Toshiba satellite P30 revival..."The Tank"

As in the subject line I've got an old Toshiba that just won't die.

It's a tank. Both physically and Software wise. A big, clunky, "push through anything" tank.

P4, 3.0 Ghz, but 512 MB ram. Meh, it does the job. Cpu always run low percentages, ram is always maxed and into heavy disc access.

It checks email, surf's the net, plays videos and DVD's, runs photoshop CS and does pretty much everything else I ask of it with little or no complaints.

I'll probably put more into it than it's worth, but money is not what this is all about. Just a little fun with an old friend.

It slows down from time to time, but that's usually my fault and a quick clean up gets the speed back up (at least what speed it had).

I've had it apart more than a dozen times. It's been ripped off the table by the power cord more than I can count (and resoldered inside). It's bounced down a flight of stairs. It's been literally around the world more than a half dozen times. The built in Ethernet adapter has died and is now a Belkin usb unit. Ditto with other conflicts that have been disabled.

Yes it's big, yes it's heavy but it's the one I reach for when I need it to work.

I like the speakers (Harmon and they sound really good in the context of a laptop), I really like the big screen and I've got a nice Kensington briefcase/carrier for it that I use every day even when the laptop isn't in it.

So I'm going to upgrade the old beast a bit and modify it. Time for some fun.

First up is RAM. It's running the original 512. Yup, it works ok but compared to modern machines it's sloooowwwwww!

50 bucks gets me the max 2 Gb PC2700 DDR it will support.

Next up is a backlit keyboard. I've always wanted one, usb lights suck. So I order up a Toshiba M505 backlit keyboard. 30 bucks so I'm not out much if it can't be made to work. Looks to be the same format and size as the P30. Some keys are moved around, but I can remap those if the keyboard works. I'll need to wire the leds up myself since the P30 doesn't support a lit board.

Some lighting and painting will come along also. Haven't decided on what yet but I'm 47 years old so it will be something fairly reserved yet unique. "Classy" at least.

Some cooling modifications will also be in there. I have a few ideas for that.

I'd like more USB ports, I'll have to dig around the board and see what's supported.

It's running the 5400 drive. A 7200 or maybe a SSD will come along eventually. Storage isn't a big concern; I keep everything I need besides the programs on a 1 TB compact external drive.

Bigger battery will also be needed eventually (more piles in the case if it can be had) or at least a new one. It's almost always used plugged in, but the battery dies off within 20-30 minutes when called upon to support. I treat it more as a UPS and make sure I don't run too long on it if I'm doing anything important.

I'd like to find a way to get HDMI out of it, but there's no way to do the card change and most TV's support the PC out now anyways. It does support S-video, but that is dying out also it seems.

I'd also like to up the wifi a bit, but not sure what it will support.

Adding internal GPS would be nice, but not essential. Bluetooth would also be nice.

For a laptop, there's lots of room in the case so some additions may just be possible through internally wiring some USB access or by some other means.

OS will most likely stay XP SP3. I know it, it supports all my stuff, doesn't need custom drivers for the older hardware and it just plain works for me. The vista and W7 machines we also have just never feel right to me...never quite as easy to use or just seems to "restrict" you in some way.....

So, that's where I am; big dreams and waiting for parts.

We'll see where it goes and how well "The Tank" takes to it.

I just can't bring myself to chuck it out just because it's "old tech". Heck, I've still got a Compaq Armada 1750 that I use and just won't die. That one is even more of a "tank" than the Toshiba, although it just carries my tuning software for the diesel these days.....gotta love being able to still use a serial port for my older interfaces!

Yeah, I guess I'm just and old sentimental fossil....

Started with the lower case extension today. Basically, it's a second bottom.

Since the old P30 draws from the bottom for the cooling fans it's always being blocked or you need to use it on a hard surface. Like all laptops, it will heat up and slow down as the heat goes up and it's slow enough as it is. I've always got the cooling fins clean, but that bottom draw cooling scheme is a major PITA.

The lower bottom will ensure it can always draw cooling air no matter what the surface. It will have grills on the sides instead of the bottom so it can sit on soft surfaces and still cool.

The mold was what was started today and the finished piece will be fiberglass.

I will also be able to add a little style with some aggressive looking styling, mesh covers and some assorted cool blue LED lighting. The front will somewhat mimic the Alienware gaming series with grilled intakes

The lower case will also allow me to install another handful of USB ports.

A covering of 3M carbon fiber vinyl will match the keyboard surround and the screen cover.

When done it might add another 1/8 -1/4 thickness to the laptop (IE: thicker than where the "feet" already are), although it will add significantly to the appearance of "thickness".

