Upgrading Intel Atom processor from Pineview to Cedarview

MDR · Guest

Hello and thanks in advance for reading my posting...

I recently got this nice little HP Mini 210-2050NR netbook and its carrying case from a friend who barely used it. It is the HD version and in 'like new' condition. I have been considering the purchase of a table since I need something small and portable and then this came along. Hopefull this will fill the bill...with a bit of tweaking (i.e. upgrading)

What I've done to it already:
1) My friend wanted the hard drive so I removed it, wiped it clean, and installed it in an enclosure I had for her to use as an external drive. I then replaced the hard drive with a solid state drive
2) Upgraded RAM to the maximum of 2GB DDR3-12800
3) Fresh install of Win 7 Ultimate 32 bit and all drivers.
4) Ordered a Broadcom BCM970015 mini PCI-e decoder card (to be installed once received) to improve the poor graphics performance. Based on what I've read, the Broadcom card will drastically improve the performance of the machine by unburdening the already overworked CPU. So far, all told, I've spent around $80 for the parts mentioned above... Not bad.

Now onto my question:

As my last step I MAY also want to upgrade the processor. The current processor is the Intel Atom N455 (single core, 2 threads, 1.6GHz, 512mb L2 cache) which is based on the Pineview (45 nm) architecture. What I'd like to know is if I can I install a higher level N processor (N2600) which is based on the Cedarview (32 nm) architecture? I suspect the answer is "no" based on the difference in architecture, but I thought that maybe it might work if since both use and support the same FCBGA559 socket.

If nothing else, I know that I can definitely install the N570 processor as that was the highest level Atom processor in the Pineview family (this would give me a dual core 1.6GHz processor and double L2 cache and the number of threads it can handle).

I know that some of you may be thinking "why is he even bothering"... Well, I really like this netbook and it's already running well save for the abysmal graphics performance. I may find, after installing the Broadcom card, that I don't need to upgrade the processor - but since I know how to change the CPU (done it many, many times) and since the higher processors can be had for around $20, I figure "why not". Besides which, I enjoy doing this kind of stuff.

Anyway, thanks again for reading - any and all information offered will be greatly appreciated.

Mark