Compaq Presario CQ56-115DX 15.6" 2GB 250GB Laptop PC

I needed a basic laptop for web surfing, email, writing, and some light computer programming. I got this one at Best Buy for about $. For the price I found it to be a good buy. It came with the 64 bit version of Windows 7 and had two gigabytes of memory, a single core AMD 64 bit processor and a two hundred and fifty gigabyte hard drive. Uses shared memory for graphics.

After using it for about a week I became frustrated with the length of time it took to boot up and another while for your program to load. Once your program was loaded, it would run ok but I did not run more than three programs at once. It also seemed relatively easy to stress the processor. The system monitor would indicate processor usage was at near one hundred percent by merely installing a program. The battery life was respectable and the built in wireless worked very well. I found the keyboard and touch pad to be a bit odd but I quickly got used to how they worked.

One peeve I had was that the initial memory came in two one gigabyte modules. It would have made more sense and been cheaper in shipping the laptop with a two gigabyte module. I however do not pretend to understand the business decisions of these computer manufacturers.

Bottom line.

Good value for the price but recommend increasing the memory to at least three gigabytes to work well. Good for light use around the home or at the office. I have not tried but I don't recommend games on this unit. I would give it 3.5 stars if I could but I cannot seem to give half star increments so three stars it is.

My initial needs which lead me to purchase a laptop were mobility, media storage and playback (HD and non HD), and 3D modeling using Google SketchUp. I was looking to spend around $450-$500. After some research,this model kept making the comparison and with the price, it started looking like a winner. I made my purchase and I have never been happier. The screen is the right size for mobility, without sacrificing it's viewing capacity. Having a discrete graphics card, while not the most recent of architecture, coupled with (shared) 256mb from the DDR3 memory it performs quite well. I have to say it this laptop runs SketchUp almost as good as my desktop rig Core 2 Duo 3.0ghz 8gb of RAM and Geforce 9800GT video card. In all fairness, Sketchup is 32bit and can only address 2gb of ram, and is only a single threaded so alot of what you think are advantages to my rig, they are infact not. I guess the point of this review is..... this laptop does a couple of things at a time really well. If you push it, it will perform like a cheap laptop. If you want to surf, watch Hulu, and model a spaceship in Sketchup, she will perform like a much more expensive laptop.

I should also mention it plays Age of Empires III, Starfleet Command 3, and Command & Conquer First Decade quite nicely.

Pros

Solid hinges

Battery life is excellent

Lightweight

Runs cool and almost completely silent

excellent performance

Usable gaming capacity

Cons

No HDMI

no webcam

Overall I am completely impressed.

Buy Compaq Presario CQ56-115DX 15.6" 2GB 250GB Laptop PC Now

Well let me start by saying that this laptop i got from the Nvidia settlement. It was to replace my dv9000 specific model 9428nr. my old computer had a 2.2 GHz AMD Turion (tm) 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-64, 2Gb of ram max, and a 17 screen display, and that problematic nvidia chip, dual hard drive bay. use to do a lot of work on it for engineering classes it went well and it did everything i had to, but then it started having the classical problems of losing the wireless and over heating. by then my warranty had expired from best buy. So i was stuck with a half working laptop and it was not too old is was about 2.5 years old. so then i got a letter in mail that there was a legal class action and that my laptop qualify for an exchange for an equal laptop in value. So i said why not and i ended up sending it to the Nvidia settlement. So when i got my cq56-115dx i was for some big disappointment.

cq56-115dx came with a 15 inch screen, a single core amd V140, able to upgrade to a max 8 GB of drr3 ram, ATI 4250 graphics (not bad).NO second bay for a secondary hard-drive. NO express card, No 5-in-1 integrated Digital Media Reader for Secure Digital cards, No Expansion Port 3. and NO Number keypad on the right. Maybe i could have life without some of things, but what really got me mad was the single processor of the cq56-115dx. REALLY???? what a way to make it to customers who were having problems with the faulty nvidia and who paid $1200-$2000 for these laptops.

