Upgrading TX2 (with ZM-87 CPU) to lower power CPU

[Mokusatsu]

This may be a completely stupid question, but I figured it was worth asking anyway.

The TX2's replacement, the TM2, claims a battery life of up to 8 hours, compared to my TX2 which gets 2 hours on a good day, and that's in low power consumption mode and with the 6 cell battery that sticks out the back.

As far as I can gather, mostly that long battery life comes down to it running on a low voltage Intel CPU instead of the AMD.

i imagine an Intel chip is not simply swappable in due to the motherboard being incompatible, but is there at the present time any compatible chip which WOULD be swappable in, which trades off a little bit of performance for a greatly increased battery life?

Of course another option might be to buy one of those Eveready power packs or something which would presumably be a lot cheaper than a CPU even if there was such a thing available, but this post was inspired more by curiosity than a serious intent to blow hundreds of bucks rather than just wait until I replace this thing in a couple of years and buy a new generation tablet which will likely have a much longer life than even the TM2.

Any thoughts?

[darrowconley]

From my understanding the better battery life comes from the CPU and other tricks it does with the GPU.  When I unplug mine it warns me the graphics are changing in order to save power and that is in addition to dimming the display.

From my experience with laptops you are not going to find a CPU that will readily swap into the motherboard. The CPUs are generaly soldered into the MB. 

I believe you are thinking of how easy it is to upgrade a desktop but laptops are pretty much not upgradable when it comes to the CPU.  You could think of it as a desktop upgrade and research the chip type and see what other types of chips fall in the same family or atleast have the same pin configuration then get your soldering gun out and go to town on it. I think you already know it will be a costly and labor intensive venture. AMDs generaly run hotter and the laptop chips so far consume more power then Intels.

Good luck

[PaulMJohns]

The service manual (http://www.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01655860.pdf) describes how to remove the CPU and warns that no one except a trained service technician should do it.

BUT: According to AMD's website, the power consumption is 35W. The slowest CPU HP shipped with these machines is 32W, a difference of 3W or LESS THAN 10%. This is not worth it, especially since the CPU is far from the only issue affecting battery life. If you did this, you'd probably never notice any difference in battery life. Better to use the Power Saver settings....

[josealb85]

Hi,

I just upgrade the CPU of my HP  TX2-1017AU from a Athlon Ql-64 to a Turion Ultra ZM-87.

Please make sure to follow very strictly the manual, especially when removing the Display.

and don't put too much thermal paste in the CPU.

I have also face problems to boot the first time, and I had to reopen the computer again and assembly it completely. I think the boot problems was caused because the CPU was not completely secure in the socket. I had to hard reset the bios before booting.

The CPU I have bought it in eBay, the user was named "reimic", its very kindly. 

Rigth now i have only 24 hours with the new CPU, I have stressed with some test and normal heavy load work, and I have to say, I'm noticing the faster speed of the CPU.

Cheers...

Jose Alberto Morales de los Rios