T30 - Upgrade to faster CPU and RAM?

[Memphis]

I´m running a T30 (2366 - 61G) with a P4 mobile 1.8Mhz and 512MB RAM (PC2100).
As I haven´t seen any options in BIOS to adjust the FSB, as well haven´t got any info about the Mainboard, what happens, when I instead install a 2.4MHz P4-M?
Will there be an automatic switching to a different CPU/FSB-Ratio or will this, given a fixed multiplier increase the FSB, hence having to install faster RAM (which would be actually ok, there is a lot of offer in the market for PC2700 and more)?

[LtTPfan]

The FSB speed remains the same 400 MHz. You don't have to change RAM. You have to get a CPU that runs at that FSB. You can go upto 2.6 GHz.

Here are the sSpec codes for compatible Mobile Pentium 4-M CPUs:
2.6 GHz: SL6WZ
2.5 GHz: SL6P2, SL6WY
2.4 GHz: SL6K5, SL6LS, SL6VC
2.2 GHz: SL6VB, SL6LR, SL6J5

You can also go with a Mobile Celeron upto 2.4 GHz (there's supposed to be a 2.5 GHz but I can't find the sSpec for it) but you may lose a small amount of speed (+/- 1%) over the P4-M as well as a little less battery life but at a substantial cash savings. Since I rarely run off battery power I went with a Celeron 2.2 for $20 and sold my 1.8 P4-M for $31 (I would have gone with a new Celeron 2.4 for $75 but no one here, at Intel, or numerous other sites could tell me if the Celeron would work so I risked the $20 to confirm what I thought would work before buying a faster one). Here are the sSpec codes:
2.4 GHz: SL75J
2.2 GHz: SL73Y, SL6ZW

[Memphis]

Thx for reply.
Looking for P4 Mobile 2.2, though here in Germany they´re all absolutely overpriced (at bay for ~100$), there are nearly no offers for Celerons.
Will probably leave the current 1.8 and check for a faster HDD, because it seems to me, that the current 20GB 4200RPM is the component, slowing down the system, can be seen during boot and when loading software.

[LtTPfan]

Upgrading from a 4200 to 5400 rpm drive produced a significant speed improvement in my T30. SiSoftware Sandra benchmarked my old 4200rpm drive at 18MB/s while the new 5400rpm drive clocked in at 32MB/s. In real world performance, my boot time decreased from 3:49 to 2:46; that's from pushing the power button till the last of my many startup programs are loaded and Windows stabilized. Getting rid of McAfee active protection decreased boot time to 1:30.

It's a global market out there. My P4-M 1.8 was sold to someone in France.

Here are the results of of my CPU upgrade:

SiSoftware Sandra
-----------------------
CPU Arithmetic Benchmark Results for P4-M 1.8 GHz || Celeron-M 2.2 GHz
Dhrystone ALU : 4408 MIPS || 5930 MIPS -- net increase 34.5%
Whetstone iSSE2 : 2416 MFLOPS || 2936 MFLOPS -- net increase 21.5%

CPU Multi-Media Benchmark Results for P4-M 1.8 GHz || Celeron-M 2.2 GHz
Integer x8 iSSE2 : 10893 it/s | 13533 it/s -- net increase 24.2%
Float x4 iSSE2 : 14010 it/s | 17009 it/s -- net increase 21.4%

Speed increase = 22.2% (1.8 - 2.2)
Average performance increase = 25.4%

[dr_st]

I would upgrade the hard drive to 5400RPM. I would also try to avoid upgrading 1.8->2.2, seems to small to me. I'd rather upgrade to 2.6, or 2.4 at least.

[Memphis]

Thx.
Going along with you and changing the drive.
Concerning the CPU, FSB etc, wished there would be an "open source" community like for many desktop boards and bioses with the option to change the multiplier, FSB.
From desktops we know, that i.e. a split ratio (inner/outer FSB) always slowes down the system, so changing that from default T30 ratio of 1:1.33 (CPU/RAM) to 1:1 thus changing the multiplier from 18 down to 13,5 for the P4-M 1.8 would be a perfect option and improve performance.
Does a P4 2.6 have an increased FSB of 133MHz or similar? Any proven support of the T30 for this?

[dr_st]

Does a P4 2.6 have an increased FSB of 133MHz or similar? Any proven support of the T30 for this?

Nope, they all have 100MHz FSB. You're stuck with the 3:4 ratio.

[danage]

Just put a 1GB PC2700 DDR Memory Module in my T30. It doesn't feel any faster. So as long as you don't run memory consuming applications, it's probably better to upgrade hard disk and processor.

[danage]

2.6 GHz SL6WZ confirmed to work. The fan seems to go on much too often. Not sure whether i did everything right with the heatpaste. It might be that. The air that comes out of the cooler appears to not be as hot as it used to. Anybody and guides on how to do this right? Will pads do better?
Thanks! Danage

[Memphis]

As a first step managed to change the disk to a faster 5400RPM one.
Significant increase in speed (and silence) can be confirmed, so at the moment will leave with that, considering a cpu upgrade later on.

