Processor Upgrades

Question

Hi,

I have a very low spec Dell Latitude D531 that was designed for windows xp. It currently struggles to run even very light linux distributions. The processor is 800 Mhz AMD Turion 64x2 and rather than dumping the machine, I was hoping that someone could advise me on what comptabile processors I could upgrade to.

The detailed spec of the currently installed processor is:

Architecture: i686
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 2
On-line CPU(s) list: 0,1
Thread(s) per core: 1
Core(s) per socket: 2
Socket(s): 1
Vendor ID: AuthenticAMD
CPU family: 15
Model: 104
Stepping: 2
CPU MHz: 800.000
BogoMIPS: 1596.56
Virtualization: AMD-V
L1d cache: 64K
L1i cache: 64K
L2 cache: 512K

Many thanks,

Tony

speedstep · Answer

Latitude D531

Dell D531 can accept up to 8 GB provided that the OS is 64bit

https://www.amazon.com/Komputerbay-PC2-5300-PC2-5400-Unbuffered-DDR2-667/dp/B003Z9A3T6/

https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/all-products/esuprt_laptop/esuprt_latitude_laptop/latitude-d531_service%20manual_en-us.pdf

There does appear to be removable cpu

1.6 GHz
1 MB L2 cache
638-pin lidless micro-PGA
Socket S1

SMS3400HAX3CM

My engineers tell me this one might work

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-Mobile%20Sempron%203400%2B%20-%20SMS3400HAX3CM.html

https://www.amazon.com/AMD-SMS3400HAX3CM-Part/dp/B00DLYWKQO

And

TMM500DBO22GQ

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AMD-Turion%20II%20Dual-Core%20Mobile%20M500%20-%20TMM500DBO22GQ.html

https://www.amazon.com/AMD-Turion-Ultra-M500-TMM500DBO22GQ/dp/B00RZCQQ5O

tonyb12 · Answer

Hi Speedstep,

Many thanks for your reply. I'm afraid I'm not very technical but from what I can find out about the processors you've listed it seems like the AMD Turion II Ultra M500 is the highest spec. Have I got this right?

I would like to be able to run a mid range Linux like Linux Mint 19 or 20 without freezes or crashes and would like to go for the highest spec supported processor that could achieve this.

I would be very grateful if you could give me your opinion on what you would go for if you were me.

Kind regards,

Tony

ComputerNerd46k · Answer

The Turion M500 did not work (Mega L) I wanna say probably because of the socket version it was made for because even after a BIOS update, this chip didn't work. The original chip in the system seems to be an S1 while the M500 was an S1g3. It possibly might work with the A12 BIOS, but as Dell has only provided a corrupt version of the file, I have no way of updating it again and testing this for sure... A little sad about it, but it seems that the Turion 64 x2 should work for this device as it is for the S1 socket of 2006. I'm not 100% sure of this, so don't quote me on it. Another CPU I see that should work for it (And the next one I will most likely buy) is the Sempron 3800+ listed here:

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-Mobile%20Sempron%203800+%20-%20SMD3800HAX3CM.html

Finding information on these older AMD machines is a bit difficult as AMD hasn't always made it easy... but I will surly find out how to max out this machine, as I collect these old D series latitudes! Cheers, and thank you for your help!

Karel Svoboda · Answer

Hello, DELL Latitude D531 accepts any AMD S1g1 CPU, i would recommend to have BIOS A10.

Also S1g1 is NOT electrically compatible with S1g2.

Your best bet would be getting AMD Turion64 X2 TL-64 2,2 GHz, that is decent upgrade from the Athlon64 X2 1,8GHz CPUs. The best would be Turion64 X2 TL-66/67, but they are hard to come by.

I have upgraded mine D531, removing the heatsink under the keyboard is super easy compared to D630/830.

The good thing is, D531 supports even the newer 65nm CPUs, there are some laptops with S1g1 sockets that support only 90nm models :/

Latitude

Processor Upgrades

SMS3400HAX3CM

TMM500DBO22GQ

Was this post helpful?