Is i7-3612QM Compatible with Vostro 3550?

The fact that the Vostro 3560 existed, and does support Ivy Bridge (3rd gen) suggests strongly that the 3550 will not.

Unless you have clear, verifiable evidence someone succeeded in running a 3rd gen Core-i CPU on the 3550, proceed with the expectation the upgrade is more likely to fail than succeed.

@ejn63 is spot on and his post in this thread would appear to confirm his statement.

Thanks for the reply. I've already seen that post and couldn't see where it suggest it would rule out completely the chances of this CPU working, other than that only the Sandy Bridge i7 was available (hence the post).

I appreciate that it's a case of trial and error but was hoping someone here may have done this already.

Thanks for the reply, yes I was hoping someone may have already done this before buying and trying myself. I'll be honest I'm not that clued up with this stuff and thought whether there is a way to 'work out' whether that i7 is likely to work or not. Just an example, this Vostro I'm using, on paper the RAM is supported up to 8gb. But someone (I can't remember which forum) managed to get 16gb of RAM working based on the i5 being able to support this amount.

So based on similar info/logic I was wondering whether that Ivy Bridge would be compatible based on motherboard/BIOS etc.

Support for more RAM than initial specifications state is common, since memory modules that may not have been available when a system is designed and manufactured arrive later.

Support for a CPU is built into the system board and firmware.  Since Dell released the successor model (3560) that does support the next gen (Ivy Bridge) CPUs, the odds are overwhelming that the reason you don't see reports of one working in the 3550 is that it will not.

There isn't that much difference in performance between the sandy bridge and ivy bridge CPUs, so you're likely better off with the former if you really want to upgrade the system you have.   

Thanks for the reply. Yeah from what you and everyone is saying it seems unlikely it will work and they're not cheap enough to give it a go. Appreciate everyone's help on this.

Hello zelda89, I had i7-3612QM and tried to use it in Dell Vostro 3550, but it's not working! BIOS pip only warring error! I upgraded Core I5-2540M to the max. only  i7-2620M with 2x8GB (Kingston KHX1600C9S3L/8G) works on 1.35V 800MHz and I have one Samsung 860 EVO 500GB. and Samsung HM500JJ 500GB HDD instead of a DVD room. And I tried to connect through Expresscard V8.0 EXP GDC PCIe PCI-E with Nvidia GTX 1660 (PCIe 2x)

Cheers for letting me know

But I think the hardware is compatible, If you want to i7-3612QM, you need new BIOS, you should edit the existing BIOS and you have to add support for 3rd Gen Ivy Bridge, it isn't very easy