Solved! Upgrade CPU of Dell Inspiron 14r 5420 from i5 3rd gen to i7 3rd gen

Dec 26, 2018
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I wanted to upgrade the processor for Dell Inspiron 14r 5420 from Dual core i5-3210M ivy bridge (3rd generation) with quad core i7 3rd generation processor. Is it possible to do so?
 
Solution

That looks like the last revision of the BIOS released for your model. Unless you can find someone else that already attempted this upgrade, you won't know for sure whether it works or not; Dell sometimes blacklists certain upgrades, but it's worth a shot. Just make sure you reapply, if not upgrade, the thermal compound.

dudeman509

Estimable
Jan 23, 2015
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3rd gen would be the same socket as 3rd gen.

The 3210M is a socketed processor.

Yes, this should work with a QM 4-core processor - something like a 3630QM. Use good thermal paste - the cooler in the Dell may not be able to keep up with the 10w higher TDP of the QM processors, but most I've switched out cope fairly well.

Make sure that you check for any BIOS updates on Dell's site prior to removing the i5.
 
Dec 26, 2018
2
0
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The last bios update I have received from Dell was way back in October2013- 5420_A19.I am not sure if this update helps me for i7 upgrade and I am using Samsung 860 Evo SSD, Hyper X impact 2x4gb 1600Mhz SODIMM ram. With this config I am having a good performance but needed that i7 cores though.
 

That looks like the last revision of the BIOS released for your model. Unless you can find someone else that already attempted this upgrade, you won't know for sure whether it works or not; Dell sometimes blacklists certain upgrades, but it's worth a shot. Just make sure you reapply, if not upgrade, the thermal compound.
 
Solution