BGA CPU upgrade on a low-end HP laptop (Atom to Pentium)
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- čas přidán 21. 05. 2022
- In this video, Josh upgrades the slow Atom CPU on a low-end HP laptop to a faster Pentium CPU.
HP Stream 11-ak1012dx
Old CPU: Atom X5-E8000 @1.04GHz (HD Graphics 400)
New CPU: Pentium N3710 @1.60GHz (HD Graphics 405)
Unfortunately I lost the Atom Geekbench link
N3710 Geekbench Link: browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/... - Věda a technologie
After 3 days of use, it definitely is quicker. Will extend the use of this machine by a few years I imagine before it needs replacing. Very worth the $20 I paid for the CPU.
Update 2024: A friend has this machine now. He still uses it.
would it work for a intel celeron n4500
ASUS - 14.0" Laptop - Intel Celeron N4500 - 4GB Memory - 128GB eMMC - Star Black
@@Bob-ez2bz Probably but you'll need a newer CPU than what I used.
We all know the common saying, never trust a man with a BGA rework machine.
why
i understand this statement after knowing personally who owned.that machine 😂😂
Seeing a laptop's CPU get upgraded this way was incredible, and I'm glad that things worked out! Congrats on the excellent job!
Thanks, glad you enjoyed!
I love your tools and your way of working, very clean and safe. I'm starting to do bga soldering, but for now have 1 success and 3 broken motherboards... Im still very happy, i would like to be as good as you. Good night from Spain.
Thanks friend, good luck
props to you, soldering to this level is def one of my fears. maybe one day ill get to it.
Considering you’ve replaced the CPU, you should consider upgrading the RAM chips. Going up to 8gb/16gb should be fairly cheap. Would love to see it!
Sadly BIOS strapping not support > 4GB. I'd have to mod the BIOS - and that messes with secure boot and other things as I can't resign it, and it's just a headache :(
@@Josh.Davidson That's an interesting point. Still, from my point of view it may be something to look into. There are plenty of resources for BIOS modding.
@@somedude1119 The question is also if there are enough addressing lines on the board.
Nice job, I used to have an HP Stream 13 with a Celeron and it was painful to use. I installed Kubuntu Linux which helped a bit but it was limited to 2GB RAM. Yours seems to be a much snappier than mine ever was. I always like to see your BGA stuff. I really want to get a station to start trying to do reballs but I'm not really sure where to start.
Thanks. Put Pentium and 4GB and it will be faster. CPU upgrade should be inplace and RAM upgrade just requires straps change. You can see schematic for which straps to change,
I watched this video (at 360p while overheating) on the exact same laptop. This is very impressive! I am very interested in doing this upgrade aswell!
Yeah, these machines do get hot. I might add more copper to counteract this. The improvement is pretty good, I can watch 1080p without issue.
@@Josh.Davidson If I could I would add a fan/heatsink. However, I'm a smoker so probably a bad idea. The whole reason I chose this laptop is because it is passively cooled. Im sure even if the Pentium did end up thermal throttling it would still be more usable than the atom. This thing can play terraria for about 30 seconds before it becomes so slow its basically unplayable. Terraria....you know...that super cpu/gpu heavy AAA game. Bahahaha.
@@addictiveconduct I haven't encountered thermal throttling on my unit, with good paste in, just the base gets quite hot. I was just going to add more copper surface area. It is only a 6W CPU.
Impressive work, Good job!
Insane! I had no clue this was possible!
Another great job, man!
This is the type of upgrades I'd like to do
you did a very nice job replacing the cpu but something about the 50% ram usage on idle really scares me
Hello my friend thanks.
Please research about "Superfetch". It is a program since Vista which loads commonly used stuff into RAM for faster access. As you use RAM, it unloads stuff to make room. So do not worry, is not really 50% RAM usage, that is just Windows making stuff faster for you. :)
Great job, thanks for sharing
Might try this with a workstation-level laptop, go from an i5 or i7 to a more desirable Xeon or even one from a later generation with the same BGA stencil (after BIOS modding!).
