Upgrading the AMD CPU on an Acer 5532 Laptop
To replace my 9″ netbook computer I bought a 15″ widescreen Acer laptop with 64 Bit Windows 7. The laptop comes with a 64 bit AMD TF-20 CPU which is single core running at 1.6Ghz. The real weakness of the laptop seems to be the CPU, so I’m buying an upgraded CPU on eBay for only $19!
The TF-20 CPU is a single 64 Bit core running at 1.6 Ghz, and from what I’ve been able to find online you can replace it with any of the TL-50 and maybe even TL-60 series CPU’s! You just need to make sure the new CPU uses the same voltage so that you don’t have a problem with too much heat from the CPU.
*** ATTENTION *** Many have stated in the comments of this post that they have problems getting a TL-58 to work properly. I highly suggest sticking with a TL-56; it should work no problem!!
I decided to get the TL-56 as it’s a dual core 64 Bit CPU at 1.8 Ghz with a 2x 512MB cache and it’s only $19… so how can you go wrong?
I’ve been repairing laptops, digital cameras and other electronics for years, but if you are a little nervous here are the steps required to switch out the CPU.
This repair took me less than 30 minutes to tear down and then rebuild. This is not a difficult repair, don’t get stressed out about it!
FIRST: Turn off the laptop and remove the battery. Now…
1. Remove the hard drive, memory, and the wireless network card.
2. Remove any screw you find at the bottom of laptop. You can now remove the DVD module, and it would also be a good idea to remove the LCD hinge covers (they pop out easily).
3. The next step is to remove the center strip (the strip where the power button is located). Open the LCD screen as far as it will go. Along the back edge of the center strip, at the recesses for the LCD screen hinges, you will notice there is a slight overhang. Using a small screwdriver, gently pry up on the overhang. The center strip, should begin to lift up. Once this happens, you can lift up the center strip along its length by hand and you should be able to remove the strip.
4. Remove the keyboard. There are no screws holding it in place and it should pop right out. Remove its ribbon cable from the motherboard.
5. Unplug the main connector for the LCD on the left. Next, pop all wires coming from the LCD out of their holders. You are now ready to remove the LCD. Remove the 4 screws holding the LCD in place. Once the screws are taken out lift the LCD out. You will be able to pull the wires through the hole and completely remove LCD.
6. On each side of laptop, there is a small two pin wire connector. The left side is black/white, the right side black/red. These are the speaker connectors. Unplug each connector.
7. Along the back edge of laptop, you will now see three recess that look like screw holes, but are the color of the laptop. These are screws, but each have an adhesive cover. Using a very small knife (an X-acto knife works best) gently pry off each cover and put off to the side to reuse. Remove these screws.
8. Now, under where the keyboard was , you should see 5 screws. Before removing the 5 screws, there are two ribbon cables (1 wide, 1 narrow) that come from the inside of the top of the case to the MB. It is best to disconnect these before removing the 5 screws. Also, besides those 5 screws underneath the keyboard, I failed to mention the sixth screw, underneath where the right LCD hinge would be. Remove these screws. Once done, you should now be able to separate the two halves of the case.
9. The bottom half of the case contains the motherboard. There is one screw holding it in place, on the bottom right. Remove this screw. The motherboard can now be removed and the laptop is now completely disassembled.
I hope this guide helps those of you trying to upgrade the processor. I just installed the TL-56 I bought and am in the process of assembling he laptop. I will post my thoughts on the TL-56 later today.
========
Observations:
I had some trouble with finding the 4 screws underneath the LCD between the hinges. They were covered with plastic stickers and it took me a while to figure out they were just stickers and I could peel them off. Just peel them off and stick them to the case beside their holes, then put them back on after you put the screw in.
Also, make sure you reconnect the touchpad cable properly or it will not work, and the keyboard cable goes “under” the locking tab though it may look to you like it should go “over” it. You will see what I mean when you have it open.
I hope this helps, I will let you know what I get figured out from my upgrade.
Related posts:
for applying thermal paste you should use a pea size in the middle of the processor and putting the heatsink back on will smooth it out and thats how amd says to use it.
hi, first i would like to say thank you for taking the time to post this.ITS AWESOME!
now i have the laptop all taken appart and i am waiting for my TL-56 90nm to come in, but i have a question. on the heatsink (not the part sitting on the proc) the part that sits on top of the other two chips (one i believe is the HD 3200 and the other im not sure). are those thermal pads sitting on top of them? am i supposed to replace it with thermal compound too?
