Toshiba satellite A30 CPU upgrade possibilities?

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Mikelantz

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Dec 9, 2010
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Currently this system is running an intel celeron Northwood 2.5ghz with 128kbytes of cache, 100mhz bus speed and multiplier of 25, oh and 400mhz fsb. Chipset is i855gm/gme, I can't find much info at all on it. I'm looking to put a P4 in this system, I've been looking around and there's a lot of pretty cheap used ones I could pick up for under 10 dollars.

The thing I'm wondering about is compatibility, I'd like to go with a p4 above 2.5 but I can only seem to find p4's that fast with a fsb of 533mhz. I've seen a30's with 533mhz cpus in them but I don't know if this exat model can take one. Model # PSA30C-00YS5. The processor I'm looking at right now is a 2.66ghz p4, 533mhz fsb, 133mhz bus speed, 512 cache, a 20x multiplier, and is also a Northwood.

Anyone out there know if it will work? Even if it does work will I only get 2 ghz out of it? I'd be happy with that over the celeron even if I only got 2 ghz out of it.
 
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Found the manual on the toshiba site, shows processors supported and for p4 it says 2.4GHz, 2.66GHz, 2.8GHz, 3.06GHz. Pretty sure the 400mhz p4 only went up to 2.6ghz, so am I right in assuming that if the board supports up to 3.06ghz that it supports a 533mhz fsb cpu?
 
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I am now in the same boat!

Did you ever have any luck fitting the upgraded CPUs to your machine?

I have a Toshiba Satellite PSA30E-1CVQC [European version]

Northwood Celeron 2.6GHZ, 128kb SL6VV 🙁 🙁 🙁

The rest of the machine is decent - 160GB HDD [just added], 1.5Gb RAM, OK Battery, new PSU

It just could really do with a CPU that doesn't suck. I Wanted a P4 Northwood, as fast as possible.

Today I tried it with: 2.8GHz 533Bus Chip
2.6GHz 533Bus Chip
3.0GHz 800Bus Chip
all with no joy. Power on, for 2 seconds, powers off. Keeps doing that.

Putting the original chip back in results on successful functioning again. So
I didn't break it.

The problem is how slow it is. I'm running Ubuntu 12.04, and because the machine has Intel 855 integrated graphics, it has to use software rendering. Running Firefox with 4 tabs, 4 open PDFs in the background and two file system windows open, the CPU is stuck at 100% and the machine noticeably lags, even typing this!

I'm sure that a full-fat P4 will improve things a lot, I just need to find the right one. The fact that this chassis was available with a P4 gives me a lot of hope.

I can buy a 2.8GHz, 400MHz Bus P4 SL7EY,

http://ark.intel.com/products/27446/Intel-Pentium-4-Processor-2_80-GHz-512K-Cache-400-MHz-FSB

the voltage range is damn close 1.475V-1.55V but that is higher and gives a max TDP of 68.4W -- I guess that's too much in a laptop designed for 62.6! Shame, as it's the fastest 400MHz bus chip, I think.

So I guess it's better to buy an SL6PP for £10, which appears to be the same thing as my Celeron, but with 4 times the cache? Voltages and wattages are within range...

Can you, or anyone reading this help me? I Found the machine in a skip, and managed to trade the two new parts for favors and technical assistance, so if I can make it run somewhat fast for £10, I'll be very very happy.

Thanks in advance!

GfS
 
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Thank you for your input. Do you think the fact the machine wouldn't boot with any of the others was just because of the Bus Speed or Processor ID or such, then?

Thanks
 
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Thanks again for your help.

It seems that the 2.6GHz 128k chip is massively cache starved, and the 2.6GHz P4 512k will be about twice as fast for common mixed tasks. This Celeron is usually considered the worst family of Celerons, perhaps tied with the 266 or 300 with 0KB of cache [but the P4 has a muuuuuch longer pipeline and suffers massively from cache misses]

Hence the desire to upgrade for £10 :)
 
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You're dead right. I'm Just thinking the 2.6's Max voltage requirement is the same, and I wonder if the hardware would not be able to deliver the 1.55 the 2.8 chip needed if it's set up for 1.525max for the Celeron.

 
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The 2.6 and 2.8 only differ in Multiplier, Voltage range and TDP. I'm keeping everything as close as possible, as the machine is hot and loud enough already!

CPU SL6PP is on it's way...

Thanks for all the input - it's just fun to see if the free machine can be generally useful! I sure hope it's faster with that chip, 'cos it's slooooow with the Celeron...maybe I should try Mint or something else. I'll let you know if it works.

GfS
 
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WAAAAAYYY!!! It works! The machine booted first time with the SL6PP, which is the P4 at the exact same clock speed, same voltages etc as Celeron SL6VV

POST screen shows P4 logo, so I guess the BIOS was locked out of supporting unknown chips, even if the chipset should support 533bus chips, it's not allowed to. I suspect that SL7EY might work, but I can't afford another gamble 😉

Very rudimentary testing show marked improvement as expected:

Boot times [about 20% faster from power button], rendering 4 tabs of Large webpages from disk then reloading them on timer [assuming data is cached it's roughly a test of cpu's mixed workload power - [about 40% faster],

Lastly - launching Libre Office Write, a second time [from disk cache?], about 100% faster!!

The whole Ubuntu Unity 2D interface seems much smoother, frame rate about 100% better

CPU tracking show large drop in general use, the fan runs less and, one assumes, if the CPU is taxed less the battery life should be better [this thing still hits about 1:45 of the 2 hours it should have from new - maybe the previous owner gave it a new battery?]

Youtube now mostly runs smooth - I think the issue here is the GFX hardware and Ubuntu's problem with this chipset, even the extra CPU power isn't up to this in software.

128Kb Celerons are as I thought, the worst CPU made by Intel, or thereabouts!

I didn't benchmark the CPUs with a benching software, and it's unlikely I'll get 'round to it any time soon as each time I swap them I have to change the thermal paste and I don't have any left now But you never know, as I will order some soon as I'm gonna lap my Core i7 [desktop] and beat the daylights out of of it...

But if I do it I'll let you know how it measures.

Thanks for all the help guys, as ever.

GfS
 
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Hello,

just found this topic. I got a toshiba satellite A30-404 lying around that I'd like to use as a back up, and on the road....So it would be nice to know what the best upgrades there are for this machine.... CPU, Mobo, memory,.....I'm no expert but taking it apart and putting it together again with superior parts should be no problem 🙂

Since it's an old laptop, I'm guessing I can have the very best parts available at a cheap price.... now if only I knew which ones those are :-D

Any one got advice? the last one here seemed to say the SL6PP CPU is the best replacement...
 
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Yo.

The SL6PP worked fine in mine, but I EXACTLY matched the TDP, Voltage and bus speeds with the Celeron it shipped with. Find out what exact chip you have:

http://www.irisvista.com/tech/laptops/toshiba-satellite-a35/complete-disassembly-1.htm - is a take-apart guide

and then wade through

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Pentium_4_microprocessors

to get your match.

You probably already know this, but with such a machine a faster [and bigger - much bigger drives are always faster] HDD will help a load too.

I sold mine, so I can't easily check back on other hardware, sorry. I think it had the latest BIOS that came up when I Googled it though.

Good luck.

 
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