Pushing the limits of one of the oldest acer laptops aspire 5742-7120

JerryFilmsfield
JerryFilmsfield Member Posts: 1 New User
edited March 2022 in Aspire Laptops
Hayo, I have this 12 year old acer aspire 5742-7120 and was wondering a couple things about upgrading it (For FUN!). As an introduction of what im trying to do is push this laptop to its limits and even upgrade components like the webcam to their best possible alternatives with the best cpu for the socket, max ram, max cooling, ruggedness of a toughbook, custom backlighting, you get the jist. This will be my first laptop refurbish so chill im a hardware noob. Now onto my questions.

I did alot of research and it seems that the BEST cpu for the socket is the intel core i7-640m, I tried seeing if anyone had upgraded this specific laptop to that cpu before and turns out 2 people did successfully but what I am wondering is, will I need to update the bios in order to support it? (Not super comfortable with that). It's currently running InsydeH20 rev 3.5 as the bios I believe.

Next for cooling I was thinking maybe instead of giving the cpu control over the rpm, why dont I just give it full power 24/7? (5v 400ma). What would be the downsides to this if any and is this actually benifical for cooling or not. And are there any other ways to improve cooling on this laptop.

I would also like the upgrade the speakers, microphone, dvd drive, webcam, screen, battery capacity, trackpad, ports, internet card, or quite literally any component that CAN be upgraded as this is a project to do for fun not practicality.

Last but not least.. The laptop has literally ZERO SCREWS and was being held together by the clips. I'd really appreciate the screw type. (Case screws for bottom specifically).

If you have any other ideas for improving performance that go past changing components (Like attaching the fan to full power draw instead of using the normal cpu controlled fan plug) I'd really appreciate it!

(Thread was edited to add model name to the title)