No worries Jason, happy to help!
I’m taking mine apart again shortly to take pictures… guess I should do it tonight and not keep putting it off. If the heatsink will make good contact with the video chipset without the OEM pad then yes you can use arctic silver, if not then leave it as is. I’ll address this issue tonight when I tear down the laptop again.
Thomas
yeah, replacing the pads did not help at all. actually it made it worse. windows index score for graphics went down so i put the pad back on.
well my laptop is up and running with the TL-56, though the idle temp is kinda high at a little under 50c. is it normal for a TL-56 90nm to idle at this temp? (have not tried load temp yet)
FYI: the reason the original paste looked so think is generally OEM stuff has a pad that they have on the underside of the heatsink and it’s just a general size to accommodate for multiple cpu uses. (Never is it as good as arctic silver 5 thermal paste)
Can anyone help me out as to why I can’t see newer comments? I’ve tried several different things and I just cant seem to find them.
It’s a little tricky to see Josh, but there’s a gray strip at the bottom of the last post on either page (80 posts first page) that you click on to see the other page. On the first page it says “Newer Comments >>” and on the 2nd page it says “<< Older Comments”
Hope this helps!
Thomas
I see it now. I had to adjust my brightness and contrast. Thanks
go up to wher it says the title and right above that it the number of comments just click that and newest are at the bottom
I received my Starmicro TL-58 cpu today (the cheaper, $28 version) and I will most likely be going through the installation later today. I think that I ordered the cpu late Friday night or early Saturday morning and it was sitting in the mail today (Monday), well packaged and in its cozy envelope. Their office is stationed in California and I am located near the east coast so the shipping was reputably fast in my opinion. Wish me massive luck on the installation =). I will report back upon completion.
could someone make a video while doing theirs because i want to see it as i go along, and my TL-56 should get here in about 5 days.
Tearing down the laptop again tonight to take pictures. I will update the post with clickable links to pictures… having them show in the post might make it too long to load.
A video would be really long, so I probably won’t do that sorry.
Thomas
just like superchickens i got my TL-58. installed it and it worked well… at first.
ironically, as i was typing a message here about how well the installation went i decided to refresh my windows experience index. after i did that, my screen turned into horizontal bars. when i tried to restart, my computer wouldnt come back on. i immediately switched back to my TL-50 thinking that my comp was fried, but luckily it came back on. i think it just needed to cool down. in any case i think im going to stick with the TL-50 for a while.
i did put a little too much thermal compound on there, and i dont know if that can be attributed to my problem, but the difference between the TL-50 and the TL-58 wasnt much to mourn over losing. all in all, i think im going to start playing it safe. this computer is inexpensive, but i dont want to lose a brand new laptop
you’d be so proud of me Darntoothysam, when i thought my computer was fried, i took it apart, replaced my CPU, and put it back together in a little over twenty minutes. didnt even have to look at your page anymore to do it. you are tha man
Hey thanks for the props, appreciate it!
If you put more than a THIN (VERY THIN) coat of thermal paste on the CPU then it could be overheating for sure. Laptops are picky, it’s harder to dissipate the heat with such a small heatsink and a cramped area so you have to do it right or it will overheat.
Very nice that you were able to put the TL-50 back in without looking at the instructions, laptop repair isn’t really very hard is it?
Now imagine paying some “Geek Squad” doofus $250 to install the CPU for you…
Thomas
Hello everyone! My new TL-58 processor has been installed successfully and I am currently typing to you on my newly upgraded Acer aspire 5532. The installation went very smoothly with little or no complications. I do have a few very useful things to share with everybody.
1. THERE IS A VIDEO ON YOUTUBE OF THIS INSTALLATION!!!!!!!!!
2. Yes, the video is in 2 parts and it is of the Emachines version of this same laptop so the only differences are the color of some plastic components and possibly the color of some wires as well. The video is very nicely made but just don’t follow his lead on the thermal paste application as he put too much on and later admitted to doing so. The link to part 1 of the video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqxaVmgv5uo.
