Can you upgrade a Dell Inspiron N5050?

This was really helpful- and hopeful- looking around as to whether to buy a new laptop or upgrade- I dimly recall buying this 2+ years ago because it was upgradeable. So thank you.

Is the Intel Core i5-2540M (I assume the M is for mobile?) the 'top' processor this can take, and if so could I ask the reason (some motherboard/channel limitation)?

The old CPU is a Celeron B800 Sandy Bridge @ 1.5GHz so this should be a significant improvement if it all pulls together. I'm looking at some sort of Thermal Grease to help heat dissipation (?) and Arctic seems the best choice, but is it necessary? If so any recommendations on brand and particularly how much I might need appreciated.

I've bought 2 x 4GB DDR3 PC3-12800 SODIMM 1.35V 204-PIN to get to 8GB, which will mean taking out/replacing the 3GB DDR3 665.1MHz (according to CPU-Z) that came with the unit (slower?).

To help others as this helped me, on the CPU upgrade there is a good demo on CPU upgrade @ https://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=4SmMBOo5nuY and a lot of Qs are answered here also. It would appear the CPU needs to have a compatible motherboard and cooling elements (e.g. heat sink, fan) sufficient to dissipate the heat of whatever CPU you are looking at, and the N5050 only has enough to dissipate the heat of an i5-2540.

On heat sinks and Thermal Grease there's a good article @ http://www.heatsink-guide.com/compound.htm .

A manufacturer recommended http://www.memoryc.com/pccomponents/coolingproducts/coollaboratoryliquidultracleaningkit.html to me, but I'd still appreciate any pointers from someone who has actually done this.

I've looked at ark.intel.com as suggested- thanks. But the Celeron B800 I currently have in the laptop shows only the FCPGA988 socket supported, whereas the i5-2540M shows FCBGA1023, PPGA988, but NOT FCPGA988- is this going to be a problem?

And just to confirm this (the i5-2540M) would be the top processor the N5050 could take without upgrading the cooling as well (heat sink and/or fan++)?

On the paste, http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thermal-paste-performance-benchmark,3616.html says "Several years ago, Coollaboratory broke new ground in thermal management by introducing the Liquid Pro liquid metal compound. But while the look (and subsequent application) of Liquid Pro reminded us of a mercury thermometer that didn’t survive a fall, its successor, Liquid Ultra, is better, avoiding some of the first effort's weaknesses. Because Liquid Pro could be so problematic, I'm only presenting Liquid Ultra in the tutorial section. " and Ultra does seem to look better in the videos (Ultra i €1 more expenive @ €8.99). Any particular reason you think Plus is better than a supposedly 'new and improved' Ultra?

Thanks again for all your help.

P.S. I checked the AC adapter and it's the correct one.

OK, all done and dusted.

1) New keyboard- c$15, new, ebay. There are videos on youtube showing how.

2) 2x4GB RAM (Total 8) from Crucial (DDR3 PC3-12800 (800MHz))- c$65. Again, videos on youtube for those new to this.

3) An i5-2540M to replace the Celeron, using Liquid Ultra for Cooling Block/CPU c$70, used, ebay. Again, videos, some referenced above.

4) I thought of getting an SSD drive but relatively expensive perceived bang/$ given what I use the machine for (light gaming (WoT), work, email, browsing), so decided against and the standard 300GB HDD will have to do with an external drive as needed.

Total $150 and machine greatly improved. I looked around for a new machine but didn't see any improvements in form factor that would justify a $500+ outlay, and this should last a year or so.

Of the Qs navigating through this process (to help others), and anyone please correct me if I'm wrong:

1) The i5-2540M is the top processor this machine can handle as shipped. The limit is its cooling ability as these CPUs go to 100 degrees C.

2) Paste- Maxxxem recommended Liquid Pro as best versus Liquid Ultra (thank you and for all your other advice, greatly appreciated), but research suggested Ultra and that's what I used- as new to this process I found very easy to clean off old/apply new.

3) Overclocking. Maxxxem suggested the "i5-2540M Mobile Processor 2.6GHz@3.3 Turbo" and this seemed to imply some overclocking (3.3 Turbo from stock 2.6). But the BIOS is locked down (you can't change clock/speed settings for the CPU here) and all I could find as a way 'in' to overclocking was using Intel's SpeedStep where the processor speed ramps up or down according to load/temperature to save on power and avoid overheating when not heavily needed (the BIOS allows this to be enabled/disabled). I got Intel's Extreme Tuning Utility to help with specs and this shows the CPU speeding along @ 3.2GHz (off the 2.6GHz stock) which is a handy # (and puts me #1 in my category on www.hwbot.org where you can post/compare results (admittedly out of only 3 but older machine now)).

I hope this helps others as Maxxxem helped me. If anyone has any pointers on how to overclock (more out of curiosity/interest than necessity at this point) or get better performance from this new config I'd be all ears and thank you.

I'm upgrading my dell inspiron n5050 and i was just wondering what cooling block you used cause i dont want to buy one and not be able to use it.

alright thank you both alot i was really worried i would fry my computer if i hadnt cooled the chip enough lol

Yes, and mine was for the Celeron B800 chip, far lower spec and the heat sink/fan combo for that worked fine with the newer (far better I think than original) thermal liquid now available.

I'd be interested in how it works out for you and maybe comparing notes on overclocking.

alright when i get everything upgraded i will compare with you and also one more thing did you use the stock charger or get a 19.5v charger cause i dont want to spend extra money on something that i do not have to

I think Maxxxem answered this earlier: "Oh and make sure you have the correct AC adapter to run your i5 processor so it can run at 2.6ghz and allow turbo mode  .. It would be a - 65Watt, 19.5V, 3.34 amp". 

Just check the label on the adaptor, the wattage info was at top, the voltage/ampage info at the bottom. Mine was this one so it works fine.

Just updating 6 months on- it's working great- with some notes:

1) Clean out fan good- that means unscrew/pull fan off mount because the junction between metal heat dissipator bars and fan itself gets clogged over time. It's not immediately obvious until you separate the 2 that this is where dust++ has built up. I have pictures if you need them.
2) I used Arctic Silver on CPU.
3) A cooling pad helps (say http://www.ebay.com/itm/360979330377?_trksid=p2057872.m... for c$8). Pass-thru USB port on it too.

If you're interested in getting Turbo Boost to work (2.6 stock to 3.6 OC) see http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/laptop/f/3518/t/19599119 .