News Flash: Toshiba L25-S119 (BF Deal) can take Pentium Ms

D

diredesire

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Feb 18, 2003
Messages
4,516
Hey everyone, first time poster in the Mobile Computing section, I just got my first laptop this black friday, and have done a little bit of "tweaking" on it ;)

I know a ton of people on this forum (and others) have jumped on the sub $400 laptop deals, and there has been a lot of speculation on the upgradability options of these said laptops. I for one despise the half-capacity battery that I have in this Toshiba Satellite L25-S1193, and the Celeron M, running at the full 1.5 ghz at all times doens't help much. I searched around for resources on the upgrade options for these laptops, but came up with little.

I read at a few forums that Toshiba tech support said that the Celeron M 740* (not sure on this one) was soldered onto the motherboard. I thought this was odd, as I didn't see why any modern laptop would need a BGA processor. So, after PMing a couple of helpful members on the board (big shoutout to CJ2600 and SwatBat) alerted me to the fact that in the Toshiba manuals the chip and motherboard were listed as separate components. I went ahead and bought a Pentium M 1.5 as no resources could give me a definite answer as to if this would work or not.

All signs pointed to yes, the Chipset supports Pentium Ms, i was just worried the circuitry on board wouldn't support the Speedstep, the main reason i wanted to upgrade...

Long story short. IT WORKED.



screenshot.JPG


I took pictures of the disassembly process, but they're mostly blurry, and were just for my reference (so i didn't lose any screws in the process).

I have yet to verify if this laptop will accept a 533 mhz FSB part yet, but i'm about to try pin modding my 1.5 ghz chip to a 533 part.

If this works i will come right back and report..


Looks like the Toshiba Laptops from CC and BB are even a better deal than we thought!

Hope this helps someone out there.

-DD
 
Glad to see that toshiba left the speedstep in the bios. I know that was the big thing you and me were wondering when I talked to you about it. If I remember right I found a part number for a better battery. Down the road you could always put the better battery in and have a nice little laptop. You'll have to let us know how that helps your battery life.
 
swatbat said:
Glad to see that toshiba left the speedstep in the bios. I know that was the big thing you and me were wondering when I talked to you about it. If I remember right I found a part number for a better battery. Down the road you could always put the better battery in and have a nice little laptop. You'll have to let us know how that helps your battery life.
Click to expand...
Yep, we found a battery on toshibadirect for the laptop that should give me a nice boost in battery. I'm not looking to spend too much more right now on everything. I'm going to try and pinmod the processor for a nice extra boost in speed in a moment. Thanks again for the help!
 
Excellent. I've setup a thread for the support of the Wal-Mart Black Friday deal, the HP ZE2308WM, which is also *very* highly upgradeable. If I'd know that the Toshiba chip *wasn't* soldered on and that it was just a nasty rumor (bad internet, bad!) I might have gone with one of those.

In any case, nice work! I hope that you'll develop this into a full-on support thread! This weekend I will be doing some hard drive and RAM upgrades to the ZE2308WM on a second unit I bought as a Christmas gift for a friend (have to pick it up off layaway over in Arizona this weekend), and since the 256 and 4200 suck so bad I decided to bump the unit to 1GB and a 60GB/7200RPM/8MB cache drive before giving it to her. I'll make sure to post pics of the entire process in one form or another (I may just link to it from here and set it up as an HTML pictorial manual on my website).

See you around!

Jason
 
Update!

Pin mod works as well, looks like this chipset supports 533 mhz fsb parts..

Priming away as we speak!
 
diredesire said:
Update!

Pin mod works as well, looks like this chipset supports 533 mhz fsb parts..

Priming away as we speak!
Click to expand...

Dude that my friend is kick ass. I applaude you for your hard work. :D
 
cc2096 said:
Dude that my friend is kick ass. I applaude you for your hard work. :D
Click to expand...
thanks ;)

Unfortunately, Microsoft is ass-like and automatically restarts after updates -_-

So i have no clue how long prime ran. Priming again. Looks like temps are manageable, too.
 
diredesire said:
Unfortunately, Microsoft is ass-like and automatically restarts after updates -_-
Click to expand...

Hehehe yea I've had that problem before.
 
What was battery life with:
C-M?
[email protected]?
[email protected] [15x133]?

I'm trying to pickup a decent and cheap laptop before Christmas, I'm looking at Toshiba's offerings and the HP's. I dont particularly like the compaq.

I'd prefer the Toshiba for the faster HD, the DDR2 mem (alot cheaper), however the 4 cell battery is a killer. And the upgrade battery is ~$100.

