late to the party: upgrading Turion X2 RM-72 ("Lion")

*cries in heavily modded x230*

 

I'll answer some questions you have since I own a S1G2 DV7 as well:

1. Is this a standard temp for this machine?

Yes. S1G2s run scorching hot by default - I've had a Acer 5536G, an HP 6735s (upgraded to an Athlon QL-62 tho, because it had some wimpy as heck Sempron) and a CQ60 - all three ran hot enough to burn my skin. S1G3s and S1G4s also suffer from that - I have 2 DV6s with a Turion and a Phenom - both run similarly hot as their older siblings, the S1G2 and S1G1.

2. Is it worth investing in?

Heck no. The heat, the fact they run slower than a C2D of the same era, and the fact that all S1 generations run hotter than the sun just make the S1 platform in itself not worth it and I would not invest too much on a S1 based laptop, if at all.

I highly doubt even a T9600 + 9600M GT based DV7-1000 will cut it in your case, but I haven't tried that (as I don't have an Netflix subscription or account in the first place) so I can't say for sure, and I will let other people chime in about that.

 

The main problem with that laptop (and actually most pre-Ivy Bridge machines) is the lack of built-in H.265/HEVC or even H.264 decoders. Even the GPU on that thing can't handle it. Pretty much all modern devices have hardware decoders for video, running it on software can bring even a Sandy Bridge to its knees. I have a couple of Core 2 laptops, and they're perfectly fine for storage/server/audio and even old games... but they won't play most videos, like not even recent Youtube videos.

Turions were always very slow, too. You can try to get the top of the line for that laptop (RM-77)... About the Turion X2 Ultras - it's a HP and they've always been assholes about processor upgrades. It may or may not work.

The performance increase would be minimal, as well - technically ~20%, but y'know, 20% of 0 is still 0 heh

 

They do allow upgrades for laptops of that era. My DV7-1214 came with a RM-72 and I swapped a spare Ultra ZM-82. There is a very slim chance you'll get a CMOS checksum error on every boot though, although the CPU is detected fine in the BIOS and in Windows.

As for Core 2, Youtube does work, just not on the 720p60 and 1080p60 (and any higher setting). Plain 720p and 1080p work just fine, at least for me, on a T9400 + Geforce 9600M GT 1GB.

 

Thanks everyone! Based on your helpful feedback I've decided to get rid of this machine.

 

Just curious: How has HP been difficult to upgrade?

 

Manufacturers will sometimes put locks on the firmware to only allow the original CPU or a very specific set of CPUs to work. This isn't really an "issue" any more since most notebooks have soldered components.

 

oh, interesting. thanks!