running hot would not be my operating choice. In the world of electronics:

Heat kills.

[dchen2k]

I paid 68.00 plus 8 bucks shipping.

Great job finding the chip and sharing your success. +1 rep.

Really I have the same concern about most of the CQ56-115DX CPU upgrades. The laptop simply is not designed for the extra heat.

The CQ56 is not designed to be used with those 45W TDP chips at full load but for regular workload with Cool'N'Quiet enabled it shouldn't be that hot. That has been proven by people who are brave enough to do the experiment. With those faster chips the same workload would finish much faster therefore the average CPU utilization actually would be lower. (Well, unless you are playing CPU intensive games or running a busy database server on it for an extended period of time...) So "take a 10 minutes break after playing for one hour." as written in the manual of Baldur's Gate II, for example

[shinobi1]

The CQ56 is not designed to be used with those 45W TDP chips at full load but for regular workload with Cool'N'Quiet enabled it shouldn't be that hot. That has been proven by people who are brave enough to do the experiment. With those faster chips the same workload would finish much faster therefore the average CPU utilization actually would be lower. (Well, unless you are playing CPU intensive games or running a busy database server on it for an extended period of time...) So "take a 10 minutes break after playing for one hour." as written in the manual of Baldur's Gate II, for example

No arguments there.

My hope is that, in future, AMD will offer multi-core S1G1 processors having lower TDP than those offered today. I believe it could happen. The S1G1 platform seems to be one they like and are exploiting.

We will not know the extent of the S1G1 universe until the socket type is finally abandoned. Let's hope it does not happen any time soon.

ETA

Also, in fairness, I can't really claim to know the thermal capacity of a CQ56-115DX. And I don't know. I'm guessing.

Sometimes, as was the case with the F500 series for example, a single thermal design serves a multiplicity of CPUs and (therefore) of CPU TDPs. Some would argue with merit, though, that the higher end CPUs were on the bubble when such a "one size fits all" approach was taken.

Regardless, with the CQ56 family, if there even IS a family, I do not know the most powerful CPU in use.

Finally, even with the same (family) thermally-related hardware, we cannot know whether some of the cooling ability might be built into the (BIOS) firmware when higher-end CPUs are used. I already made reference to this earlier. My opinion is they do it with hardware. But with HP you just never know. I would not put anything past them; not with HP. And the average laptop buyer would never even be aware. A very slow-running fan is all but undetectable unless you are wise to it and on the lookout, or unless you have the proper software (e.g., SpeedFan) installed. Most people aren't and don't.

ETA

HEY!! That makes me think!

SpeedFan has some pretty sophisticated fan control capabilities. I wonder if you (and others) could use it to keep your fan on continuously, or at least to cool your high end CPUs more adaptively. It might be worth a look!

I do run SpeedFan just for informational purposes. I've never tried to use the advanced features . . . . never needed 'em. But they are there.

SpeedFan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[nambinhvu]

Is this something you are thinking about just for fun and experience, or do you actually have a good use for it? I've had several laptops at work that were equipped with a touch screen and found it to be a useless feature for me. It slowed me down and I did not like having to constantly clean the screen. (Even using a stylus left tiny dots and various smudge marks on the screen.) Most of the people I worked with that had the same machines felt the same way. However, a few that had the same machines (primarily poor typists) loved it and would have been unhappy without it. Those same people used their fingers on the screen and it drove me nuts to look at their horribly smudged screens.

If you have a GUI and use apps that are primarily icon-driven, seldom need to type keyboard characters, or have one hand tied up with another task most of the time, I can see where this might be useful feature.

I've never tried a touch screen for gaming. That might be interesting and fun.

I like having the convenience of pointing at something ont he screen to click on it. Instead of having to move the mouse pointer to a text box and click, you can just poke it on the screen. I also like that you can draw directly on the screen even if the functions are limited to just left clicking and dragging the pointer around.

I'd call this the "final straw" but that would be wrong. The final straw was long ago when HP failed to make our laptops good with exact replacements.

So what we have here is a transformation: Our already obsolete HP Compaq CQ56-115DX laptops have now also become orphaned.

