The Asus Eee PC 701 was the first netbook to hit the streets back in late 2007. At this point, it’s looking a little dated, but at the time it was the only game in town if you wanted a tiny laptop with a 7 inch display for under $400.

It shipped with a 900 MHz Intel Celeron processor underclocked to run at 633 MHz, 512MB of RAM, and 2GB to 4GB of flash storage. While it’s easy to upgrade the RAM or storage, the CPU is soldered into the motherboard — but that hasn’t stopped one guy from pulling it out and slapping in a faster chip.

Asus Eee PC 701 CPU upgrade

YouTube user RedFathom pointed a hot air gun at the bottom of the motherboard to loosen the original chip, pull it off, and replace it with a new processor.

The replacement chip  is a 1.6 GHz Intel Pentium M LV 778. It’s not exactly a speed demon, but it’s significantly faster than the processor that came with the Eee PC 701.

For the most part, laptop processors aren’t meant to be upgraded and using a hot air gun like this could cause some serious damage. I wouldn’t recommend trying this at home.

But it’s nice to see someone breathing new life into the first netbook.

The first video below shows the process of swapping out chips. It’s a bit long, but you can see the first chip come out at around 6:30. The second video shows the motherboard successfully booting Xandros Linux after the new processor is installed.

via Hackaday

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5 replies on “Asus Eee PC (the first netbook) hack: Upgrading the CPU”

  1. In the first few frames of the second video, I thought I saw a finned heat sink over the new processor? That could be why the demonstration is on an unassembled computer. I wish there had been some mention of whether or not the faster processor needs additional heat dissipation. If yes, this is a proof of concept, but not a way to have it working in its original case.

      1. There’s a fair amount of skill required even if you know exactly what to do.

        So good to practice on lots on junk boards before you try this or at least be willing to not be bothered if it fails and the board gets destroyed.

        This isn’t the first time someone has swapped a soldered CPU but it hasn’t gotten any easier over the years unfortunately.

        Though it’s good to see that there are still modders willing to try these sort of risky mods, as it seems to have become pretty rare these days.

        Also reminds me some used to do it for business, like there was this one person who was willing to upgrade the CPU in a Sony UMPC for a certain fee.

        Though you can check to see if you can find a local laptop repair shop. Some may have the tools and equipment, along with the skills, needed to do these sort of upgrades.

        1. Hello 🙂

          As you progress kammst because with this mod? Have you created no instructions or the film? regards

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