If you have answers to the battery life questions, I'd really appreciate it. As I would definitely be purchasing a P-M and pin modding it.

What temp monitor program works with it?
 
vapb400 said:
What was battery life with:
C-M?
[email protected]?
[email protected] [15x133]?

I'm trying to pickup a decent and cheap laptop before Christmas, I'm looking at Toshiba's offerings and the HP's. I dont particularly like the compaq.

I'd prefer the Toshiba for the faster HD, the DDR2 mem (alot cheaper), however the 4 cell battery is a killer. And the upgrade battery is ~$100.

If you have answers to the battery life questions, I'd really appreciate it. As I would definitely be purchasing a P-M and pin modding it.

What temp monitor program works with it?
Click to expand...
The temp monitor i'm unsure of. I'm using speedfan's default sensors, and i'm not sure they're correct, they hardly ever change...

My temps were 31c with the 1.5 dothan Pentium M

now they report 55c with the 2.0 pentium M, i think the sensor is borked, it NEVER changes.

The battery life with the 1.5 celeron M was about 1 hr 15 minutes
When i switched over to the 1.5 Dothan Pentium M it reported it to be 2 hours at least

I'm not sure on real world usage, i never tried draining the battery. I just cracked it open again and pin modded the sucker. I'm priming as we speak, so i can't comment on reported battery usage, because it's full peak usage, and the resuts wouldn't be accurate...

Windows (which isn't a great indicator for battery) reports approximately 1:10 for full battery usage at a maxed out 2.0 ghz.

For word processing/watching movies it's most likely a fair bit higher than this.

The 1.5 at lowest speeds was 600 mhz, at 2.0 it's 800 mhz (at it's lowest). I doubt the length of the battery will be that much worse, i'd estimate 2 hours. The upgraded battery may be worth it. I think i will be buying one sometime in the future... If someone wants to purchase my 4 cell for $50 or so, they can have 2x the capacity (of course, it'd require a restart) for half the price... :DDD

I hope this answers your question. I'll finish priming this thing tonight, and i'll get back to you on non-load battery times.
 
vapb400 said:
is it a Dothan? If so I have paypal now.

*edit* nvm it isn't
Click to expand...
Not sure...

Report on battery life:

1:55 with the pin modded dothan @ 800mhz.

Improvements look promising, but still pretty weak :(
 
Thumbs Up!

Great work and def props for sharing it with everyone.

I passed on these laptops mainly because I was to lazy to get up and I have other things to pay for anyway lol. (Plus I hate shared video)

But you have DEF done some great finds that make that laptop well worth the price!!
 
Cross said:
Thumbs Up!

Great work and def props for sharing it with everyone.

I passed on these laptops mainly because I was to lazy to get up and I have other things to pay for anyway lol. (Plus I hate shared video)

But you have DEF done some great finds that make that laptop well worth the price!!
Click to expand...
Thank you thank you :)

Hopefully in the next few days i'll be able to put up a full disassembly guide ;)
 
HOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!

Compusa has the L25-S119 for $400 tomorrow. I'm picking one up.

The sale starts at 8:00, I'm leaving the house by 5:00. I refuse to miss this one, and unless god hates me, I should be fine. I called them around 3:00 today, and they had 33 in stock, and this isn't nearly as publicized or distributed as the Black Friday sales, so I hope I'll get this baby.

I'll be doing the Dothan + pinmod shortly. ;) ;)
 
vapb400 said:
HOOHOO!!!!!!!!!!!

Compusa has the L25-S119 for $400 tomorrow. I'm picking one up.

The sale starts at 8:00, I'm leaving the house by 5:00. I refuse to miss this one, and unless god hates me, I should be fine. I called them around 3:00 today, and they had 33 in stock, and this isn't nearly as publicized or distributed as the Black Friday sales, so I hope I'll get this baby.

I'll be doing the Dothan + pinmod shortly. ;) ;)
Click to expand...
excellent. Please contact me. Maybe you can help with the disassembly guide? I have pictures that will be useful to you, maybe you can take some for me? I have rather "close-ups" and need to take some shots that are further away. If you have a digicam i'd appreciate some help :)
 
Hmm.. So my Laptop wasn't a total bust?