Performance of cq56-115dx as is no sugar coating

first of all you must upgrade the ram of the computer to a max of 8GB if want to be able to do some multitasking. with the 2GB of ram that came, multitasking was so painful.

After you upgrade the cq56 to a max of 8gb the computer runs a lot better. I was able to run engineering programs and do other things at the same time. but for more demanding programs the computer began to lag a lot. For example if you only run a program at a time then the computer is fine, but if you want to listen to youtube while running a demanding program forget it. solidworks with youtube on the background and some pdfs open equals total lag. Something i was able to do with my older computer.

Running videos on youtube at 1080 p is a total lag.

Last time i tried to run HD video on gametrailers web page, nothing else open, there was so much lag that i had to switch it make to standard view.

People who are going to use this laptop for Microsoft word, power point and internet they should be just fine.

bottom line this laptop will run great if you run a greedy program at a time, real multitasking is not existent with the cpu amd v140.

So i search to try and see if any possible upgrade here are the possible cpu upgrades

AMD Athlon II Dual Core Mobile DanubeChamplain

P320 2.1 GHz AMP320SGR22GM 25W

P340 2.3 GHz AMP340SGR22GM 25W

AMD Turion II Dual Core Mobile DanubeChamplain

P520 2.3 Ghz TMP520SGR23GM 25W

P540 2.4 GHz TMP540SGR23GM 25W

P560 2.6 GHz TMP560SGR23GM 25W

N530 2.5 GHz TMN530DCR23GM 25W

N550 2.6 GHz TMN550DCR23GM 35W

N570 2.7 GHz TMN570DCR23GM 35W

AMD Phenom II Dual Core Mobile DanubeChamplain

N620 2.8 GHz HMN620DCR23GM 35W

N640 2.9 GHz HMN640DCR23GM 35W

N660 3.0 GHz HMN660DCR23GM 35W

P650 2.6 GHz HMP960SGR23GM 25W

AMD Phenom Triple Core Mobile DanubeChamplain

P820 1.8 GHz HMP820SGR32GM 25W

P840 1.9 GHz HMP840SGR32GM 25W

P860 2.0 GHz HMP860SGR32GM 25W

N830 2.1 GHz HMN830DCR32GM 35W

N850 2.2 GHz HMN850DCR32GM 35W

N870 2.3 GHz HMN870DCR32GM 35W

AMD Phenom Quad Core Mobile DanubeChamplain

P920 1.6 GHz HMP920SGR42GM 25W

P940 1.7 GHz HMP940SGR42GM 25W

P960 1.8 GHz HMP960SGR42GM 25W

where copy and search on ebay HMP960SGR42GM

so at the end i bought a dual core amd phenom IIx2 N640 clock at 2.9 Ghz for $56 plus free shipping. let me tell that you what a big difference it makes. true multitasking, and now i can play hd videos without any lag. not to mention that i now have the ability to play some games.

how to replace the cpu amd v140 for a amd phenom IIx2 N640

first flip the laptop upside down on a table remove the battery. Now get a standard star screwdriver and begin to remove all the screws that you see on the bottom of the laptop. As you are taking them off remember where you took them off from. the ones with a little brown mark are bigger and thus correspond to the outer perimeter of the chassis. the little screws with blue are attached to the mother board and thus belong to inside. remove all screws even where the battery was before. Next open up and remove all screws of hard drive and remove hard drive itself. Next open up where the ram goes and remove the ram itself. remove the wireless card which has one little screw and is attached with two cables one grey an and one black or cable 1 and cable 2. double make sure you remove all screws, the hard drive, the ram, and wireless.

