hp 550 upgrade of memory and cpu with possible unconventional tweaks. not ideal, but no other choice

[babygalbrigid]

HI guys, I hope you can help or at least give a point in the right direction.I'm a freelance photographer using much of the Adobe CS6 creative suite. After a disaster of a week I came home to find that the mother board on my editing workstation somehow is fried. I have no idea what happened though i wouldn't put it past my roommates carelessness.
I'm desperate. I need to finish my current job before I am able to afford to buy a replacement. So I am forced to rely on stopgap measures, out of desperation to finish my project, which are less than ideal, but so far are faring better than I'd hoped.
Im a photographer, Capture One, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro are the go to workhorse applications i need to work. without them i have no income. in order to have this machine run these apps,
the machine i have left is an old hp 550 which was gathering dust in the closet. It was built for 32 bit Win XP and in no way is intended to run the power hog adobe products I use, especially Lightroom.
Unfortunately Lightroom PS, and Premiere are 64 bit programs and LR and Premiere are hyper threaded. so I did research, and with the help of the windows 7 upgrade adviser utility's list of instructions I was able to get windows 7 Pro 64 bit to install and run.

I know this isnt the ideal machine or situation but for a few weeks, i need to make it work.

I really just have 2 simple questions. I had first gone to HP tech support. but they were not helpful. since the Laptop's warranty is long gone, they wouldnt even be polite and basically told me to shove off. Then on another forum, I argued back and forth with a know it all who consistently insisted that there was no way no how this pc could run 64 bit win 7, to which i thought what am i seeing things? its been running fine for 3 months. so i decided to come to you. your forums have been helpful on many occassions.

basically I need this machine to be able to run these programs for the next month or so, until i can purchase a new machine.

essentially, what I would like to know is will the motherboard support an upgrade of the processor? and if it will, what would you suggest as a replacement, considering my needs? The Core 2 duo is the barest minimum of what i can limp along with as photo/video rendering times are excessively slow.

next I was talking to the crucial tech support staff about memory upgrades. and possibly tweaking the bios to force it to run 8 gigs of ram. they said they cold find no version of bios that would make that possible, but that by already forcing it to run 64 bit, that already allowed the pc to utilize the full 4 gigs of ram, which had been impossible in the 32 bit format. He then suggested that i buy 2 4 gig modules such as 4GB DDR2 PC2-5300 Unbuffered NON-ECC 1.8V 512Meg x 64 which can be seen at http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/memory/ct51264ac667 and try installing the full 8 gigs and see what would happened, saying he had a feeling i could get lucky. his logic being that the 64 bit system already opened up the ram limitations and who knows, you cant make an omelette without cracking some egg shells! he seemed very optimistic. So what do you think? does this seem likely to you because i would love it to work. or do you think the guy was a quack? and this whole endeaver is a waste of time and money?

also any other suggestions about how to weather this month long storm that dont involve suggestions of buying new machines would be appreciated!

so that you have exact details below are my system specs.

Hewlett-Packard HP 550 F.05
System Serial Number: CNU90716GN
Asset Tag: CNU90716GN
Chassis Serial Number: CNU90716GN
Enclosure Type: Notebook

Windows 7 Professional (x64) Service Pack 1 (build 7601)
Install Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United States)
Installed: 8/4/2014 6:21:11 PM
Boot Mode: BIOS (Secure Boot not supported)

Processor a Main Circuit Board b
1.80 gigahertz Intel Core2 Duo
64 kilobyte primary memory cache
2048 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (2 total)
Not hyper-threaded Board: Hewlett-Packard 3618 KBC Version xx.xx
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: Hewlett-Packard 68MVU Ver. F.05 01/19/2009

Drives Memory Modules c,d
2320.47 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
959.16 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T50L ATA Device [Optical drive]

Hitachi HTS543216L9A300 [Hard drive] (160.04 GB) -- drive 0, s/n 090108FB0200VCCPYM3B, rev FB2OC40F, SMART Status: Healthy
ST1000LM 024 HN-M101MBB USB Device [Hard drive] (1000.20 GB) -- drive 3
ST310005 28AS USB Device [Hard drive] -- drive 1
WD 1600JS External USB Device [Hard drive] (160.04 GB) -- drive 2, s/n WD-WCANM2342148 4088 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory

Slot 'DIMM #1' has 2048 MB (serial number 0000202A)
Slot 'DIMM #2' has 2048 MB (serial number 00004042)

thanks friends! i look forward to reading your advice!

jodie

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

Here is the Manual:

Service Manual

Unfortunately the maximum configuration is a T5670 processor 1.8 ghz and 4 gigs of DDR2-667 memory which you already have. The CPU includes the 64 bit instruction set so it is not surprising it can run 64 bit Windows 7. My best advice is to save your money for when you can get a real working machine. The only other upgrade likely to help at all is a solid state drive, which you could use in the laptop and then also use in the new computer you are going to buy. 

If this is "the Answer" please click "Accept as Solution" to help others find it.

[babygalbrigid]

yeah i totally understand that and expected it, its just one of those rock and a hard place situations. i just came out of a stay at the hospital, which understandably cancled my first three clients aoointments I was able to land since i move.

I'm living off savings for rent which is dwindling and of which I promised myself i wouldnt spend. but i guess I have to wait and ignore that this machine is tripling my worktime and if i dont finish these jobs, the cash for a new pc wont ever come in. I  knew it was a pipe dream, but you never know where you'll find  a miraacle if youre too afraid to look. le sigh. anyway, Thank you my friend. I thank you deeply, and especially for taking the time to explain things. I'll just have to be patient. and perhaps borrow or rent. it just would have been super cool if that could have been made to work. but alas! again I thank you  

Peace, Happiness and Porsperity for you and your loved ones! have a grand day