Upgrade Solutions Available for DV6000 Laptop.

[BlackBird]

Dear Friends(If I may call you all so),

I have been using my laptop (The one mentioned in my signature with complete details) for some 5-6months now, and also have an 3years extended warranty above base warrenty. I wanted to know of the options available to me regarding upgrades to my Hardware, specially the processors and the graphics (video card). Due to the extended warranty, I will not prefer to buy a new one so please advise. Do keep in your view that I am not an expert on these stuffs so please make it as simple as possible for me.

With Regards.

[NoNoBadDog]

Generally, you cannot upgrade the processor or the graphics card.  The motherpboard you have has integrated graphics, which means that the graphics chip is soldered onto the motherboard.  In order to "upgrade" you would have to replace the entire motherboard.

As far as the processor, it is in a socket, but available upgrades woudl yield very tiny, negligible improvements in performance.  You may get a few percent increase, but definitely under 10%, and it would be quite expensive to upgrade the processor, as the BIOS would have to be upgraded and the system tattooed to reflect the change in hardware.  

The entire point is moot, because none of the above would be covered at all under your warranty.  Just like your car...any upgrades you make to it are not paid for by your manufacturers warranty. 

In short...it really would not be worth the cost to even attempt to upgrade.  The model you have is a pretty good laptop, with a decently fast processor.  You should be happy with it. 

[andyman1001]

hi i had a standard hp dv6000 but it was no good for me so i upgraded the ecu from a dodgy single core 1,7 to an amd turion(tm) 74 x 2 mobile technology tl-66 2.30 ghz withour doing anything else at all to the lappy and it has never let me down and runs perfect it also has 4 gigs of memory and all is fin, i hope this help and it only cost me £50 for the cpu

[flybeech]

I replaced the dead, de-featured AMD motherboard on my dv6000 with the latest and last version motherboard that fits this series. Equipped with discrete nVidia GeForce 8400M GS and HDMI, it also uses PC2-6400 RAM. It is working great, now. I spent about 88 bucks for the parts. The old HP is running like a champ and the HDMI is appreciated. I want to go for 8gb of RAM, next.

I had to cut out the I/O for the HDMI connector and add discrete cooling to complete the conversion. The I/O faceplate was lifted from the bottom housing and the HDMI opening was cut with a small die-grinder, finished and replaced in the bottom housing. The Southbridge heatsink is robbed from a discrete AMD dv9000 and it fits perfectly. The fan is removed from the cooling unit and trimmed as required to provide airflow over the additional radiator.

To ensure my refurb top-of-the-line motherboard doesn't just get fried again, copper shims were honed to a barely-snug fit between any chip that had that "mush" the factory called TIM gap-filler. I was worried the copper kits from eBay would be too tight and damage the mobo, as well as doing nothing for all the other chips that need gap filler between them and the heatsink. In my case, 9 bits of copper were fabricated to the thickness measured with a feeler guage. I cut the shims to cover only the area of the actual dies without overhang. I was concerned about shorting the motherboard and I just thought shims that hung out over the edge of the chips looked sloppy. I applied the minimum required silver compound to all surfaces to give complete coverage, yet show just the right amount of ooze, so you know it's all there. The laptop was assembled and started normally. I lingered in the bios for awhile, just to look around for any trouble.

64 bit Windows 7 retail found enough drivers to get me going and telephone re-validation was required, due to the change in motherboard. I observed the thermal compound manufacturer's recommendations on "break-in" operation to properly cure the compound and it's been on and working great for a few weeks now. I took some pictures of the conversion, as well as cooling units for all the other Compaq and HP laptops in the series modified to cool the added Southbridge, if anyone is interested.

For under $100, my dv6000 has never run better.

Here are some pictures of the Southbridge coling installation and HDMI motherboard in a Compaq F700, an HP dv6000 and a dv9000.

http://s167.photobucket.com/albums/u146/flybeech/HP%20dv6000%20dv9000/

[Huffer]

Please post your pictures or provide a link to a hosting site. $88 was a great deal on the motherboard. Don't forget you also did a few hundred dollars worth of labor, and provided attention to detail you could not find from a computer shop. The dv2000,6000 and 9000 series are not very easy to work on for the vast majority of people, but we get a lot of brave souls here who would be willing to give it a try.

[flybeech]

I believe the good choice in a replacement motherboard for the Compaq/HP F500, F700 and dv6000 series laptops is the p/n 449902-001 and p/n  450799-001 motherboard for the dv9000 series laptops. Both require the added heatsink, but fortunately, the same heatsink is a perfect fit for all cooling units. Only the fan shroud needs to be cut to provide airflow over the added heatsink.

Part numbers I believe to be correct for the Southbridge heatsink are RSIFBAT70040183A, ARTFBAT70040183A and ACVFBAT70040183A.

http://s167.photobucket.com/albums/u146/flybeech/HP%20dv6000%20dv9000/

[flybeech]

I can confirm two Southbridge heatsinks that will fit the Compaq F500 and F700 laptops, as well as all dv6000 and dv9000 series laptops perfectly. The earlier revision carrying p/n ARTFBAT70040183A is an all-copper heatsink, while the composite heatsink appears to be a later revision, bearing Robin p/n RSIFBAT70040183A. The all-copper unit is ALL copper, including the flange and radiator fins, while the later revision has an aluminum flange and fins. Both appear quite satisfactory and I would gladly use either one in a motherboard conversion. Of course, I would still recommend test-fitting all heatsinks to measure all air gaps for the addition of copper selective shims to fill any and all air gaps that HP applied foam TIMS.

All fan/heatsink assemblies from the Compaq F500/F700 series and HP dv6000 and dv 9000 series can be modified to cool the discrete video heatsink. All that's needed is some trimming to provide air flow over the added heatsink. For anyone interested, I'll post pictures of the two heatsinks I have. Again, I purchased these as dv9000 heatsinks found on eBay, for about 8 bucks, delivered. The discrete motherboards with HDMI were also purchased on eBay for $80 for the 15-inch motherboard and about $95 for the 17-inch motherboard.

[GeorgeM07]

Hi Im also looking to upgrade my HP DV6000 Laptop and i would love to upgrade it the way you did.
I have the link for the motherboard already.
If i understand correctly i will be using my original fan?
or will i need to purchase a dv9000 fan ?
also i cannot find out where i can purchase the southbridge heatsink .
can someone provide me with a link?
also how much ram can you install on this mother board?
please reply soon .

[DJCharlesP]

I am wondering if you would be able to give me the part number of the mother board that you used to do the upgrade as I am wanting to do that to mine so that I may make my Macnhacked laptop that I have been wanting to build for the longest time.  I am very knowledgable on building pc's working on pc's I have 20 years exp doing so I started on macs and quickly went to PC's.   Please let me know if you have the part numbers as I am debating weather or not to do it to this model or to get a cheap parts case on ebay for the 17 in model and upgrade that route. 

Thanks

Charles

[DJ_Fixalot]

Now that's a laptop upgrade done right! Customers at my shop always ask about laptop hardware upgrades, and projects like this come to my mind... followed by the personal investment and time it requires. So the customer gets a "not possible" from me, but I know anything is possible with enough ingenuity and dedication.