3. No, the video is not of me. I merely found it to improve my chances of a good outcome from all of this. I highly recommend using this guide in conjuncture with the video for maximum familiarity with your hardware during this process.
4. My windows 7 rating for cpu went up from 3.2 to 4.7 as others have experienced with the TL-58. I highly recommend the cpu from Starmicro (www.starmicro.net) as their customer support, shipping, packaging and all-round service was outstanding to say the least.
5. The bottom panel of the 5532’s keyboard can bend and dent easily during removal so be careful not to yank on it too hard.
6. I WILL CHECK HERE PERIODICALLY. I will try to stay in touch with my fellow Acer 5532 users and try to assist you on your venture into the dual core realm.
GAMES:
Runescape: Runescape runs amazingly well now. I cranked it into high detail and had almost all of the settings maxed out and still maintained 40+ frames per second with phenomenal smoothness. I was also able to play it on a much bigger window with complete smoothness.
Killing Floor: I also experienced a very nice improvement. Before the upgrade, my average fps was approximately 25 and would dip down to 10 fps during intense moments. Now, I still have to run 640×480 resolution, however I am able to crank the settings up to to normal instead of very low and I am averaging about 70 fps with dips that stay above 30 fps during intense moments. EXTREMELY smooth and playable.
Left 4 Dead: Not much of an improvement here because the “enable multi-core rendering” option was causing uneven frame rates. However, I disabled that and I now run 30 to 80 fps with 30 fps being during the intense moments. The game play prior to my upgrade was absolutely horrible with frame rates barely over 20 for most of the game play.
Youtube and Hulu: Youtube videos now play MUCH better on full screen. I still notice a minor slowing of frame rates during full screen videos but the miniature freezing and pauses are, thankfully, no more. Hulu videos have improved very much as well. Pretty much the same applies to Hulu videos as with Youtube.
HEAT: I have noticed a significant increase in overall heat production on the laptop but it seems to handle the extra heat quite nicely. I ran 10-15 minutes of Prime95 on the dual core and found the max core temps (via the coretemp program) to be around 72c to 75c, depending on the core. I ran the program in a hot room (72-77f) so that may have affected the overall heat. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU DO NOT BLOCK THE VENTS AT ALL WITH THESE CPU’S IN THERE. I wouldn’t doubt the possibility of temps in the high 80c or even 90c if the airflow was heavily obstructed.
I will leave a post soon on the other 2 games that I played pre-upgraded which are World of Warcraft and FLYFF. I suspect that I will see major improvements in those games.
looks like everything worked out just fine for ya superchickens. congrats dude ^_^ i think i may try to reinstall my TL-58 later on to day. after getting a little feedback from darntoothysam on what could have possibly gone wrong with the first installation.
Thanks for the info, superchickens! I got my TL-58 in the mail yesterday, and the arctic silver 5 today. I’ll probably give this a shot this weekend.
(I did notice that the second part of the video link you posted isn’t working. Any ideas?)
Thanks to you and to everyone else for the great info. Can’t wait to jump into this!
for thermal paste artic silvers website says to let the thermal paste cure for 24 hours and also ther is such thing as to much thermal paste you only want it to fill in the microscopic scratches in the cpu and heatsink but if theres to much it has more space between the cpu and heatsink so theres no heat transfer to the heatsink.
update: have had the TL-56 in for a couple days and it is running smoothly. even had it overclocked to 2ghz with little to no heat increase.
specs with the 2ghz overclock and 667 graphics overclock on windows index.
scale of 1.0-7.9
cpu: 4.9
memory: 5.3
aero graphics: 3.2
gaming graphics: 4.8
HD: 5.6
everything went up except the HD.
i ment to put 667mhz overclock.
and something else i noticed. this laptop seems to only let you overclock each processor by 200mhz. the stock TL-20 couldnt go past 1.8ghz and my TL-56 cannot get past 2ghz. if i tried to up it more it just went back to the stock clock.
if your interested i can give you the clockgen for setfsb to work.
how did you overclock the tf-20 to 1.8 i cant get it ot do anything
download setfsb_2_2_134_98c, just google it. and after you run it, select clock generator SLG8LP625T. after you have that set up, just up the slider and click set fsb and there you go!