[EraZor]

The FSB speed remains the same 400 MHz. You don't have to change RAM. You have to get a CPU that runs at that FSB. You can go upto 2.6 GHz.
...

You can also go with a Mobile Celeron upto 2.4 GHz (there's supposed to be a 2.5 GHz but I can't find the sSpec for it) ....

The SSpec for it is SL75T and it does exist... see this pic.

I'll let you know in a week if it works in a T30...just bought one....

[schen]

I think the CPU upgrades are nice, but began to marginalize once you get above 2-2.2Ghz. On the other hand, going up in both RAM and HDD from where you are (512Mb to 1Gb) and (4200rpm to 5400/7200rpm w/bigger cache and higher areal density) still gives lots of room for improvement. Plus, the T30 can get pretty hot, especially at the high CPU speeds.

[dogma420]

As far as adding memory, if you do have 2 good memory slots, 2 sticks of 512mb is actually much faster than one 1gb stick. I have tried both, and I am just relating the experience from my use, not any test, but I would say that the T30 uses some sort of channeling of the memory. I luckily hadn't thought about the 'putting a small piece of paper' between the memory door and the 'broken' memory slot, and now I have a 1gb stick in the 'good' slot and a 512mb stick in the 'bad' slot that works with the paper trick.

I must tell you that 1.5gb of ram in the T30 makes it smoking fast compared to anything else. Wish I had 2 1gb sticks however--this would be even better.

A 2.6 would be a pretty awesome upgrade vs. my 1.8...has anyone done this?

[kippen]

When i purchased my laptop it came with 1.8 processor, 512 Ram and a 40GB 4200 RPM HDD.

I upgraded everything, 2.2 processor, 1 gig ram and a 40GB 5400 RPM one at a time and the HDD was by far the best upgrade with the most noticeable performance.

I have since increased to a 100 Gig 7200 RPM drive and it's better, but only marginally over the 5400 RPM.

[EraZor]

Well actually I don't have any experience with the original 20gig drive my t30 came with, I swapped it with the 7200 drive (a travelstar) from my old laptop and even with 256mb of ram XP functions quite well. I'm waiting for my 1gb stick of ram to arrive and my 2.5 gig celly. I'll keep you posted about the results!

I do think the step from 256 to 1 gig (or 1280) of ram will make quite the difference in XP, just as it did on mjy desktop machine. 256 is just too little an amount.

I can't imagine how 2x512 could be any faster than 1x 1024, since the chipset does not support dual channeling.... (I'll try 1024 and 256, as both my mem slots seem to work (i tried the 256 stick in both slots))

[Stargate199]

Here is my recommendation. Upgrade the RAM and the hard drive. Get a hard drive with at least 5400rpm and 8MB cache. You should notice a significant performance increase with a hard drive of that specification. More RAM makes things better, but you will notice a difference after passing 512MB with XP. If you do have that much ram or more, then you can perform some registry tweaks that will make XP use all of the RAM before using virtual memory. I do not recommend upgrading a P4 mobile chip past 1.8 GHZ. The fan will always stay on when you pass 2GHZ and the heat will eventually kill your computer. Besides, upgrading the CPU will make a small difference in the speed of the machine.

[ianf]

hello

for me sl75j did not work at all ,the 2.2ghz make a great improvement over the 1.8g , i have 2 sticks of 1 gig each , i don't belive there is dual channel or V link memory function , ido a bit of video recode this all seems to run nice a quick , for danage there are three differing types of fan built into the heatsink so it maybe worth tracking down a variant with a higher rotational speed, for hdd i have tosh gax1234 120 gb 8mb , i had bought a 7200 on ebay it never arrived ? .
if anyone gets the sl75j to run please post ,the dealer i bought mine from was very shi##y when i told him.

ianf
edited
fan whilst surfing infrequent.
about half the time for gaming
nero etc upto 100%

[EraZor]

OK, my sl75t arrived today and I can confirm that it des indeed work. It seems to run a bit hotter than my previous 1.8P4 (the air coming out of the fan outlet is quite warm) but the fan does not seem to run a lot more than it did...

Benchmark Results
Dhrystone ALU : 5547 MIPS
Whetstone iSSE2 : 4642 MFLOPS
Results Interpretation : Higher index values are better.