Space and hardware allowing, I may be able to use the extra space to add a few other extra "neat" peripherals.

Not much to see yet, still working on the basic "undertray":









That's still raw and only the plug to make the mold.It's also still a bit to thick and needs to come down another 1/8-1/4". Maybe more like half the current thickness, still thinking about it. I do want it "thin" but not willing to sacrifice airflow to do it. That would defeat the purpose of making the tray in the first place....

Finished form will have a few "bling bling" bits (IE: the cooling vents, led's etc) that are yet to be added.

Once I get the basic foam plug made, it's off to clay to sculpt a few details for it. I'm a "car guy" so I really like the look of the alienware grill stuff. Very "automotivey" looking and I'll add something like it to the tray. Then, into the cast to make the negative. After that, it's pull a finished fiberglass piece from the mold and screw it on to the bottom. Assorted panels to be added to access things like the battery (which I usually don't have installed).....

Clay work begins:









The left side will be a mirror of the right.

The plan is to have the front grills as the intake for the cooling fans and they exhaust out the back.

Not sure what to do with the rest of the space around the sides except for extra USB ports.

I'll think of something.....

 

Lol a great project you've got going interesting

 

Work continues:



Mid sculpting I changed my mind and was trying for an automotive grill look reminiscent of a CTS-V, but somehow that alien face just kept coming out of the clay:



So it will have an alien face look to it after all.

After a bit more tweaking, it was into the mold and all those days of work ended up as a big ball of clay on the table. But it sacrificed itself for a good cause:



Yeah, mold is ready to go. It needs a touch of work on the base to flatten and fill the holes where I had pedestals to allow the plaster to flow underneath, but that's easy stuff.

Next up is into the garage to start laying up the fiberglass....

 

Took a break from fabricating the case when my 2GB of ram showed up yesterday.

So I reassemble the P30 and pop in the ram.

Holy crap! The troubles it causes!

Everything from a refuse to even enter startup to working just fine!

So I chase my tail for a couple hours, never getting it to work right every time. Every time something different. I try the old ram, 1 card at a time, both cards, different sockets, removing different bits of hardware, etc. Nothing works reliably.

So, I think to myself pull the CMOS battery and force it to check the config even though I've seen it check the ram on startup and report the full 2GB.

Aw crap, the battery in buried under the palm rest area. It's got to come all apart to get to the battery. Into little pieces it goes again.

Down to the motherboard, I discover the battery is soldered to the board.

@#$%^&^@%#%(&*#&%@%&$@&^@&!!^#*@*^$*^@$*^*^@$*^@$*@$^&***^^%%#@!

Ahem, I finally come back down off the ceiling and get to work.

Out comes the solder station. Off comes the battery. Walk away, make myself a latte and let the bare MB sit for 5 minutes. Press and hold the start button for a minute or so to drain anything left hanging around the system.

Back together it all goes. Pop in both 1gb cards and........Joy!

It starts right up as normal. Does it right the next four stars without fail.

Done.

Then it looks at me a says: hold on a sec there bucky......I'm not done with you yet.....

All kinds of programs and services aren't working right. Connects to the router, refreshes DNS addresses, shows internet connection, but no data. chase my tail for an hours with settings, force wipe with some cmd line "netsh" stuff, winsockxpfix, confirm mac address permissions on router, etc, etc. Nothing works. Finally, I change security settings/protocals in networking to something that shouldn't work and then change it back.

Working again! Whew. what a PITA.

And so it goes for another hour or so of getting the configurations right.Fans are screaming at full speed, resolutions are whacked out, hardware is missing, drivers need reloading/tweaking, etc, etc, etc.....

CMOS battery removal got it working with the increased system ram but messed everything else up.

But it's all copacetic now and its running as reliably as it has since 2003.

Faster now though......not blistering fast but noticeably so. It's a pleasure to use again, even with heavy programs like photoshop. The cpu % is now above the Ram %. Disc reads are waaaaayyyy down. Runs what I need almost exclusively in ram now. Not surprising as it only had 512 mb before.

Gotta do something about the 4200 rpm (!) drive now. 7200 or ssd, dunno....


I also started spiffing up the interface a bit: vista icons, vista black theme, uxtheme patcher, custom logon screens,custom boot screen, reshacking the logoff, etc......

