upgrading laptop

[MrP]

just got a toshiba satalite pro L20 laptop (celeron m 1.5, 256mb ram, 40gb hard disk, wi-fi, ati radone 200m graphics etc)

i have already upgraded the memory to 512mb ram which has improved it greatly, but i wanna work on some other areas, so i could do with some advice.

if i changed the celeron M for a pemtuim M of the same speed (1.5ghz) i assume there there wont be any increase in the heat output, infact it would be less due to the pemtuim m having speedstep enabled. however, woudl the speedstep work, or would i have to try and flash the BIOS with the BIOS from a model with the pentuim m??

on the same note, the battery life is rather duff due to the battery being a 2000mah battery, if i can find a replacement with 4300mah i assume there would be no problems.

cheers

[nichomach]

Well, the battery life should improve if you bung in a P-M anyway due to the enhanced power management enabled by the P-M, so maybe you'd want to hold off on buying one until after you've tried the P-M in the machine. Performance should be enhanced, but not by much. The one thing that WOULD concern me is what FSB the chipset supports - Tosh do ship an L20 with a 533 FSB P-M, but that's based on the Intel 915 chipset, not the ATI chipset.

That said, bumping the CPU would be an instant "void your warranty" and wouldn't be something that I would try unless i was VERY confident about being able to carry out the work without trashing the machine.

[MrP]

i'm assuming that its not going to be that hard to get at the CPU (even if it is, its not going to be more than an hours "investigation!")

hadnt thought about the FSB problem.

bit of an investigation is needed tonite, it is using DDR2 memory though

[teachmech]

Just a quick question wouldn't it have been better to spend more to start with rather than all this hassel? Just asking? The battery would greatly improve life but finding one to fit may be a problem.

[MrP]

we were burgled some months ago and this was the model offered by the ins company.

i didnt mind the spec, but i like my pc's so i'm always tinkering and playing with them, however i wasnt aware how bad the battery is

[nichomach]

Like I say, it's not going to be so much that the battery is bad as that the Celeron-M has most of the power management stripped out. What was the machine it was replacing?