upgrade my 10 year-old travelmate laptop

I have an Acer Travelmate 4502WLMi that I bought nearly 10 years ago. I've used it most days and it has never let me down, even the battery is still ok.

Unfortunately Microsoft have abandoned Windows XP and I need to use a different operating system.

Windows 7, Linux Ubuntu 14 and Debian wheezy just won't work on this old Pentium M 725 processor. I hate to throw things away if they still work, I like to mend or recycle things, so my question is this: Is there a more modern cpu I can upgrade to? Is it compatible with the motherboard and BIOS?

I've already spent several hours trying to answer these questions but without success. Any suggestions? (apart from "Kill the Dinosaur").

regards

paul

spec:

Acer Travelmate 4502WMLi

Intel Pentium M 725 (Dothan?) 1.6ghz

60g hdd

1g DDR

Windows XP pro

Accepted answers

philetus

The best upgrade for the Pentium M 725 is a Pentium M 755 @ 2GHz. It has a 100% chance of working.It's not more modern, just faster. You would have the same problems installing Windows 7.

http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/CPUs/Intel/Pentium_M/725_(Socket_479).html

All comments

philetus

The best upgrade for the Pentium M 725 is a Pentium M 755 @ 2GHz. It has a 100% chance of working.It's not more modern, just faster. You would have the same problems installing Windows 7.

http://www.cpu-upgrade.com/CPUs/Intel/Pentium_M/725_(Socket_479).html

paulxx

Thanks philetus,

I think I may be stuck with XP. The pentium m755 may be quicker than my m725 but, as you say, it is no more modern. It seems the problem I have with the m725 is that the x86 processor is just too old for modern os's. There is a debian for x86 but I can't get it to work.

I was hoping there might be a more modern processor with the same socket (479) that would just slot into the motherboard so that I could use w7 or a linux os.