Has anyone found any utility to control the fan?
so does anyone know if there is a aftermarket/better cooling system for this laptop? as i see it, this laptop can take ALOT. id love to drop in a TL-66 and overclocking it, but cooling is the only issue holding me back.
i got my tl-56 today and put it in without looking at the guide and it went well but i think the oil in my thermal paste was starting to separate because when i first put it in i got 50 degrees celcius at idle and the fan seems ok though. my aero graphics went down from 3.0 to 2.9 and the battery doesnt seem to last as long
what thermal paste did you use? is it a TL-56 90nm or a TL-56 65nm? i have the 90nm TL-56 and it idles around there. so thats fine im sure. good news though. if you overclock it to 2ghz it will sit around the same temp.
Okay, so I got my TL-58 today in the mail from StarMicro. Installed it, put a thin layer of thermal paste on, everything went fine. That is, until I turned the laptop on. The fan powered up, but the screen was blank and nothing happened whatsoever. So I went back in, checking all the wires. Still noting.
Now I’m forced to put the old TF-20 back in, because apparently this chip isn’t works. Might be the BIOS, but I’m not sure. Any help?
Initially, my TL- 58 processor was working, but then all of a sudden my screen went crazy and i had to restart. when my comp booted back up i had the same blank screen that you have. fan wwas running, but nothing was showing up on the screen at all. had to switch back to my TL-50. i dont quite know what it means, but i never got the chip to work for me again. tried reinstalling it and it still gives the same blank screen. would also like some info on this
both of you having similar problems with the same processor huh… thats odd. there are many people droping in TL-58’s with no issues. my TL-56 is sitting at 2ghz with no issues. what bios do you guys have? i cant remember where i read it, but someone said that the newer bios will not support dual cores.
So, how would I be able to downgrade the BIOS if that is the problem?
Well if the TL-50 works but the TL-58 isn’t, it can’t be a matter of the bios not supporting dual-core CPUs since the TL-50 is a dual-core.
yup, as silviu says my TL-50 is working beautifully and its a dual core.
im not sure if it was an issue with heat because i had a program called SpeedFan running that gave me the temp of my CPU and is supposed to adjust the speed of my fan accordingly. the temp was around 54 celsius when the problem occurred. thats not hot enough to cause an overheat, is it?
nope, you would have to be in the high 80’s, mid 90’s Celsius in order to hit the threshold.
My notebook is an emachines e625 with that creepy tf-20 inside so I’m thinking about changing it for something better(tl-XX or tk-xx). Do you know if there will be any compatibility problems in case of the cpu not being 90nm? TL-60 has both 90nm and 65nm versions and I’m a bit afraid of buying the 65nm and having problems. The 65nm version cost less then the 90nm version and is easier to find here in Brazil.
(Here the tl-60 cost’s around US$ 120,00[90nm] and US$ 75,00[65nm], yes it’s expensive… but for someone who payed around US$ 650,00 in one e625 the cpu looks pretty cheap – PS: Sony Vaio = US$ 2000,00+)
both 90nm or 65nm should work. only difference would be that the 90nm will run a little hotter than the 65nm processor.
ok jason i would like ot know how you overclocked your tl 56 to 2.00ghz and also i have the bios version 1.9 and it supports the tl 56 so i think it supports dual cores maybe the processors were messed up or something.
ok to overclock it to 2ghz, download setfsb_2_2_134_98c, just google it. and after you run it, select clock generator SLG8LP625T. after you have that set up, just up the slider and click set fsb and there you go!
note: you may experience different results than i, so use it with caution.
after you set it do i need to do this everytime i start it up or does it save it?
sadly yes, you will have to overclock it after every reboot/powerup. but it only takes a couple seconds.
Success!
And I only have one extra screw…! (That will come back to haunt me.)
To be completely honest, I have never done more than replace the memory in a laptop. The instructions here were very helpful, and the numerous comments beneath as well. I also found the YouTube video superchickens linked to to be incredibly helpful. I think the most difficult part was putting it back together, and even then mostly because of the assorted ribbons. That darn extra screw will haunt me!
I’ve had the same results with the TL-58 as posted earlier – the rating went from a 3.2 to a 4.9 – watching the heat right now: I have a java program running the CPU at 70% and the heat is hanging out around 65C.
