Any way to read my BIOS to see list of supported CPUs?

[klungemonger]

I have an Averatec 6235 laptop, can't remember exactly when I got it but it's a few years old now. It has an AMD Mobile Athlon 64 2800+ processor (1.8G) and I wanted to see if I could pop in teh 3400+ (2.2G) or 3700+ (2.4G) versions w/o doing a BIOS upgrade. Because a) I've never done one before, and b) I can't get one from Averatec and from what I've heard their customer service is terrible.

So what I want to know is can I tell somehow whether the better processors are supported so I can drop in and go? Thanks.

[SuperAkuma]

Sorry I don't know if you can do a direct swap on the CPU. I do know that you have a Socket 754. AMD had many different version of that processor you had. I never really paid attention to AMD so I don't know the backward compatibility of it.

Also on some notebook you can not upgrade the CPU at all.

Have you priced those processors? The only place that I see that HAD that cpu was at buy.com for $277 and they are sold out right now. I don't see it for sale any other legit place online.

What is it that you are using the computer for that makes you want to upgrade the CPU?
If it is gaming, for get it, the CPU won't do much because the video card is too weak. I believe you have an integrated SIS video card on that notebook which is worthless for anything 3D.

If for photoshop, I would spend $50 or so on more RAM, it would help you out more. Or just buy a new notebook. A $500 notebook today will be light years more powerful and faster then the one you have.

[gurusan]

Your bios won't tell you...you'll have to contact Averatec or find the documentation somewhere else.

What exactly are you wanting to improve in your notebook? A 400mhz cpu increase will help a bit, but not as much as more memory.

[klungemonger]

Well the laptop is working pretty well just a bit slower than it used to be, you know as you add programs and stuff and the newer stuff seems to take more processing power and memory to run it.

There are 2 things I found out: first, that this is a rebadged MSI Megabook M630. But MSI used several different processors including Athlon and Turion models. The bios upgrades are available so I can use a better processor but they "convert" the computer to an MSI so the licensed software that came with it won't work anymore. Not really looking to buy a licensed copy of XP, a bit pricey!

It's no big deal really, I don't game with it or anything too serious. The wife uses it for work, we surf and shop and stuff with it but for some reason it's crazy slow lately. I just ordered a 2G ram upgrade so when it arrives I'll put it in and see how that works to improve it. Will update you later!

[gurusan]

If it used to run faster then I would do a thorough adware/spyware clean...also use http://www.ccleaner.com/download to get rid of registry errors and general crap.

The 2gb ram should definitely help the system feel more responsive though.