change N4030 Cpu

Question

HiI found an old Dell N4030 laptop in my office which monitor was brokenwhen I took it to the repair shop, they said this old version of laptops are capable to change the cpu because it's not soldered or glued to the motherboard.but may be the motherboard could not work well with new cpu and gets heat ProblemI want to upgrade from Core i3 370m to Core i5 480m which is 20% better for only watching movies and use old version of photoshop and office .So, I want to know the motherboard can handle this change? uh I mean the motherboard used for dell n4030 i3 and dell n4030 i5 is same?sorry for my bad English!

ejn63 · Accepted Answer

The system should work with the i5 480m;  both CPUs have the same power requirements. That said, if you're still running a hard drive, an SSD to replace it is a much better upgrade.

U2CAMEB4ME · Accepted Answer

Welcome to the Dell Community @rezabaghaie

Three hardware upgrades to help improve system performance.

1. SSD:

Any name brand should work.

2.Memory:

8Gb should be the max.

3. CPU:

i7-640M would be best.

https://www.cpu-upgrade.com/CPUs/Intel/Core_i3_Mobile/i3-370M_(PGA988).html

Inspiron 14 N4030 Service Manual:

https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/all-products/esuprt_laptop/esuprt_inspiron_laptop/inspiron-14-n4030_service%20manual_en-us.pdf

Best regards,

U2

JonaBeyer · Answer

Hi, I also have a N4030 and I want to change the CPU aswell, after searching a bit I found that the socket is PGA988 and the i7-720QM has that kind of socket so I wanted to know if I can use that CPU (the current CPU is 35W and the i7-720QM is 45W I really don't know if 10W of difference is really a big problem or not)

ejn63 · Answer

Even if the CPU is recognized and the system will POST, chances are the added power draw will lead to overheating. Also bear in mind that the i7Q CPUs don't have GPUs aboard and can work ONLY if your system has ATI video (if it currently has Intel video, you can't use a quad core CPU).

JonaBeyer · Answer

Feared that something like that could happen, oh well, then the i7 640m is the best option. Thanks for answering man, things could have gone wrong

MatiasN07 · Answer

Hi, I have tried to upgrade the ram on this model to 2 x 8gb 1333mhz ddr3 (KVR13S9S8S8/4) and the system recognizes 8gb but only uses 2.93gb. So my question is could it be the proccessor that is the problem, thanks everyone!

ejn63 · Answer

Are you running a 32-bit version of Windows (which will limit you to under 4G usable RAM)?

Inspiron

change N4030 Cpu

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