Next step is throwing in a new hard drive – picked up a 320gb as someone suggested earlier, and I’d like to look into over-clocking the processor but that kinda scares me to be honest.
Thanks again for all the help, everyone. You made this experience pretty easy for a relative noob.
“”And I only have one extra screw…!”"
LOL. this cracks me up. im sure its nothing important. unless its the screw to hold the dvd drive in place or one of the heatsink screws.
I’m jumping on this bandwagon. Have a TL-56 coming in three days and will give it a try on my 5532. Will also post results. Jason- been watching my CPU temps with no overclock for a few days and have the average off that. When you overclocked yours, and you say up the slider, just how much did you slide it over with good settings?
Thanks in advanced! Great bit of info here.
Also for a side note- I upgraded to Catalyst Control Center 10.2 to get more settings for my ATI graphics since what came stock had limited settings. Seemed to work great and give more options.
you can overclock it up to 200mhz above the stock setting. just slowly slide it up in little increments untill you have a stable setting.
note. the TL-56 will create more heat than the TF-20 so dont be alarmed if your temps hover around 50 degree celsius at idle and low 60’s on load (my temps, if yours are lower then you did good). i would recommend arctic silver 5, as stated before, followed by a good cooling pad.
P.S. something i have failed to tell anyone. there is a program called AMD Overdrive that i use to lower my voltage to 1.0250V to reduce heat overall (overclocked or not).
Just a warning for everyone out there, don’t bother with the RM-70 or ZM-81 series processors for these laptops. I bought the TL-56 ZM-81 and RM-70 from eBay for my 3 5532’s but only the TL series processors worked. Even though similar models like the 5535 support the QL, ZM, and RM series processors this model doesn’t. It’s a little more confusing because an ebay seller lists this motherboard http://cgi.ebay.com/Acer-Aspire-5532-5535-MotherBoard-MBPGT02001-LA-5481P_W0QQitemZ280457479428QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMotherboards?hash=item414c918504#ht_3417wt_1165 but just don’t bother. I spent 2 hours swapping processors out and only the TL series worked.
So I opened the laptop up again and applied Arctic Silver. Am now seeing higher temps than before! Idles in the high 40’s and with a couple of light programs running goes to mid 50’s. It used to be like 10 degrees cooler earlier. Hope the arctic silver kicks in soon. I was very careful not to use excess and had a nice thin layer on top of the core, cleaned the heat sink of all residue etc …
what did you use to clean it?
Best thing to use for cleaning is Arctic Clean, made by the same company. Failing that you can very well use isopropyl rubbing alcohol – the 91% one.
I used isopropyl alcohol with cotton buds to remove the goo and coffee filter paper thereafter
your not supposed to spread the thermal paste over the cpu your supposed to put a dot of thermal paste in the middle and the heatsink will spread because when you spread it out it make air bubbles between the heatsink and that doesnt let the heatsink get good contact with the cpu.
The Arctic Silver 5 website and instructions for use suggest spreading the paste on the CPU with either a straight razor or the edge of a credit card. It seems your method would result in no less air bubbles than the spread method. Anybody else have thoughts on this?
here is an example of how thermal paste spreads http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffK7L0Qj13Q
and i’ve heard the rice grain method works the best without spreading.
I just installed the TL-56 into my laptop and now I’m flying throught the internet faster, smoother and viewing HD videos in full screen. Using core temp both my cores stay around 50 celcius. That’s with 6 different internet explorer pages open just to test it out. Overall I’m very happy with the new upgrade. Thanks again DarnToothySam!
Okay, update.
I just got around to replacing the TL-50 that I had installed the first time I opened up the machine, with a TL-58 (the $28 one from Starmicro).
Well, it works and it doesn’t.
It works, as in the laptop starts up and I can get into the bios, it recognizes it as a 1900 MHz cpu etc, and all seems rozy. But I can’t start Windows. Each time it bluescreens with an error in acpi.sys. It won’t even start in safe mode, in recovery/repair mode or from the DVD (yes I tried reinstalling to a spare drive from DVD and it won’t launch from DVD).
The (final) good news is that I put back in the TL-50 and the laptop is now working just as well as before.
