Samsung RV510 and CPU upgrade

biuro74 · 7 May 2012 at 22:43

Hi,

I'm looking for any info which CPUs are supported by Samsung RV510 laptop as I'm going to do some CPU upgrade. But it's a black hole - I can't find anything.

I wrote to Samsung and it's what they replied:

Thank you for contacting Samsung and I have pleasure in providing the following
assistance.

Sorry but we don't have this type of information and cannot support the removal
of CPU's. Please take you notebook to a service centre and they will be able to
advise you about the hardware capabilities of your notebook. The service centre
may charge you for this inspection.

If you require any further assistance, please contact Samsung again and we will
be more than happy to help.

Kind regards,

Jim
Online Support Team
SAMSUNG Customer Support Centre

My Samsung is not the top-one (T3500, dual core Celeron, Penryn core), so there's no point to hide such informations like best upgradable CPU, because they sell newer ones and there's no competition at all.. LOL.. and its sentence "we don't have this type of information"... so I'm wondering, who has got it - Santa ?

Strange enough, I had no such troubles with my Dell Inspiron - all info was easy accessible, so I've made an upgrade quickly. And now - some "top secrets".. personally I think it's ridiculous.

Any ideas ? I'm still fighting with Samsung, but I don't expect any success.

biuro74 · 8 May 2012 at 13:46

Czech movie (nobody knows anything) - continuing...

Next answer I've received from Samsung:

Unfortunately as my collegue has already stated, we do not offer support in this
manner. There are certain parts of a laptop which can be upgraded, Memory and
RAM being the most commun, but the CPU is not one of them. The arcitecture of
the motherboard is designed for that CPU alone. It is not "Top Secret"
information, it is that this information does not exist.

We would not advise that you attempt to upgrade the CPU in this device, as to do
so may cause damage to the unit, and the upgrade may also not work in your unit.

The only advise we can give, is that you contact your nearest service centre,
who may have more information on this subject,. Alternatively the best advice if
you are looking to upgrade the laptop, is to purchase a new unit with a better
CPU installed.

Lie number 1: The arcitecture of the motherboard is NOT designed for that CPU alone, as Mr Liar-From-Samsung claims:
http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSbTPIIDvrQCrDcVARug8Hj1VUZy0mZpDg9Gkpuwz_muzZhO7h8hQ
That links shows it's normal PGA478 socket. It's not easy accessible, but it doesn't mean motherboard is designed for one specific CPU.

Lie number 2: "We would not advise that you attempt to upgrade the CPU in this device"... LOL... so it means CPU it might be upgraded. At once ! But Samsung probably doesn't advice it becasue of its own marketing policy (sell that old laptop and buy our new one... LOL.. after all.. will never touch Samsung again, until CPUs would be allowed to upgrade), or their agreement with Service Centre. Maybe they want to do it in authorised Service centre only, letting them to earn cash ?

Anyway, I've received two (out of 5 questions sent) replies from diferent such Service Centres:

The ram is serviceable/ upgradable by yourself, however, the processor
upgrade would void your warranty as this is classed as a non consumer
serviceable part.
If you require any further information regarding this please contact
Samsung Customer Service on 08457267864.

and

The only thing you can upgrade is the ram and the hard drive. You will encounter costly problems if you try to update the processor

First one is ridiculous: Samsung tells me to contact Service, and Service tells me to contact Samsung. Beautiful !
Second one is more clear, but it looks guys want to earn cash, whenever I'm able to do it myself. For ** sake, is it not allowed in this country - to do something by myself ?

Summing it up: Samsung lies to customers (!) and is not brave enough to claim straight: "It's our policy not to make CPU upgrade list public as we want to sell newer laptops instead of upgrading old ones".

AtreuS · 9 May 2012 at 18:48

You seem rather annoyed but i dont know why. Its is not usual manufacturer policy to encourage end users to upgrade laptop processors and to be honest i cannot ever remember a company who has.

Its not just the socket you are dealing with. The main issue will be the BIOS and the cpu microcode in the BIOS. The new more powerful cpu may indeeed fit in the socket but it may well not be supported in the BIOS and without an updated one ( which they will not have made for that board as it may only have shipped with one cpu ) then you are stuck.

The second factor is the cooling system. It was designed to deal with the job at hand and not designed to cool all cpus of that socket. Its more than possible to get in a situation where a cpu of the same socket can produce more than twice the heat of the original.

I work repairing laptops as part of my job and have done several succesful cpu upgrades, and have had numerous ones fail due to BIOS incompatability or overheating. I have the luxury of being able to source cpus without having to buy them first so if it doesnt work its only my time i am losing out on, stripping the laptop down and rebuilding it.

As a general rule of thumb try and see if that model of laptop had several different shipping configurations, if there was one of the same board revision and overall chassis design with a better cpu chances are its replacable, but even then the BIOS may throw up the odd problem or not boot at all.

A simple starter checklist would be.. check visually the cpu socket type. Check the chipset used and the supported FSB of the ram/chipset. Find a cpu that matches and google search for anyone who has tried it before.

Good luck

biuro74 · 9 May 2012 at 21:15

Yes, I know that stuff with chipset & different shipping, but I didn't want to enlarge my post. I know that BIOS could be main issue and it's what I was asking Samsung as vendor, because they must have such info. But - as I think, it's corporatist issue: when corporation has documents for customer's department, they use end user documents based on some guidelines, for example which parts are qualified as an upgrade, and which are not. If something is out of that list - they say "not possible", which might be true, but both you and I know, that in most cases it's a lie. In small company it would be probably much more easy as tech guy would look at "BIOS coding"-related documents and find out in few secs which CPUs are or are not for sure supported.
I'm annoyed really as I can "hit" that guy on the other side (different one every time I write new e-mail, corporate-specific) to enlighten him that he doesn't have to repeat standard boring&annoying answers like everyone received at least once in own life

Annoying is fact when I was working everywhere, I was able to go beyond any procedural borders just to help to customer, in terms of law, of course... and now I miss that being on opposite side :/

And it's really hard to find anything regarding to that Samsung. Try to find "Dell Inspiron 1300 max CPU" - piece of cake. All I found is possible upgrades of P6400/P8400 (I don't consider other shipping configs as they are simply weak). But I still don't know if BIOS would allow to use 1066 FSB CPUs, or not - and if yes, so what are conditions (like constant CPU multiplier/or locked to CPU, which FSB speed, etc). I've got 1066 MHz capable RAMs, so it would be nice to upgrade this laptop to some T9x00 series CPU.

I have no such luxury with CPUs, so I feel that pain, unfortunately. But if Samsung wouldn't help, I will try some cheap T7500 for the beginning and will see then.