Instructions would be great. I got it for christmas and the extra battery life would help me out a whole lot. Are these mods hard to do on a laptop? I mean, i was able to build my computer so im thinking no.. But i just want to make sure it's nothing impossible
 
Can you guys explain waht the pin mod is and what is involved in doing it? My GF is looking for a laptop and this may be a cheap alternative.
Thanks, Carlos
 
Dr. Doom said:
Can you guys explain waht the pin mod is and what is involved in doing it?
Click to expand...
The pin mod changes a 400MHz FSB Dothan into a 533MHz FSB CPU. It also requires that the laptop supports 533MHz FSB CPUs.

my 9300 guide with pictures: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=912387
background: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=888963
----

diredesire: what chipset does that laptop use? 910 or 915? You can also increase your battery life with Notebook Hardware Control (Centrino Hardware Control). Decrease the CPU voltage. I run my Dothan 1.5GHz o/c to 2GHz @ 1.148v max (0.700v min). That lowered the CPU power consumption from ~27W max down to ~20W max and lowered the minimum power consumption by 50%.
 
The L25 doesn't use the intel chipset. diredesire will have to verify as I remember looking it up and telling him but if I remember it is some kinda of ATI chipset.
 
it's ATI.

My 3 week affair with this particular Toshiba is over...selling it off this evening.
 
Sad to hear Marduk, It's not a bad machine :)

As far as disassembly, it is fairly simple, the main board is all one piece. The chipset i believe is RS480 from ATI, it's the M200 chipset, with integrated x300 graphics

It's a pretty robust chipset, so although i was surprised all these mods worked on it, i half expected them to ;)

Thanks for the tip on the lowering the voltage. I haven't researched whether or not it will work with an ATi based chipset, but i have put it on my to do list.

As far as a diassembly guide, cj2600 on this (and other) forums has graciously posted a guide. It's decent:

http://www.irisvista.com/tech/laptops/ToshibaL25/satellite_L25_laptop_overclocking_1.htm

Before attempting to rip apart your laptop, i suggest reading the "general tips" section of his website, there is a tips and tools section as well. You don't want to be ruining your brand spankin' new laptop just because you didn't take the extra 5 minutes to read. It's not exactly like building a PC, where there are standard places to go in the motherboard, it's more like a puzzle, reassembling and remembering where all the screws go.

Good luck!
 
diredesire said:
Sad to hear Marduk, It's not a bad machine :)
Click to expand...

Other than the abysmal battery life, I agree. I certainly liked the laptop for the price. My getting rid of it isn't due to any problems with it though, just a matter of "I bought it for school to run Virtual PC because they don't run VMWare....only to find out that this year they changed to VMWare".

I already run VMWare on my computers...so why have a 3rd system that I don't -REALLY- need?

Additionally, I managed to get a 4th system (the junker below) for free. That can easily do whatever non-school tasks I'd have had the laptop do (see: torrents and teamspeak)...so the laptop is just $500 back in my pocket.
 
I'll gladly take some pics, although that disassembly guide is pretty darn good already.

Has anybody had success running dual channel with this notebook? there was another thread of someone who couldnt get it to work.
 
pxc said:
The pin mod changes a 400MHz FSB Dothan into a 533MHz FSB CPU. It also requires that the laptop supports 533MHz FSB CPUs.

So basically all I have to do is pick up a 533mhz Dothan and then I wouldn't need to worry about having to do any pin mod, right.
Thanks, Carlos
Click to expand...
 
Dr. Doom said:
So basically all I have to do is pick up a 533mhz Dothan and then I wouldn't need to worry about having to do any pin mod, right.
Click to expand...
Yes, but the point is saving a lot of money. A 715 @ 533MHz is the same speed as a 760. The overclocked 715 (from ebay) saves you around $200-$220.
 
So the laptop costs you $400, processor upgrade another $200, extended battery $100. Decent amount of ram $150 for a gig.

And you've got yourself a crappy laptop modded to run a bit better, 3-4 hours of batterylife, for $850. Seems to me there are plenty of better laptops to buy with a warranty for the same price range.
 
Vesuvius said:
So the laptop costs you $400, processor upgrade another $200, extended battery $100. Decent amount of ram $150 for a gig.

And you've got yourself a crappy laptop modded to run a bit better, 3-4 hours of batterylife, for $850. Seems to me there are plenty of better laptops to buy with a warranty for the same price range.
Click to expand...