Oh well. It’s probably still a bios thing.
thats wierd because a lot of people have put the TL-58’s in their laptops. luckily i went with the TL-56 and it is working fine.
some of us arent having very good luck with the TL-58 unfortunately
. i think i may try a TL-56 to see how that goes
get that TL-56 overclock it and it will be a little better than the TL-58.
good luck
Well, I recieved my TL-58 from Starmicro today and replaced the TL-20 in my new Acer 5532 (about 2 wks old now). The fan ran for about 1 sec then quit, the HDD spun up and then quit, and I got nothing on the screen. I tore everything back down (MUCH easier the second time), cleaned everything off and put everything back together. During power up, I got the same startup sequence (1 sec fan, HDD spin up and quit, nothing on the sceen).
Well, since the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results, I elected to reinstall the TL-20. Once the TL-20 was reinstalled, the laptop started up as normal. (BTW… the third teardown/rebuild is not any easier than the second, just really annoying!!).
Now I am not sure if it was just the TL-58 CPU was bad, if it is a bios thing or what. Is it possible that Acer has done something in the bios to inhibit the use of a dual processor CPU in the 5532? It would be really helpful if someone much more intelligent than myself checked this out. It seems that folks with older 5532’s have an ocassional problem with the TL-58 above, but my problem is not even getting to the boot sequence to check/modify the bios.
If I can figure this out and it is simply a bios thing, I can tear this bad boy down in just a few mins now and try again!!
Thanks for any help I can get.
Same thing has happened to me, has to reinstall the TF-20 due to my TL-58 not working. Also waiting to hear about what I can do to fix this.
I have a small theory on what’s going on with the TL-58’s, but I might be wrong. When I installed 2 TL-56’s into my laptops both of them began to emit some capacitor resonance, it may have been due to the extra power draw, but I’m not sure. It’s a very faint buzzing sound that you would only notice if you put your ear to it. This sound isn’t there with the TF-20’s.
The only way to confirm if its a capacitor/power issue or if its a bios frequency issue would be to take a 2ghz+ single core turion and see if it works or not. It might just be the luck of the draw. Some laptops can handle the power draw better than others possibly.
Since the TF-20 is 65nm I’d also suspect that other 65nm chips would have better luck than their 90nm counterparts, but from what I can tell the Star Micro 58’s are 65nm.
TMDTL58HAX5DC – 65nm 31w TDP
TMDTL58HAX5DM – 65nm 35w TDP!
TMDTL58HAX5CT – 90nm 35w TDP
The TL-50 has a 31w TDP, and the TL-56 has a 33W TDP for 90nm and 31W for 65nm… Regardless of all this, I don’t know if the processors pulling maximum power when the system boots up, but as far as I know the boot up process is the most power intensive part.
Excellent information Nova, thanks!
If you are reading this and haven’t bought a new CPU yet, get the TL-56 and save yourself some hassle folks.
Thomas
Nice theory, however the CPU that didn’t exactly work in my laptop (boot to bios but not Windows) is a HAX5DC, 61nm, 31W.
65nm I mean.
Yeah I know the Star Micro’s are the 31w. The main point I’m trying to make is that if some laptops, like my own, are emitting a faint noise due to extra strain on the capacitors then it stands with reason that too much of a power draw would cause random reboots or freezes or even total failure.
Even though the TL-58 has a max TDP of 31w its going to draw more power at bootup than a TL-56 with the same max TDP. The TDP is more of a guildline than a hard science.
One thing is for certain; higher frequency processors use more juice. Random hard lockups, reboots, and freezes on desktops and laptops are typically associated with either bad ram or bad power. In this case I think it may be the latter.
On the other hand you did end up getting the best TL-58 out there so who knows. I don’t know of too many bios revisions for this model though.
and by model I mean the Acer 5532.
ive got a TL-56 90nm 33TDP and overclocked to 2ghz and it works. could it really be a power issue for them?
