Intel T2050 CPU upgrade failure on Acer Aspire 3690

First of all let me tell you that my Acer Aspire 3690 is a two years old laptop and therefore now the case is that I cannot expect the same performance from it that I use to get previously with this same laptop. However the reason is quite simple, the processor has become too old which is not allowing me to get the desired performance. When visited some of the repairing centers I found a common solution that was suggested to me by almost all of them. Anyways now I with following the suggestion and guess what? Already failed once. Before explaining my problem better you know my Aspire 3690 processor’s introduction. My laptop has a Intel Celeron M 420 1.6GHz and now I am trying to upgrade the processor with an another Intel model i.e. Intel Core Duo T2050. Before installing this new upgraded CPU I consulted almost 3 to 4 technical expert people and all of them gave me a green signal and told me to carry on with the process. But however after my first trial don’t know for what reason I failed. When searched on internet I found that both my older processor and this new Intel processor shares the same FSB speed, both of them were having 533 MHz of FSB speed. Did other researches but didn’t get anything more interesting so thought to post my issue on web, and I found this one as the best place. So I am here! Expecting a lot from you all please help me out and let me know what I should do.

Obviously upgrading is not a simple thing that just needs an installation process, however you need to follow certain rules and also you need to check the configuration and other compatibility for upgrading a CPU in your system. Getting a similar brand CPU and matching the FSB speed doesn’t make the CPU compatible for the upgrade. Anyways I would help you with knowing these dos and don’ts while following the upgrade procedure. Firstly before proceeding with the installation process you should always check for the chipset of your laptop. Now in your case as you said you are preparing to upgrade to Intel Core Duo T2050, so therefore in that case if your chipset is i943 then believe that you can easily upgrade your core Duo T2050. Actually there are most probably two possibilities for your chipset; either it could be i943 or 940. i943 chipsets are well compatible with Core 2 Duo socket M CPU. Another thing you should note down is with your BIOS, your BIOS should be updated with the latest version. this would be much better for your upgraded CPU to be stable and working well in your laptop. So Chipset and BIOS are the two recommended things that you need to check properly before your perform the upgrade.

Note, for checking out the chipset model what you need to do is first open up the back cover and search for a numbered label around the RAM bay, there you might get the chipset version either as i943 or 940 or it could also be 940GML.

I have certain interesting facts that I need to share with you. According to my own experience and researches I found that mostly certain processors depends upon a particular chipset. Like its Core Duo and Core 2 Duo variants do share a 945GM chipset where as other processors like Pentium Dual-Core and Celeron have the chipset of 943GML.

Now according to the survey Pentium Dual-Core are considered as one of the intel’s costly processor and currently its only Celeron that is being sold out along with Pentium Dual-Core processor.

My only point is to let you know about the chipset compatibility for Core 2 Duo processors. You can easily go for these ones. However in your laptop if I am not mistaken its 940GML or 943GML chipset present. So therefore I guess if you are trying to upgrade your CPU with a Core Duo T2050 then I think you won’t be able to do so as the compatible chipset for Core Duo as I mentioned is 945GM. If you checkout on internet you might find almost all the Core 2 Duo processors are coming up with a 945GM chipset. So therefore if you are having something other than Core 2 Duo or Core Due then it will be more difficult for you to upgrade i.e. you can’t easily upgrade from Celeron to Core Duo as they both share different chipsets.

Its not necessary that the machine should definitely have the chipset that you have mentioned above. At least my laptop doesn’t have it. I am also trying to upgrade my Acer Laptop’s processor to core duo T2600. As according to the above friend’s suggestion before going on for the upgrade I followed the pre-upgrade instructions properly. when checked out my chipset number it says that my laptop have i943 chipset and when asked the Care center of Acer they said that it is possible for me to upgrade to core duo T2600 2.16Ghz. So now I am going to follow the procedure but however I am stuck at one point. Very much confused whether should I upgrade my BIOS, seems like my BIOS is perfectly alright and I also feel that I shouldn’t upgrade the BIOS. This is the core reason why I have still not proceeded with the CPU upgrade. Currently I am having 3.50 versions of BIOS. When asked others they say that if I have a i943 then there is no such requirement of upgrading the BIOS. But the above suggestion is confusing me; it says that I need to somehow upgrade the BIOS. Is it really necessary?