Thinkpads Forum

I have a late 2010 Edge 15 model 0302-44U, it has the AMD Athlon II X2 P340 2.2 GHz processor, which is a good CPU, but I would like to upgrade it. I would like to put in a Phenom II X4 N970 2.2 GHz CPU. I know it will fit in the socket and I know it's "wired" correctly being it's an S1 G4 socket, but I don't know if I'll have compatibility issues with the BIOS. I have the latest revision, 82ET84WW (2.24) 11/14/2012. I also know the N970's TDP is 10 watts higher then the P340, but that won't be a problem. So I was wondering if anyone could tell me if it will work or not.

Okay, I looked up my computer in the HMM, (Hardware Maintenance Manual) http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc ... 302_05.pdf AMD CPU's are on page 118, apparently only the P960 is listed, and not the N970. So technically since the P960 is listed, the N970 should work as well, it will just run a bit hotter under load. The P960 has the same TDP as the P340, which is 25W, the only difference as far as I can tell between the P960 and N970 is the GHz and TDP. I just bought me a new N970 for $65 with free shipping off of eBay, I'll try it out when I get it and see if it works.

Okay, I got the new CPU in a few days ago, so far it has worked flawlessly. The difference between the N970 and P340 is amazing, the N970 has twice the processing power due to the two extra cores. I did a test with my internet browser Google Chrome, it took 35 open tabs with 20 of them playing YouTube videos simultaneously, to max out the CPU at 100%. I also had Pandora open in one of those tabs playing music. Even with all that stuff open, the audio was never distorted, it played perfectly.

I'm not getting that kind of performance with the original 2 GB's of RAM that came with the computer. Currently I have 2 Crucial 4 GB 1060 MHz PC3 8500 modules, maxing out the computer to 8 GB's of RAM. I won't see the full potential of the new CPU unless I upgrade to faster RAM. The N970 can utilize up to 1333 MHz RAM modules. I know it will work with my computer because all the 0302 computers use the same board. The 0302-CTO (configured to options) is listed on both types and frequency's. So maybe next month I'll upgrade to 2 Crucial 4 GB 1333 MHz PC3 10600 modules.

I use TPFC (ThinkPad Fan Control) to control the cooling fan and to monitor temperatures, especially with the hotter running N970. With the CPU at idle and TPFC at fan setting 6, it cruises at about 50°C. Under 100% load and TPFC at fan setting 7 (top speed) it runs right at 68°C. The fan speeds aren't exactly the way you would think, some of the fan settings are backwards, fan setting 3 is a little bit faster then setting 6.

Looks like you answered all your own questions! There were times I also had to just take a leap and see if the sum of my experiences paid off! Good to see you made some progress. This will be helpful if anyone might stumble across your post looking for answers. Good work!

emeraldgirl08 wrote:Looks like you answered all your own questions! There were times I also had to just take a leap and see if the sum of my experiences paid off! Good to see you made some progress. This will be helpful if anyone might stumble across your post looking for answers. Good work!

I was beginning to wonder if anybody would reply to my thread... Yeah I was hoping someone either would have told me yeah it will work, or point me in the right direction (like a link to the HMM) to look it up myself.

But no one replied, and when I saw that N970 was pulled out of a new computer (so basically a new CPU) for $65 with free shipping. I had to try and figure it out myself before I missed out on that deal. That's when I eventually stumbled onto a post that had a link to the Edge HMM, I forgot about that otherwise I would have looked it up myself from the start...

Nice upgrade work! A while back I scooped up an AMD Phenom II X4 P960 Quad-Core (1.8GHz) for under $20 via eBay and upgraded a similar Edge 15. It was a nice upgrade, too. With an SSD, these Edge machines are really fine.

CPUBenchmark shows the following, so you can see the relative performance between chips:

Manufacturer/Chip Cores Model MHz Benchmark
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual P320 2.10 1239
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual P340 2.20 1250
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual P360 2.30 1349
AMD Turion II X2 Dual P520 2.30 1500
AMD Turion II X2 Dual P540 2.40 1606
AMD Turion II X2 Dual P560 2.50 1657
AMD Phenom II X2 Dual P650 2.60 1716
AMD Phenom II X3 Triple P820 1.80 1431
AMD Phenom II X3 Triple P840 1.90 1732
AMD Phenom II X3 Triple P860 2.00 1929
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad P960 1.80 2236
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad N970 2.20 2533

There may be several other AMD mobile CPUs that would work in these Edge machines, see this list --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_AM ... processors

From the Wiki list, it seems that the AMD Phenom II X4 Quad X940 BE 2.4GHz would be the ultimate AMD-based Edge upgrade.