1 gig of PQI RAM on Newegg (94.20 shipped).
Processor ($125).
After those upgrades you battery lives longer so the extended battery doesn't much matter. So for $600 you get your upgrades and end up still under retail price. MInd you I'm sitting on my HP ze2308wm and total upgrades for me it comes out to $495. Maybe I'll upgrade the processor to 64-bit at some point in the next couple months. That'll save a little battery life. And maybe a hard drive upgrade but right now I'm content with it. So overall these laptops were a great deal. In conclusion. If you don't have anything to comment support wise or encouragement wise go away. Your like the fifth or sixth person in these threads that has made a comment like that. Scroll back through them and see that no one cares.
 
can someone post after me just to verify that the motherboard does support 533 fsb processors? (I know I just read it does... but want to have it verified one more time before attempting to open up my laptop and spend another couple hundred :)
 
Per toshbias notes this notebook only officially supports the celeron m yet the chipset supports both the pentium m and the 533 pentium m. From eveyone that has tried it it seems that toshiba left support in the unit for them incase they wanted to ship one with them in the future. Mind you toshiba could always kill that support in a bios upgrade but as of now yes it does work.
 
Are any 478 Pentium socket CPUs will work, or are there laptop specific CPUs?

Also, could you povide a LINK to the specific CPU you used, so I can pick up the model number etc..

I have this laptop wrapped under the tree right now, so I can't play with it. But I do have memory on order for it and interested in what you did for the processor...
 
xavier184 said:
Are any 478 Pentium socket CPUs will work, or are there laptop specific CPUs?

Also, could you povide a LINK to the specific CPU you used, so I can pick up the model number etc..

I have this laptop wrapped under the tree right now, so I can't play with it. But I do have memory on order for it and interested in what you did for the processor...
Click to expand...
You need to get a Pentium M, not a Pentium 4 M. Although all the processors have 478 pins, the Pentium M is not socket compatible with either the Pentium 4 OR the Pentium 4 M.

Your best bet to get a good deal is on forums or e-bay i've found. Search for "Dothan" there, and you'll probably get plenty of results... any of the 7x5 series is a good candidate to save money, once you get into the 533 mhz fsb parts you're (as mentioned aboce) spending more money than you need to.

Jared701: this laptop unofficially takes 533 mhz fsb parts. It's not guaranteed, but it sure as heck works for me ;)
 
Quick Question: are the newer Dothans the only Pentium M that will fit inside this laptop or will the older Banias work as well?
 
OK, so a CPU like this is ideal:
URL

Versus paying more $$$ for a 533Mhz FSB like this?
URL2

So the 400Mhz FSB, with the "Pin Mod" you described, can be changed to 533Mhz?

And what is "Priming" that you said you did afterwards?

Thnx in advance! :cool:
 
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noitammus said:
Quick Question: are the newer Dothans the only Pentium M that will fit inside this laptop or will the older Banias work as well?
Click to expand...
The older Banias COULD work, but it may run hotter, as from what i understand, the process is .13 rather than .09. It also has the same amount of cache, so the only thing you're really gaining is battery life, although the dothan's performance gain is pretty negligible... It SHOULD work, but i don't have any first hand experience trying it.

xavier184 said:
OK, so a CPU like this is ideal:
URL

Versus paying more $$$ for a 533Mhz FSB like this?
URL2

So the 400Mhz FSB, with the "Pin Mod" you described, can be changed to 533Mhz?

And what is "Priming" that you said you did afterwards?

Thnx in advance! :cool:
Click to expand...
Correct, the 400 mhz CPU is ideal, you can most likely get 2.13 ghz after the pin mod with that chip. Success rates are very high. Just be sure you know what you're doing, as damage to your laptop IS possible. If you have the extra money to spend, and don't want to deal with a pin mod (which is very simple, to be honest), you can go that route too.

"priming" is the use of Prime95 (google it) as a stress-tester to see whether or not the processor is stable at the over-clocked speed. It's a very common method of stress testing, along with SuperPi and/or running video benchmarks.
 
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diredesire said:
"priming" is the use of Prime95 (google it) as a stress-tester to see whether or not the processor is stable at the over-clocked speed. It's a very common method of stress testing, along with SuperPi and/or running video benchmarks.
Click to expand...
I highly suggest using SP2004 instead of Prime, it has a MUCH better interface, yet uses the same code so it odes the exact same thing.
 
Also...
What kind of performance gain are we talking about from:
1) 1.6GHz Celeron 400FSB --> 1.6GHz Pentium M 400FSB?
2) 1.6GHz Celeron 400FSB --> 1.6GHz Pentium M 533FSB?
3) 1.6GHz Celeron 400FSB --> Overclocked 1.6 Pentium M w/500 FSB?

:rolleyes:
 
dothan 2.0 gighz 533 fsb running right now :)
huge huge huge thanks to diredesire who spent well over an hour talking me through the process and sent me his pictures
 
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