ASUS X55C-DS31 cpu upgrade options

[keakar]

my niece has a school laptop I got her a few years ago and I was wondering what sort of upgrade options I had for it?


this is what I bought and the as purchased specs:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230985R

ASUS X55C-DS31 Intel Core i3 2370M (2.40 GHz)

• 4 GB Memory

• 500 GB HDD

• Intel HD Graphics 3000

• 1366 x 768

• Windows 8 64-Bit

• DL DVD+-RW/CD-RW

now I realize I can most likely up it to 8gb ram and win 10 without issues

but could I put an i5 cpu in it? that is where I'm not sure what limitations there are as to what I can do.

how can I determine the motherboard brand and model number to determine the max cpu and ram I can put in it? I have never even changed a battery in a laptop before, much less tried to take one apart to upgrade it so I'm pretty lost and unsure of my options here and need your help.

 

[kenkickr]

Going off Ifixit Asus X55C guide you should be able to upgrade it to a i5 2xxxm cpu. Upgrading ram and a SSD would do a heck of alot more to the laptop than going with the i5 though.

Update: Looking at the pics though that board only has one upgradable ram slot. Going off Crucial's site you can throw a 8GB stick in that one slot.

 

[keakar]

Going off Ifixit Asus X55C guide you should be able to upgrade it to a i5 2xxxm cpu. Upgrading ram and a SSD would do a heck of alot more to the laptop than going with the i5 though.

Update: Looking at the pics though that board only has one upgradable ram slot. Going off Crucial's site you can throw a 8GB stick in that one slot.

ok so you think for making any noticeable change, I'm better off just doing the 8gb ram and drop in a ssd 850 evo upgrade then?

I would presume the swap to ssd drive (while the most expensive upgrade) would be the most noticeable increase in speed rather then just doubling the ram?

 

[newtekie1]

Upgrading ram and a SSD would do a heck of alot more to the laptop than going with the i5 though.

I agree, replacing the slow laptop HDD with an SSD will do worlds for the every day usability of any laptop. Unless you are doing a lot of CPU intensive things, an i3 is just fine. Plus, a laptop i5 is really just an i3 with a higher clock speed. It isn't like the desktop side where the i5 is a quad-core and i3 is a dual-core w/ HT. On the laptop side, an i5 is a dual-core w/ HT, and the i3 is a dual-core w/ HT, the i5 just has turbo.

 

[keakar]

I agree, replacing the slow laptop HDD with an SSD will do worlds for the every day usability of any laptop. Unless you are doing a lot of CPU intensive things, an i3 is just fine. Plus, a laptop i5 is really just an i3 with a higher clock speed. It isn't like the desktop side where the i5 is a quad-core and i3 is a dual-core w/ HT. On the laptop side, an i5 is a dual-core w/ HT, and the i3 is a dual-core w/ HT, the i5 just has turbo.

thanks, I didn't realize that it was so different. I also seam to be finding laptop cpu are very special animals and seam to fit one board for one cpu and not like desktops where you can fit many versions of cpu in the same board. I'm guessing its because of cooling design issues and such

what about swapping ram from 4gb to 8gb? that's about a $35 upgrade by itself, is it really going to make much difference to add more ram? I mean she has 4gb now and its not like she is using it for gaming, just some movie streaming and such

 

[newtekie1]

I'd do the SSD upgrade first. For basic use like it sounds like she uses it for, I don't think the RAM would make a big difference. Take a look at task manager when the computer is in use and see if the RAM is getting close to maxing out the 4GB.

 

[Caring1]

I've done a number of swaps in laptops, just because I can.
An SSD and an i5 would speed it up nicely.
The SSD speeds up boot and load times and the CPU speeds up programs and benefits games.
If it already has 4Gb of Ram that will suffice for most basic tasks and games.

