Acer Aspire 5050 Processor Upgrade – If your finding your Acer 5050 to be slow using Windows Vista or 7, there are a couple of choices open to us.

Firstly you can always replace your operating system and use Windows XP which is what I have been using for the past 12 months.

You can always grin and bare the slowness of Vista or 7 on a single core AMD processor
Or we can replace or upgrade the processor.

The exact model of Laptop I have performed the upgrade on is a Acer Aspire 5051, it has a 2.0ghz AMD Turion 64 processor, single core type.

I originally upgraded the RAM from 1gb to 2.5gb to see what difference this would make, but sadly any performance difference was at best marginal, and as I really need to use Windows Vista the only other viable option was to replace the Laptop or replace the Processor.

Acer aspire 5050 processor upgrade article

Having double checked that this Acer 5051 had a S1 type processor socket I obtained a AMD Turion 64 1.8hgz x 2 processor, although this could be substituted for a 2ghz dual core Turion

Beginning
Before we begin I would just like to point out. “to replace your current processor you will need to dismantle most of your laptop” We accept no responsibility if you damage your laptop while attempting this. So perform the following at your own risk.

Make sure you have a clean and spacious working environment, earth yourself regularly to help prevent ESD or Electro Static Discharge damaging sensitive electronic components. Work in an organized fashion, making sure you make a note of screw locations connectors etc.

To begin with ensure power cable is removed. Place your laptop screen closed upside down, so you can access the battery and the two screwed on panels.

Acer Aspire 5050 Rear Panels Removed

Remove the Battery and the two screwed on Panels

acer aspire 5050 processor upgrade

Remember to earth yourself, remove the RAM, WIFI card (Making a note of which black or white cable goes where), remove the hard drive.

Acer 5051 RAM & Cards Removed

Turning the laptop over and remove the 3 screws at the rear of the case.

open the screen as far back as it will go, Pop up the small part of the cover where the on and special buttons are located.

Acer 5050 Removing Top Cover

It should release from the back first. Remember to cover the screen with cardboard or like, for protection, just in case.

This will reveal the two screws holding the keyboard remove these, now gently remove the cable while removing the keyboard.

Now unscrew the 4 screws by the screen hinges securing the monitor and unclip its cable. The small black and white cable also going into the screen is the WiFi aerial so this can be pulled through.

Acer 5050 Screen & keyboard Removed

Remove any screws securing the top cover, remove the mouse pad cable and ease it free from the rest of the laptop.

Unscrew any screws securing the motherboard

Slide out the DVD drive

Lift out the motherboard until you have enough space to access the processor.

Unscrew and remove the heat sink

Turn the screw to release the processor and simply replace

Lock the processor back in and go through the list backwards to put back together.

Once finished re-assembling you will hopefully see the following very satisfactory sight in AMD CPU info,

Acer 5050 Showing Dual Core CPU in Operation

or check using Windows Task Manager to see if you can see both processor cores.

Acer Aspire 5050 processor upgrade

Overall conclusion
An Acer aspire 5050 processor upgrade is definitely doing the performance increase is very noticeable, and Vista runs very well.

To begin with however I did not realize how involved the whole process would be in terms of how much of the laptop would have to be dismantled to access the processor.

If your looking for a processor for your laptop upgrade checkout our other articles

Computer adviser acer aspire 5050 processor upgrade article