Also, I have heard a lot about overheating if I don't do it right ... suggestions there are also greatly appreciated.

Forgot to mention I just installed BIOS A15

Sorry, 8 GB, not windows 8

Thank you!!

It seems straight forward but the grease they talk about on the heat sink makes me nervous. Where do you get the grease and what are the common mistakes people make when replacing the heatsink.

If I decide to just upgrade without a new processor and use a SSD and 4 GB of memory sticking with my 64 bit win 7, will I notice a substantial improvement? If I jumped to 8, would it be substantially more of an improvement.

Thanks again for your help.

Mike

Hi ac28962,

You can upgrade to Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T9500 (6M Cache, 2.60 GHz, 800 MHz FSB) on your system. Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E8400 (6M Cache, 3.00 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB) is not compatible with your system board.

Also you can consider upgrading to Intel Core 2 Extreme Processor X9000 (6M Cache, 2.80 GHz, 800 MHz FSB).

You can upgrade to SSD drive on the system. XPS M1330 system supports dual-channel DDR2 SDRAM with memory speeds of 667 MHz. The XPS M1330 system supports a maximum of 4 GB of memory on a 32 bit Operating system, but may be upgraded to 8 GB of memory if you are running 64-bit Operating system.

If the Processor and the heat sink is not installed properly then you will experience Overheating issues.

Hi ac28962,

You can get the Thermal paste from any computer store. If the thermal paste is not applied in between processor and the heat sink the heat may not be dissipated properly and which may lead to processor failure. Yes replacing a normal hard drive with an SSD drive will make the read/write access faster on the system. But changing of the memory from 4GB to 8GB depends on the applications you use. If you use general programs you may not notice the change but when you are using graphic intense programs, (Example: Playing games, video editing, photo editing) you will notice the change.

Be careful with the CPU upgrade - an X9000 may work but that CPU draws 44 W, vs 35 for the one you have.  That's a 25% increase in power draw - which the system may not handle.   The T9500 is a 35W CPU and should work fine, though.

The other thing to consider is that the GPU will remain the same (it cannot be upgraded), and that if you have a standard hard drive, it will remain the limiting factor.  If you do just one upgrade to the system, the biggest overall impact you can make on the system won't be  the new CPU - it would be to replace the hard drive  with a solid state drive.

I own a xpsm1330, purchase in the 2007, it has a intel T5450 1.66 GHz core 2 duo processor and Intel GM965 chipset

I´ve thought about repower it whith T9500, 2.6 GHz, FSB 800 MHz, L2 6 MB processor and Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz, now runing @667

based in http://www.intel.com/Assets/PDF/datasheet/316273.pdf 

and http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-Intel_(chipsets)/GM965_Express.html 

the max fsb of the cpu is 800 MHz but the max speed of the RAM is 667MHz limited by the gm965 chipset ...

How feasible is the upgrade? 

I do not know if it is best option to retain my original cpu. What about bottlenecks ?

I doubt that the xps m1330 can run 2x4gb ddr2 modules. The chipset (

Mobile Intel® GM965 Express Chipset

) clearly states 4gb max, 667mhz.

ark.intel.com/.../Intel-82GM965-Graphics-and-Memory-Controller

Has anyone tried 8gb of ram or you just make assumptions here? I don't have such modules to try myself.