laptop overclocking, how difficult?

original.wood · 11 Apr 2009 at 16:03

just wondering how difficult it would be to overclock a laptop's processor, its a Intel Celeron Dual Core T1600 1.66Ghz, fortunately the Cooler runs very quiet and keeps the temps down well.

would overclocking it to 1.8-2Ghz cause the fan to be on more and would it be essential to change the stock cooler?

alex24 · 11 Apr 2009 at 16:09

Yes and maybe.

If you overclock it will produce more heat, though you have to remember that laptops aren't really designed for OC'ing (esp celeron laptops!), so you might struggle to do it anyway as they have limited BIOS options. The performance gain would probably be negligable compared to bunging more RAM in, depending on what it has.

Chances are, if it's not fast enough for your needs, you probably need a new one as overclocking would be a waste of time, sorry.

Any more details on the laptop spec?

original.wood · 11 Apr 2009 at 16:38

sure, its a Fujistu Siemens Amilo Li3710, CPU spec as above and 2gb of RAM, i've ran Everest and CPU-z both dont tell me anything about the Motherboard.

i know the Max ram i can have is 4gb, so when i get some money i might chuck 2x2gb sticks in, but atm im happy with 2gb and its running well, i get a Windows Experience Index rating of 3.5 which is being let down by the graphics, otherwise it would be 4.7

the main uses is video conversion (avi>DVD) browsing and some small games i know this wont be able to do much.

alex24 · 11 Apr 2009 at 16:50

I'm afraid the windows experience index doesn't mean an awful lot in terms of real world performance, depending on what programs you're using of course.

Personally, I wouldn't bother. The performance increase would be small even if the BIOS let you OC the CPU, which I doubt it will. RAM would be a more wise upgrade, though sounds like you have enough for what you want to do. Overclocking will also stress the components more and possibly lead to premature failure, especially on machines as this which were never intended to be OC'd, as well as voiding any warranty if there is some left.

A quick google suggests that there are models similar to yours with pentium dual cores clocked higher in. Not sure if it would be possible to get your hands on one of those and replace the celeron without changing heatsink or PSU, though may be possible. Would be a fairly involved job, and almost certainly not worth it for a laptop worth less than £350.

Basically, stick with it and save for a new one if it's not doing the job well enough any more.

original.wood · 11 Apr 2009 at 16:59

cheers, only just bought it about 2 months ago and neadless to say i am very pleased with what it does, this is my GF's machine and i dont have 1 of my own, im living with her permanantly for now and theres no need for a huge rig that i would love to build and i just like getting my hands dirty and overclocking/upgrading anything they touch

alex24 · 11 Apr 2009 at 17:16

Get your postcount up and you may be able to pick up some cheap bits from the members market on here and mess about with it. There are some good deals to be had, most of it is good performance stuff.

Stick around!

1kiwi · 11 Apr 2009 at 22:30

original.wood said:
cheers, only just bought it about 2 months ago and neadless to say i am very pleased with what it does, this is my GF's machine and i dont have 1 of my own, im living with her permanantly for now and theres no need for a huge rig that i would love to build and i just like getting my hands dirty and overclocking/upgrading anything they touch

Thought about overclocking my GFs laptop some time ago...

It's simply not worth it IMHO