flip the laptop and open the display you will remove the key board. you will need a flat screwdriver if you look top left and right corners between the speaker panel and keyboard. place the flat all the way down and begin to lift the corner slowly then move the flat screwdriver to the other corner so that it becomes detached. Make sure you do not pull to hard on the keyboard as you lift tilt the keyboard and see the ribbon attached to the motherboard, finally carefully remove the ribbon and the keyboard (if you forgot to remove a screw you will have a hard time removing the keyboard and you might break it) . now remove the dvd drive just with your finger get hold of the dvd-drive and pull the dvd drive out, it should come out completely without any problems. next look where you just you took off the keyboard there are about three ribbons you need to disconnect (make sure you do it). after that with fingers of flat screwdriver began to detach the top part of the chassis off the bottom part thus exposing the motherboard (color blue). once you see the motherboard remove and attached cables to the motherboard about 4 or 5 cables remember where they go. DO NOT REMOVE THE SCREW OF THE DISPLAY YOU DO NOT HAVE TO REMOVE THEM. There are two physical screws on the motherboard take them off and lift carefully the motherboard. make sure to bring down the display because it flip on its own weight. So flip the motherboard on the back you will see the fan and the cpu. remove the cable of fan to motherboard. remove the screws of the fan. finally you will see the cpu with a flat screwdriver twist to let go of the cpu lift it up and carefully put the other back in. make sure you apply thermal paste (arctic silver only a little then with you finger spread it, it the cpu is a bit dirty clean ( clean the silver square)it with a little of alcohol and q-tip before placing it and putting thermal paste)and tight back the cpu with the flat screw driver. then began to put everythig back together. If you have open up computers before then this will be very easy.

10 mins to take everything off and another 10 mins to put everything back to together. if for some reason you do not place ribbons securely your computer wont boot and will just stay on the black screen with the fan running only and the caps lock key flashing light (happened to me. secure everything). so after you place everything together you should be able to boot into windows normally and start using the computer normally. you should have a better cq56-115dx.

Cpu $56 plus now about $40 8 GB of ddr3 ram, you are looking at $100 to make a good Cq56-115dx.

the ram i bought is crucial 8Gb kit 2x4Gb 204-pin SODIMM 512x64 DDR3 PC3--8500 CL7

I am happy now with cq56-115dx

windows rating

6.1 cpu

7.1 ram

5.3 graphics

benchmark of passmark of cpus

old laptop--2.2 GHz AMD Turion (tm) 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-64 1049

cq56-115dx--amd v140 single core @ 2.3 Ghz 674

cq56-115dx--amd phenom IIx2 N640 @2.9 GHz 1794

having said all of this, hp has no quality control and what they did to us in the nvidia settlement is very very unacceptable by all standards.its a slap on the face and on the hard earned money of people. and worst part was that my old computer was a gift from my mom and the money she wasted. If i did the same poor job i'll would be fired from my job, but hp and nvidia have gotten away with a poor job. Hope this information is of some help to others. for me its the last time i buy another hp laptop.

Read Best Reviews of Compaq Presario CQ56-115DX 15.6" 2GB 250GB Laptop PC Here

This laptop is the best one in its class. Its processor is fine for the price. The ram is very fast(should be upgraded to 4 or more gigabytes to give this laptop its full potential) the hard drive is fast, but without a fast processor it is somewhat slow. the graphics card is wonderful, it actually can play WoW and many other games without lagging. The wifi card is fast as well(thank god for n wireless).The battery can get 3 hours on serious usage, and about 4:15 on very low usage with the brightness all the way down.

This laptop is the best of the cheap. If you need a computer for word processing, mail, Internet browsing, and the occasional game, the price is right for a great laptop.

Want Compaq Presario CQ56-115DX 15.6" 2GB 250GB Laptop PC Discount?

I purchased this machine a month ago. Mine came with the AMD processor... As an avid fan of AMD/ATI I had to grab this one. The only thing I did not like is the fact that the onboard peripherals use too much of the installed 2 gigs of ram leaving only 735mb of ram for the operating system and your software. I quickly upgraded my ram to the maximum 8 gigs and this thing runs sweet... It will chew up almost anything I throw at it; Games, 3D modeling, multiple OS's under VirtualBOX and high end multimedia... Great value for the price but it needs better and faster memory than the stock it ships with.