Good Job : Josh Davidson
seeing BGA stuff is always really cool, also what do you use for doing bga repairs and other stuff ?
DIY machine, rest of tools are standard stuff MG Chemicals 426LF Amtech NC-559 Kester solder 0.031 inch and Weller WES51
@@Josh.Davidson oh wow thats actually pretty impressive, well that gives me confidence to do a bga attempt at smth :)
great job, i need this!
Thanks
Hey, did you have to update the bios to switch cpu families? I have a project laptop and have knowledge in electronics and want to try swapping the i3-6006u to an i7-8550u (it's like 30 bucks on Aliexpress anyway and i got the laptop for cheap), do you have any documentation or info that might help for addititional chips that have to be swapped or updating the bios? There's a lot of info in spanish and I've got no prob understanding it, but not much for exact models. Thanks anyways
No I did not need. Also, can't. Fastest CPU for your is i7-6600U or MAYBE i7-6660U (check microcodes)
Got a horrible little lenovo with a similarly bad cpu, im planning on trying to do the same thing your doing here here after a bit of learning. Wish me luck
Good luck friend. Pls check for compatible CPUID in your bios firstly.
Impressive. I've always wondered if that was possible
Thank you bro
@@Josh.Davidson nope, thank YOU for showing me this was actually possible!
Glad you enjoyed! I've done it a couple times now.
@@Josh.Davidson cool. Have you ever tried doing that but installing GPU s where they should be on a laptop? I think you would need to flash another BIOS for that to work tho probably
It can be done if the pads exist and schematics to know what parts to stuff in the locations. I haven't done it personally though.
Hey Josh, the most important part of removal, prepping and soldering the the CPU only has pictures. It would be great for us ignorant electronic tech to understand how you did it and what you used. Thanks, Mark
Hi,
I am really sorry about that. I have no good way to aim the camera under the rework machine. Essentially, the only thing you are missing, is the heating element about an inch over the chip and me carefully watching and controlling the temperatures.
The chip itself came reballed and I did not reball it. If I did, I would include footage of that. :)
somehow i would like to try and polish a different turd by that method , hp stream 14 with celeron i belive from the same family n3060 or something
how did you deal with stencil balls/ or paste? and where did cpu came from?
Hi,
CPU came pre-balled brand new from ALIEXPRESS with lead-free solder. I have ability to, but did not need to reball it. For reball such a chip I do not use paste I use solder balls and stencil from ALIEXPRESS.
Do you have BGA rework machine? This is required.
@@Josh.Davidson thanks for claryficaton
i do not have rework sttion, all i have is hot air and soldering iron so probably it is time to buils a rework station because i was thinking more about getting 10$ cromebook motherboard and geting cpu out of it, but first i need to master making solder balls melt before substrate start smoking, for some reason i was only able to reball things with paste so far
i did mannaged to put 2 m.2 ssd's on a stream laptop with no ssd slots onboard withut using wifi socket though so maybe i do need to learn more tricks and stop just hacking tings :]
have a nice day and thanks for atention
Yeah you will need rework station to do this sorry.
Nice work, could you write a list of tools you used?
You can do with any standard BGA rework equipment. Mine is DIY.
Awesome work !
Could you please share the name of the music(s) starting at 1:10 ?
Crusade - Lonely Falcon
Thank you!
did you have to clear the ME region of the bios after the CPU swap ?
No - it was something I considered having to do but it worked without doing it.
Hey a quick question here. So I found out my laptop is core i7 7700HQ which has a socket FCBGA1440. I am wondering, if I replace my CPU with i7 10850 which has similar socket to 7th gen, will it work like you do?
No. You need to stick to same arch.
Is that a true Model M in the background? If so, you have fine taste
KeyTronicEMS E03601 series keyboard. Best one I ever typed on.
