Pentium III upgrade

meridius10

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Oct 26, 2011
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I have an old Toshiba Portege 4000 laptop with Pentium III 750 MHz CPU.

Am wondering if it is possible to upgrade the processor and if so what to?

 

4745454b

Titan
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Agreed. I have an old Acer P3 @ 900MHz which I keep around just in case I need a backup laptop. I don't like to use it however because it can't stay connected to newer wireless networks. (constantly drops if you don't use the internal 802.11b card.)
 
indeed, you would have to find a processor, and then find one that is faster than your current one, practically destroy your laptop to change the processor out, and all that to get such a small performance gain that you would not even notice the difference.

A better, and easier, upgrade would be to max out the Ram available to the processor, and put in the fastest/largest PATA HDD you can find.

All that said, for what you could find the HDD and Ram for you could purchase a new entry level laptop that you would be very happy with compared to the old P3.

While I am not personally a fan of Dell, I know 3 people who have bought this model in the last year, and they all seem pretty happy with it:
http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-15-intel-n5040/pd?p=inspiron-15-intel-n5040&ref=aInspN1B
If your P3 lasted you 13 years, then I am sure that one of these would do the trick for at least another 10.


Those old P3s were damn near bulletfroof wern't they! Where I work we get them donated all the time, and there are a great deal more of them in working condition than newer P4's. They were never particularly fast, but man were they made well!
 

4745454b

Titan
Moderator
I can usually find used Pentium M and now lower end dual core laptops for $150-$200. Much faster then any upgraded P3 with 1-2GBs of ram. With black friday and cyber monday coming, I do suggest saving your $$$ and getting one of those.
 

machvelocy

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May 1, 2010
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although possible but its not worth it. legacy hardware often priced insanely due to its rarity
todays netbook is much more powerful, and they're not expensive (less than $400). i recommend an APU based netbooks.
 

meridius10

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Oct 26, 2011
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Thanks for the feedback.

I think it makes sense not to bother upgrading, but Christmas isn't too far away, so I'll be asking Santa for a new laptop!
 

meridius10

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Definitely agree that these old laptops and P3s were made well. This one actually had Windows 98SE on it originally. Runs very well with W2K, but unfortunately so much software is only made for XP and above now.

Am pretty sure it could run for another 10 years and it's quite incredible that it's still working now.

I may stick with Toshiba, as that's all I know. When I get my new laptop it may be a good to keep this one as a backup.
 
You maybe able to find an old Intel® Pentium III out there but I think you are going to find that it would be a much better value to pick up a new laptop. I have a fairly new Toshiba laptop with an Intel® Core™ 2 Duo but I am looking to get a new one next year. There are so many changes that will make it worth it from battery life to weight getting a new laptop in the end would be the best option.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team