 

[keakar]

well it turns out im working on the wrong laptop lol

my niece was bitchin about her school laptop being so slow, so im going by the assumption she is talking about the asus one I got for her.

only now I find out she threw the asus in the closet with wireless connection issues and went back to using her old slow dell inspiron 1545 with Pentium d t4500 and only 2 gb ram. no wonder she was crying about it being slow as hell lol.

oh well, I guess there is no need to upgrade this asus after all and I just need to fix the wireless issue, but now I need to upgrade her dell instead because she likes it better (even with it being slow) but I have a separate thread for that one.

thanks for all the help on this anyway guys

 

[Diable]

Hii guys. I have same kind of problem but... I have Asus X55C intel pentium b980 2.4ghz dual core laptop. It has 2 gb of ram and 500gb hdd. I want to speed up my laptop.. It has a integrated graphics card. I don't play games that much but use it for net surfing, playing movies etc.. (but ot is not like simple home works). So I'm just thinking will it be ok for me just to upgrade to 1tb SSD and 8gb ddr3? Or should I up to i3 also? My budget is not much. Thank you in advance

 

[keakar]

Hii guys. I have same kind of problem but... I have Asus X55C intel pentium b980 2.4ghz dual core laptop. It has 2 gb of ram and 500gb hdd. I want to speed up my laptop.. It has a integrated graphics card. I don't play games that much but use it for net surfing, playing movies etc.. (but ot is not like simple home works). So I'm just thinking will it be ok for me just to upgrade to 1tb SSD and 8gb ddr3? Or should I up to i3 also? My budget is not much. Thank you in advance

well just by looking at ebay it seams there are a lot of Asus X55C motherboards for sale with no power or no video issues so you might want to check on the reliability of these asus boards before putting money into it. I saw enough to make me wonder if there are a lot of common issues with the x55 boards going out.

might be better going with a different laptop you can buy cheap and upgrade the cpu/ram/ssd in that one instead. a 1TB ssd is a good chunk of change to put out and 8gb ram set is going to run you $50-$70 even for a used set from what I have seen out there.

just sayin' at this point you are at, you might want to compare prices if you were to grab a different laptop that you dont see people having issues with and start upgrading it, or even a bare bones version to build to your own specs

 

[Diable]

well just by looking at ebay it seams there are a lot of Asus X55C motherboards for sale with no power or no video issues so you might want to check on the reliability of these asus boards before putting money into it. I saw enough to make me wonder if there are a lot of common issues with the x55 boards going out.

might be better going with a different laptop you can buy cheap and upgrade the cpu/ram/ssd in that one instead. a 1TB ssd is a good chunk of change to put out and 8gb ram set is going to run you $50-$70 even for a used set from what I have seen out there.

just sayin' at this point you are at, you might want to compare prices if you were to grab a different laptop that you dont see people having issues with and start upgrading it, or even a bare bones version to build to your own specs

Thnx. But can you point out which cheap laptop should I buy?

 

[keakar]

well i don't know much of anything about laptops so im not the one to ask. and I should point out im just guessing there "might" be common issues with asus x55 boards since I have seen several bad boards for sale as parts on ebay which by itself means nothing, just it would want to make me look into it further if I was considering an asus at this point.

what is a good choice for you depends mainly on your own taste and usages

 

[keakar]

I am currently upgrading a dell inspiron 1545 like this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-INSPIR...725891?hash=item33b2a89983:g:hbwAAOSwxp9W1zV4

im putting in this:

4gb ram (you can do up to 8gb) http://www.ebay.com/itm/KINGSTON-8G...601901?hash=item2811ef85ed:g:LjwAAOSwFNZWvjty

Intel Core 2 Duo P9500 2.53GHz 6MB 1066MHZ Socket P (you can go up to p9800 if you want) http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-...813975?hash=item58d6706c17:g:bGEAAOSwWTRWz18L

so you can see this should be a very respectable core 2 duo computer for little to no money spent

should you buy one for say $100 and do the max upgrades in the links your going to put out around $170 total plus whatever you want to do with the drive. then subtract what you sell your laptop for and I think you spent under $50 total output in the end (not counting the drive)

so there are all sorts of ways you can go