Upgrade a HP ProBook 4540s

[Arseni2002]

Hi,

I have an HP ProBook 4540s as follows:

CPU Type                         Mobile DualCore Intel Celeron B840, 1900 MHz (19 x 100)

Motherboard Name      HP 17F6

Motherboard Chipset  Intel Panther Point HM76, Intel Sandy Bridge

System Memory            

DIMM1: Corsair Value Select CMSO4GX3M1A1333C9    4 GB DDR3-1333 DDR3 SDRAM (9-9-9-24 @ 666 MHz) (8-8-8-22 @ 609 MHz) (7-7-7-20 @ 533 MHz) (6-6-6-17 @ 457 MHz)

DIMM3: SK hynix HMT351S6CFR8C-PB                [ TRIAL VERSION ]

BIOS Type          Compaq (10/07/2013)

My questions are: Can I upgrade the memory by installing 2x8 Gb.

What kind of SSD is suitable for this Laptop

Thanks

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Yes, you should be able to upgrade the memory to 2 x 8 GB but there is a problem you can read in this discussion which has the solution.

Solved: Performance degrades in Probook 4540s after memory upgrade - HP Support Community - 2268503

According to the Intel specs for your notebook's processor, it can support 16 GB of memory.

Intel Celeron Processor B840 2M Cache 1.90 GHz Product Specifications

You can also do this to confirm how much memory your notebook can support...

1. In the search box, search for cmd and click Run as administrator. This will open the command prompt.

2. Once command prompt is opened, type wmic memphysical get maxcapacityEx and hit enter.

There, it will show the maximum RAM capacity your PC's motherboard can support.

The capacity is shown as Kilobytes, so you have to convert it to Gigabytes by dividing the number provided in the report by 1,048,576.

You can replace the 2.5" mechanical hard drive with a 2.5" SATA SSD.

There are no slots to add another drive such as M.2 SATA.

Below is the link to the service manual...

c03758231.pdf (hp.com)

[Arseni2002]

Answer

Thank you very much for your comprehensive information and especially for the link to the manual of the laptop.

What would you advise me with respect to BIOS and CPU upgrades?

Where can I get the latest BIOS update? What is the latest BIOS release for this Laptop?

There is also a long list of Intel mobile processors that are compatible with HP ProBook 4540s published on the internet. https://www.cpu-upgrade.com/mb-HP/ProBook_4540s.html

What would you advise me in this regard? Is it worth upgrading the processor? Could I really switch from a dual-core Celeron to a quad-core, 8 threads  i7 processor for example what would be really a big jump in productivity if combined with a memory and SSD upgrade?

thank you very much in advance ……

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

You're very welcome.

According to the manual, you can upgrade to the i7 quad core processor since all the processors have the same wattage and looking at the list of motherboards, the same motherboard is used for the dual core processors and the quad core processors.

I suppose if you can pick up a better processor at a reasonable price, then it would be worth upgrading the processor.

I would do the memory and SSD upgrades before upgrading the processor, and if you still want more performance, then upgrade the processor.

To my dismay, when I went to post the link to where you can find the BIOS updates, the HP support site is not working at the moment.

This would be the link to where you can find the driver support page if it was working.

HP ProBook 4540s Notebook PC Software and Driver Downloads | HP® Customer Support