Haha, so if a company like toshiba or one of those more reliable pc manufacturing companies buy off HP, will you trust their brand again? XD

Just wanted to let everyone know about my upgrade on this machine. I bought an Phenom II Mobile X4 640 from starmicro inc and just installed it and it works like a champ. I paid 68.00 plus 8 bucks shipping. Now their website states it is a 3.0 chip but I can tell you for a fact it is a 3.2 as they have it incorrectly marked on their site. Here is the part # HMX640HIR23GM and here is their site if anyone else wants one...

StarMicro Inc. - AMD Phenom Mobile Athlon II X4 640, 3.0GHz, dual-core 1 MB L2 cache Socket S1 CPU OEM in AMD Mobile

You should download the latest graphics driver from amd, my scores are 6.4, 7.1, 4.2, 5.4, 5.9

[Mr. Fox]

Haha, so if a company like toshiba or one of those more reliable pc manufacturing companies buy off HP, will you trust their brand again? XD

If purchased by another more reliable and reputable OEM, the HP brand would not exist any more except in name only. The main drawback to HP has been horrible service and lack of regard for the customer experience. I might trust something with an HP badge on it if I see voluminous evidence that dramatic service improvement has occurred over time.

[nambinhvu]

Meh, I've heard horrible customer service stories for all the companies, including the ones that are supposedly better, I've had good experiences with HP's customer service, so I don't feel the same way you guys do. Though I did learn to talk my way into getting my laptop repaired and stuff, sometimes it takes several tries, but it's understandable, people aren't supposed to just autorize everything, otherwise people would be like, my laptop has a scratch, fix it for me free!!! D:< lol But yeah, I don't know, guess I'm just different. I remember one time someone got a mac book pro or something and for some reason it ran the OS super slow, and they just told her to reinstall the OS, she did that and then it was slow and they said the same thing, so I don't know. She even took it to the actual store, and it was under warranty and everything, they could have just exchanged for a new one.

[Mr. Fox]

Meh, you feel the way you do because you have not been screwed and jacked around by HP on multiple occasions with 3 separate systems like I have. Any company would seem good if you don't need to rely on their service. If all you do is buy their product from a retailer and use it without problems, that's wonderful. That's what every customer deserves to experience. Nobody ever wants to have a warranty issue. Where the rubber meets the road is when you call on a company and they fail. Customer perceptions of companies are almost always driven by the way they are treated and the strikes against HP are overwhelming. And, in business customer perceptions are the means by which a company is judged.

There will always be customers with unrealistic expectations and those that want something for nothing. All I ever asked of HP was for them to fix defective hardware during the warranty period. Once I asked them to replace something that was accidentally damaged under an accidental damage warranty that I paid them good money for. They tried to deny I had the accidental damage warranty, even when shown undeniable proof that I did. Every time I asked them to fulfill their side of a contract on product defects, it was a royal pain in the bottom and they tried everything they could to squirm out of honoring their side of the contract. Twice they did so successfully by simply refusing to acknowledge valid warranty claims. And all of this bad service was the experience leading up to the NVIDIA defect, before that system even had an identifiable issue. To this very day, I cannot believe I actually bought that last system after all I had been through before. I was such a moron to give them their final chance after multiple failures.

It's nice to hear of a rare customer that has a good experience with HP. I would chalk that up to getting lucky and having the pleasure of working with one of their better employees and not because HP is a "good company." So, while I am genuinely very glad you had good experience(s) with them, I hope that you are able to benefit and learn from our misfortunes and not dismiss what some of us have endured only on the basis of your good luck. You can trust HP about as far as you can spit. I am judging them as a company, along with all of their better quality products, based on my experience as a repeatedly mistreated and undervalued customer.

The story you shared about the MacBook is a very good example of unacceptable service. I've seen that same scenario played out by people I know that own Apple products. They should have replaced that defective system or refunded the purchase price. Instead they blew her off and gave totally worthless technical support. Sounds remarkably similar to what I have been through with HP. Companies like that are unworthy of their customers.

Sorry for the rant, but this is a subject I am passionate about. I work for a large corporation where customer service is of paramount importance and I terminate employees that dish out the sort of crap I have been fed by HP.