Presario 2800

The Presario 2800 has been a wonderful laptop. Although it has aged (nearly close to seven years old), nevertheless, it has served its purpose well. It broke down recently and I managed to refurbish it. I wrote about it a few months ago. Anyway, with a spanking 2.2Ghz CPU instead of the old 1.4Ghz, I was amazed at what the laptop can witstand. Although I could not run Need For Speed Undercover, nevertheless, I could run NFS Underground 2!!! That was good! However, the 32MB ATI Radeon 7500 was really a drag. I could not install a better graphics card on it or add anymore memory (up to 64MB) as I do not have the tools to do it. Anyway, it is alright as it is now running on a P4-M 2.2Ghz cpu with 2GB of DDR memory. Yes, 2GB!!!

If you look closer on the specification of the notebook, the machine can only take 1GB but how could I manage to fit in 2GB? It is easy - Update the BIOS! I have updated the BIOS to F.24 which is dated 2005. That is the latest BIOS which I can find. The best cpu which the laptop can take in will be the P4-M 2.6Ghz. It is quite rare to find one. I could not even find it on ebay, surprisingly!!! I will be trying to sell off my P4-M 1.4Ghz now. It does not really matter if it is cheap. It is better to be able to sell it off, rather than to keep it at home, right?

I am quite happy with my old laptop now. I think I am going to use some paper and lap on the heatsink and redo the thermal paste. Let's hope that the laptop will be much cooler in that way. Until I can find a 2.6Ghz P4-M cpu, I think the P4-M 2.2Ghz will be fine. It is a wonderful machine!!!