I too am having issues with the TL-58. Like everyone else it was purchased from Starmicro and is the X5DC version. I have come to the conclusion that this CPU draws too much juice on start up for it to work reliably. I was able to get my laptop up and running with a full battery charge and plugged into the charger. It ran flawlessly for several hours and then the next morning it would not work. I charged it up and it again worked for several hours. Also, the minimum voltage requirements for the TL-58 are higher than the TL-56. The TL-58 runs at 1.075v while the TL-56 needs only 0.8v. The stock TF-20 runs at around 1.0v. More than likely, the MB was not designed to push a higher level of voltage to the CPU. One more piece of info, when the TL-58 was installed and working I ran CPU-Z and noticed the voltage was at 0.8v at idle so the above voltages may be for boot purposes.
Looks like I will just get a TL-56 and try this thing again. Thanks to all who responded to my earlier post.
Thanks for the post. I watched the video from the comments earlier in the day just to see what things look like then I loaded this page on my desktop and did the sway to a TL-50 myself.
One question though. Where are people paying upwards of $20 for this processor only a month ago. I got mine off ebay for $6 shipped from a US seller.
IMO Don’t get the TL-50. The TL-50 has a 256k cache per core and runs at 1.6ghz. The TF-20 you are replacing has 512k total cache for its 1.6ghz core. The TL-56 is 1.8ghz with 512k per core for a total of 1mb cache. The TL-50 is 90nm so it runs slightly hotter.
Basically the TL-56 has this over the TL-50
+200mhz per core
+256k cache per core
+Runs cooler
+65nm vs 90nm if you get the right one
+Any memory controller tweaks or core enhancements will also be in the TL-56
It’s worth the extra $15, trust me.
err its 512k cache per core for the TL-56 I just meant an additional 256k cache per core over the TL-50. Sorry.
Well I guess I’ll add to the list. TL-58 65 NM Chip not working in my 5532. Same problem as everybody else, the fan spins then stops, and black screen.
My bios version is 1.09
My bios was 1.09 also. Like I said, getting a TL-56 – hoping this will work. I tried the TL-58, did not work, so will buy a few less 6-packs of beer this week. Was worth the try…. Will provide update when TL-56 gets in.
Hello, superchickens here for a recap on things!
I also hear that buzzing/ringing sound that novadaemon was talking about. I noticed that the sound dissipates when the cpu is under load so perhaps it is some sort of excess power? I still have no problems with my upgraded laptop so far, unless satisfaction is some sort of problem.
*crosses fingers*
World of Warcraft game play has improved dramatically. around 40-70 fps and I turned up some of the settings to max! I would imagine that the fps would drop during busy times/raiding but I believe it would still be very playable. FLYFF also improved in frame rate.
I did confirm that the TF-20 runs on 1.000v and the TL-58 uses 1.075v so that may be the ‘bootless’ issue people are having with the upgrade, as the drivers don’t update until after you log into windows. If the TL-58 has insufficient voltage during start up then perhaps it blue screens or whatever because it can’t yet function on such low voltage (1.000v).
I have never investigated anything regarding pre-set drivers for an upgrade you are about to do but maybe someone on here knows how one would go about getting a laptop to boot with 1.075v of juice as opposed to 1.000v.
Also, view my previous comments for a Youtube video link of the cpu installation and best of luck to everybody. I will likely keep tabs on this page and comment more in the future.
What’s odd is that the TL-50 runs at 1.075 / 1.1v Vcore and the TL-56 and 58 both run at 1.075 / 1.1 / 1.125v.
I have doubts that a .025v increase is gonna kill any chance of a CPU working, but either way something isn’t right. With TL-56’s working and 58’s not its just a little weird.
I’m really certain its not a driver thing. People with Windows boot issues could try to boot a Linux Live cd with memtest built in and see if their memory it taking a hit too, or better yet run a CPU stress program from it and see if it is stable.
Hey, Has anybody with the tl-58 who get the black screen upon startup tried removing the 1 gig memory chip and leaving just the 2 gig one to see if its as simple as that? I am willing to guess the two chips just don’t want to work at 400 MHz together.. even thought i have my tf-20 over-clocked to 1.8GHz and 360MHz memory. I will be getting the tl-58 tomorrow. I’ll let everybody know how my upgrade goes. Im also leaving the stock heat-sink pads on because I have seen that most people who have the problems removed them.
Hey Swebb0r
Changing the CPU won’t change the Front Side Bus (FSB) speed, which is the speed at which that the RAM is running. If people can’t boot up after installing the TL-58 then I think it’s possibly a voltage issue… I don’t think anybody is having problems with the TL-56 like I have.