Problem is when you add flux under the chip you are making it more likely to melt the solder when it heats up and bridge connections since you cant clean the flux from under the chip. It may make it easier to melt the solder to make the connections but it goes the other way as well makes it easier for the solder to melt at high operating temps. And since the tdp for the new chip is probably higher and hp skimps on cooling youll end up having higher temps.
That's not how it works at all. Flux allows solder to flow better once reaching its melting point.
Once cooling down past (in this case, 217C-ish), there is impossible for anything to melt/bridge even if all the flux is left there.
I do completely clean the flux from under the chip. This is very easy to do with proper cleaning methods.
Nobody skimps on cooling, that's just myths. There is always enough for the TDP of the chip + extra. There is only a 1W difference and this exact same laptop can be configured with a N4000 CPU which has the same TDP as this N3710. (all though the motherboard is different to support the N4000)
Hi dude, this video inspires me to try this on old netbook that got a flop due to bad performance
This is Netbook based on atom single-core, and this is crap... one core is bad to watch a simple video and i know this is possible to desolder a cpu to replacing by better, but in atom, the TDP is BIG.
My actual atom is Intel atom N450 with 5.5W and i think to upgrade from N550 but he have 8.5W of TDP so, is this possible, or the laptop does not have enough power ?
That's my question, EeePC's, Atom are very strange laptop BUT really useful because they are really really tiny
You need to check the BIOS microcodes. N550 is B0 stepping not A0, but both 0106CA CPUID. It should still work.
VREG design is always over requirement, but I'm really not sure if this machine's spec. I would be cautious. I would be more confident in N475 but the upgrade may not be worth it. Not so big performance jump.
@@Josh.Davidson Maybe with a modded bios (like 771 mod when you input some instructions on "not supported hardware")
@@Azurhye yes it could work with modded bios. I’d check the vreg design first.
Being this early feels illegal
How can I verify if it is possible to make this modification? I want to go from i3 5005u to a compatible i7? any tutorial or information Excellent video and very interesting
You need to dump and check CPUID's from the BIOS.
@@Josh.Davidson how do you do that?
Did you need to do a bios update or anything relating to that
I didn't.
So really freaking cool!
This makes me wonder - would it be possible to replace a n270 Atom with a higher end BGA437 chip, like a 330? Would anyone take one for the team and try this?: )
Probably not. Atom 330 is 8 watt. N270 is 2.5 watt. Probably would overload the power delivery. Also, seems to be a quite different design. 330 is 64 bit. N270 is 32 bit. Very big design/transistor count differences.
what about bios? can it run with original bios or must be modded?
Original BIOS.
Sir is it possible to change the core i5 3337U to core i7 3940XM ? My laptop is Dell Latitude 3330 which has the variant core i3 and core i5... Chipset is HM77...
No sorry fastest CPU Core i7-3667U.
Do you take job orders for things like this?
Not really. Mostly just a hobbyist.
can i do this on my laptop? it currently has celeron n3060
Probably, if you have a BGA machine. I'd dump the CPUID table from the BIOS and check what's there too.
I wish I could do that to my own HP (the laptop cant even run 8.1)
Nearly double the performance! Awesome. How much was the Pentium btw.
$20 or so from China
Hi man, is there any chance i can upgrade my i3 6006u in Lenovo IdeaPad 320. It's a bga cpu too.
You can probably put i7 6660u.
Which digital microscope are u using?
Don’t know the model it’s a pretty cheap one but sufficient for my needs.
I'd appreciate if u could figure out the model, I'm looking to buy a microscope that is quite affordable. I would appreciate if u could point me in the right. Tnx direction
tengo un celeron n3060 he investigado y creo que el pentium n3710 lo remplazaría muy bien
Si amigo!
I would like to know can we put a CPU slot so I can just keep changing the CPU without soldering each time like desktops
Not fit in laptops.
@@Josh.Davidson I figured even the small ones in other laptops??
If the laptop is not designed to have socket, there will be no room. Laptops are designed to be as thin and small as possible.