Performance Test Status
Run ID : JOCHEMLAPTOP on dinsdag 27 februari 2007 at 18:27:37
NUMA Support : No
SMP Test : No
Total Test Threads : 1
Multi-Core Test : No
SMT Test : No
Dynamic MP/MT Load Balance : No
Processor Affinity : P0C0T0
System Timer : 3.6MHz
Number of Runs : 64000 / 640

Processor
Model : Mobile Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.50GHz
Speed : 2.50GHz
Performance Rating : PR2723 (estimated)
Cores per Processor : 1 Unit(s)
Type : Mobile
L2 On-board Cache : 256kB ECC Synchronous, ATC, 4-way set, 64 byte line size, 2 lines per sector

Features
SSE Technology : Yes
SSE2 Technology : Yes
SSE3 Technology : No
Supplemental SSE3 Technology : No
HTT - Hyper-Threading Technology : No

28-29% faster according to Sisoft Sandra...

It runs blazingly fast but that could very well also be caused by the ram upgrade (see sig)

[Steel185]

I'm new here and having trouble finding much info on the 2.6 GHz: SL6WZ, is it really out there? Where can you find it? I've tried pricewatch, ebay, and a general search, and came up with nothing.

[tfflivemb2]

I'm new here and having trouble finding much info on the 2.6 GHz: SL6WZ, is it really out there? Where can you find it? I've tried pricewatch, ebay, and a general search, and came up with nothing.

Try Froogle...I just found this one for $349.95, not that I have used this seller or anything.

EDIT: I also found memory4less having it for $231.25. I also searched this forum and saw that there was another member herethat bought one of these from them.

[pianowizard]

I'm new here and having trouble finding much info on the 2.6 GHz: SL6WZ....

I also found memory4less having it for $231.25.

Wow, that's almost the cost of a T30. 2.6Ghz P4 is really only equivalent to 1.8GHz Pentium M -- see here. It might be a better idea to upgrade to a T42 or T43 and sell the T30.

[Steel185]

I see on the link provided where a Pentium M 745 (1.8 GHz) equals a Pentium 4 equivalent (2.6), but unless I'm reading this wrong; if you turn it around and look up a Pentium M 2.6GHZ it is suppose to be equal to 3.9 GHz (or so). which is which.

What is the difference in permance of a Pentium M 2.6GHz vs 2.5GHz Celeron vs Pentium M 2.4 GHz? I'm at a 1.8 GHz now and just trying to figure out the ball park of performance increase for the buck.

thanks all

[tfflivemb2]

I think that you might be a little confused...when you said that you turn it around, please note that you were looking up a Pentium M 2.6, not a Pentium 4M 2.6. The Pentium M series is a much better processor than the Pentium 4M.

I see on the link provided where a Pentium M 745 (1.8 GHz) equals a Pentium 4 equivalent (2.6), but unless I'm reading this wrong; if you turn it around and look up a Pentium M 2.6GHZ it is suppose to be equal to 3.9 GHz (or so). which is which.

What is the difference in permance of a Pentium M 2.6GHz vs 2.5GHz Celeron vs Pentium M 2.4 GHz? I'm at a 1.8 GHz now and just trying to figure out the ball park of performance increase for the buck.

thanks all

[Steel185]

I've heard if you update the BIOS and the embeded controller you can put 2 x 1024MB of RAM in the machine even though the old 2003 info on the motherboard says it maxs out at 1gig total?

also I'm looking for anyone's benchmarks on PM 2.4GHz vs a PM 2.6GHz

[pianowizard]

I've heard if you update the BIOS and the embeded controller you can put 2 x 1024MB of RAM in the machine

That's correct. A forum member just did that about two weeks ago on his/her T30.

also I'm looking for anyone's benchmarks on PM 2.4GHz vs a PM 2.6GHz

Does it matter? Your T30 can only use Pentium 4-M, not Pentium M. That's why I suggested upgrading to a T42 or T43, which use Pentium M. I have seen T42's being sold for under $550 on eBay, and T43's are getting very cheap too. I just sold a nice one (1.86GHz Pentium M, 1x1GB RAM, 80GB HDD, 14.1" SXGA+) last month for $620.

[truk]

I have a question an this topic. I am planning on doing som major upgrades this summer (when I get some cash). I just bought a dock, and I'm planning to add a PCI video card for games along with the 2-gig memory upgrade. Among my upgrades, I have seriously considered upgrading my 4GHZ processor. If I can get ahold of a 3ghz with a 400mhz fsb p4-m that will fit, should it work? Also, is the speed increase really worth the extra cash it's gonna cost over the 2.6?

THANKS
Truk

[jamiphar]

I have a question an this topic. I am planning on doing som major upgrades this summer (when I get some cash). I just bought a dock, and I'm planning to add a PCI video card for games along with the 2-gig memory upgrade. Among my upgrades, I have seriously considered upgrading my 4GHZ processor. If I can get ahold of a 3ghz with a 400mhz fsb p4-m that will fit, should it work? Also, is the speed increase really worth the extra cash it's gonna cost over the 2.6?

THANKS
Truk

I was pretty sure that the P4-M CPUs only went up to 2.6ghz, and that the 3ghz P4s that are in laptops are actually desktop CPUs. If there really is a faster P4-M, I'd be very interested.