If you’re talking about the people that were overclocking then yes it’s possible it’s a RAM issue and it won’t hurt to test!
As for the heatsink pads… do you mean the thermal paste between the CPU and heatsink? If you clean off the stock paste and apply a thin layer of a good thermal paste it will be as good as or better than the stock thermal paste. If you put a huge thick layer you will cause yourself problems, but it seems as though the people here know what to do so I’m not sure that’s an issue.
Thomas
Hey, You are right the front side buss is the same. But the memory might not be stable with dual cores if its two different size chips. but acording to this link.
http://products.amd.com/en-us/NotebookCPUSideBySide.aspx?id=3&id=7
the tl-58 draws less power than your chip. So it shouldnt be an issue.
We shal see tomorrow if i have any problems with my tl-58 install.
“Fingers crossed!”
Has anyone tried the TL-6x+ series? My first choice would be the TL-60 (2.0GHz) as it has the same TDP as the TL-56 and the voltage actually averages a bit lower (below 1V, in fact, compared to the average of 1.1V on the TL-56), and it’s not expensive. My second choice would be the TL-64 at 2.2GHz, but the TDP is 35W and the voltage is the same as the TL-56. Any help would be great.
Has anyone successfully installed a larger hard drive on their 5532?
I bought a 320gb Scorpion SATA drive, bought an enclosure for it, downloaded Acronis (which came heavily recommended) and in the process of cloning the HD everything got screwed up. I wound up reinstalling Win 7 from the recovery discs (thank God I burned them). If anyone has any suggestions of other reliable cloning software that works for Win 7 I’d love to hear about it. I’ll keep researching in the meantime and post something if I find a solution.
Cheers
I figured this out. I was able to simply install the new drive and use the recovery disks to install win 7.
Huzzah!
My theory is not that the power requirements at boot are too high, but that (at least some versions of) the bios lacking ACPI tables for the higher cpus – since these are cheap laptops and weren’t meant to ever have better processors in, they cut corners. The bios sees which cpu it is, can do basic stuff with it (like boot DOS – I can boot from Hiren’s boot CD which is based on DOS IIRC). But as soon a higher-level OS asks for ACPI tables for the CPU, the bios becomes confused.
Hey,
Well i hate to say i was right and rub it in your face but i was. I did my update to the tl-58 today and just like everybody else it wouldnt boot. So i did what i suggested and removed the one 1 gig memory chip. and boom starts up works flawlessly. The problem is the two memory chips work together fine when there is a single core but with dual cores they need 2 2gig chips to fuction properly. So for everybody who its not working for. Just remove the 1 gig chip and it works fine. I am happy as hell. but now i need to get another 2 gig chip. Thanks for all the help i got reading this board. and acording to cpuz and core temp this chip is crawing 1.1000v so definatly not a voltage issue. But the memory is trying to run at 315mhz. which could be the reason for the prob.. anyway. ill put more info up once ive tested it out thoroughly.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but… I had 2×2GB sticks in the laptop when I put the TL-58 in, and it booted but wouldn’t go into Windows.
Grats on getting your laptop to work, but those memory chips are rated to run at 400mhz (800 ddr).
The memory divider runs at 1/6th of whatever the cpu speed is, so if your cpu is 1.9ghz its going to run at 316mhz.
Basically there’s no strain on the memory whatsoever, but the only thing that matters in the end is that your laptop works.
And technically speaking, removing a memory chip reduces the power strain at boot up because theres one less chip to power, so we still don’t know the real cause. It works for some people and it doesn’t work for others.
Fresh from eBay ($22.99 with shipping)my TL-56, TMDTL56HAX5CT came in yesterday and was installed last night. Thanks superchickens for the link on install. Arctic Silver 5 applied with a spread method, and been wathing temps with SpeedFan. Day 1 and core temps have been averaging low side at 54C with an a high side of 68C. High side running an HD movie and overclocked. Won’t be around this weekend, but on Monday I will go back and use the rice method with no spread for comparison. For all those with no cool pad, I have an Inland MA3303 which is great. With the USB ports being on the left side of the 5532, the Inland can be adapted to have the cord come out the left side of the pad with little exta cord hanging out.