I have an old n2820 laptop, I`ve always wanted to change the cpu, but I don't have the bga machine, one time I soldered a ps3 wifi chip (also bga) with 2 soldering stations (one above and one below the board), I don't think this will work for the laptop CPU, to make matters worse, I'm actually using this laptop nowadays
did you had to add any microcodes to the bios? I know that it's possible to use some 8-9gen laptop BGA-adapted cpu's in 6-7gen intel desktop motherboards, but it requires to add the cpu microcodes into the bios, but with the laptop cpu both are on the same generation, so it's compatible with all cpu models of the same gen?
This will not work. PS3 Wifi board not count as BGA, it's psuedo BGA maybe... Besides unlike small BGA chips these processors are very fragile, with numerous hundreds of balls, and any slight mishandling of heat will cause the chip to be damaged. BGA machine is required.
Also it depend what you want. I did not need microcode change for this swap.
I think the fastest CPU you can use is N3520. It is the fastest chip with same CPUID microcodes. You can extract from your BIOS and if it supports another microcodes it might be possible to put N3540.
Hi Josh. i have a thinkpad laptop E450 which is a processor of i3 processor 5005u. I want to replace it to i7. My laptop is BGA and I want to replace it. Can u tell me Possible i7 To replace with my i3 processor.
5650U should work for you.
thank u
Hi sir i have a BGA core i3 processor and i just wonna know is upgradation safe in my laptop
I can't tell you, because I don't know. You need to check microcodes in your BIOS.
Hello can i upgrade bga processor intel celeron n3350 to n4200 with reball process ?
I think so, but I don't know the CPUID so double check that in your BIOS.
can u upgrade i5 7200u to i7 gen 8, the socket still same
7660U or 7600U should work.
How much exchangue bga 1170 n3050 upgrade ?
$150USD + shipping. Not an easy job.
All this assuming that can check BIOS microcode for compatible CPU.
Could you put have put in a core mX chip? :P
No. I showed the supported list at the beginning somewhere, this is the fastest chip on this socket.
Hello sir i have dell vostro 3480 and it is 14 3000 series with i5 8gen u processor , how much can i upgrade it?
Hi. What CPU exactly?
How much would a job like this cost?
More than this laptop was worth haha. But since I own the rework machine and am trained in using it, I did it basically for fun.
i wanna be able to do this ;-;
I have a celeron n3350 can I upgrade to pentium j4205
I think the fastest CPU for you will be N3450 or maybe N4200. Cannot change N series to J series sorry.
Laptop still works?
Yes, perfectly.
U should add 4 gigs of ram on it too for dirt cheap
It already has 4GB.
what is the glue type
Which?
@@Josh.Davidson to put processor
@@moustafagomaa9460 Glue is not used to put the processor.
wow so in this way i can replace intel atom 6th generation cpu with 6th i7or xeon wow
No...
more ram might fix your woes lmfao. swapped the bga chip but you still have 4gb of ram. don't get it..
Why do I need more RAM? The cause of the slow was the CPU. Its been much quicker since doing this. It doesn't even use over 3 under any of the things I use this for (VLC, browser)
For more RAM I'd probably have to patch the BIOS image. From what I can tell there are only straps for 2 and 4 - unless it was added on this revision, my schematic is the last revision - but in that case it would be trial and error... not feasible.
this job cost more than triple the price of laptop and u still have crap
I paid $20 for the CPU new from China. I already own the BGA machine and have skills to use it. I clearly explained this is MY laptop. Of course it is silly to pay BGA rework job on such a cheap machine, but this one is mine, so it didn't cost me anything for the rework!
Seems you might not be serious.
i believe was not to make profit it was to learn and expand he's skills and test possibilities
If you can do it, why not?
Worst case, you kill a very low end laptop, so not much of value lost
Best case, you get a nice performance boost and feel proud of yourself
please use a different mic when you screen record. and don't timelapse what you do for too long it will kill the overall audience retention. Overall it is a great video and definitely required you a lot of effort.Ḍ
Thanks but the goal here is not to make professional videos, but more to share the project.