 

Wow, this is quite the project! Definitely god with an ssd if size doesn't matter. Picked up an older SATAII 64gb ssd a few weeks ago for like $35 to revive an old Sony laptop ago so I cold give it to my mom. Upped it from 256mb to 1gb ram and fresh installed Windows 7. Thing runs like a champ and should be plenty good for her to do her homework on. SSD made the biggest difference of all though. You're going through all this work, don't cut short on the storage speed

 

Problem is, I'll be throttling it through a PATA connection. My laptop (vintage 2003) is the equivalent of an ide connection at the HDD.

Sure, adapters can be had and there are a few early pata SSD's out there, but just as much (well, almost) can be gained from a 7200 rpm drive. There's some prety fast newer 5400 drives out htere too.

SSD would have decent gains in battery life over a platter though. If I was concerned about battery life that is.

I'd be more than willing to hear opposing viewpoints as I'm no expert at ssd's and older lappy's...

 

Ah, 2003.. Didn't click that the laptop was that old Best off with a 7200rpm then I suppose.

If you want to attempt an ssd though, this thread may come in handy (you may have seen it already)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-those-slow-1-8-pata-drives-wanting-sata.html

Really looking forward to seeing the case bottom though!

 

Messed around with the UI today.

Tried Windowblinds by Stardock.

What a PITA!

Since my XP isn't bone stock it breaks everything and I end up with nothing but windows classic. I finally get it working after deleting and altering more .dll files than I can count and then AVG picks up it's activation dialer as a Trojan dialer, breaks Stardock and I'm right back to a half "mucked up" windows classic theme again!

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...............................

Well, that was money wasted and a day I'll never get back. Too bad, I liked the "Krome" theme. Maybe I'll try and make a custom theme now that I've at least seen it.

So, it all hit the bin.

The rest of the day was spent reloading .dll's and reinstalling all the stuff Stardock broke.

Ended up with the screens below.

Desktop:



Yes, I like Courtney! I also like the Invader skin for windows media player. I just have to crack open the .wmz and edit out all the alien stuff.....no worries on copyright, it will never be redistributed once I'm done.

Bootscreen:



Logon/Logoff:



That's probably not the final screens but it gets it up and running in a "dark" theme for now. Once I get closer to the end of the project I'l spend some time building up my own skins/themes.

 

A program like Fences will do you good. The same morons made it though....

 

Crap.

The Toshiba backlit keyboard showed up today.

It's about 1/2" too wide to fit the top case opening. But that's not the problem, that would just mean cutting the top case to fit. Minor bit of custom work at this point.

The real problem is when i plugged it into the MB connector, the bios doesn't allow it to recognize key strokes. Well, it does some, but most are dead and the ones it does "see" are all wrong.

Bright point is i have no problem powering up the back lighting. looks good.

So, I think maybe I can do some transferring over of keys/lights/posts and whatnot. Basically, my old keyboard with a new face.

Pop a key off the new board. Yup, scissor like holders just like my old key board so I think I'm off to the races. Pop one off my P30 keyboard.

Crap.

The hinges are different. The hinge mechanism is 90 degrees out.

Probably because the P30 has an OEM keyboard (ceylon?) and the backlit one is a service replacement made by Dafron.

Well, it was a nice idea but it's just not gonna.........then, in the very back of my gray matter there's an arc of light.

I've got an old keyboard from a dead M70 in a drawer somewhere. It was a refurb so it just might be a replacement Dafron keyboard.

Yup, it's made by Dafron.

Same size and key layout as the P30. Pop it in and fire the P30 up.

Sure enough, works as per normal.

Pull it back out and flip it over.

My orig P30 keyboard is manufactured by ceylon (or something like that). The M500 backlit key board is manf by Darfon. The M70 is manufactured by Darfon.

Could it be possible.........?

Pop a key off the M70 and the M500. Sure enough, same hinges!

So, tomorrow I pull both Darfon keyboards apart and see if I can "hybrid" the two. They're not much use to me as is anyways. Basically transfer the back lighting, translucent keys and translucent key posts to the non backlit model.

Sure, I'll loose the "island" keys and have "chicklets', but this is all about having a little fun and making it work!






MUHAHAHA!

BEWARE, EVIL MODDER AT WORK!

Lol.



Couldn't wait until tomorrow, i just gotta know.....

Ripped both keyboards apart.

Sure enough, the backlight is separate from the actual keyboard:



There it is powered up with usb 5v.

The non backlit board has black plastic hinges. That won't do.

The clear ones off the backlit board are just a hair too wide to dit the non backlit attachment points so i snip a tiny bit away and lever them on the hinge points.

I snap on one of the backlit keys and slide the light panel behind.

Power up the light panel, flick off the overhead light and bingo!

The F1 key is backlit!

Now; how many more keys on a keyboard again?

102 or something?

Yeesh, maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all.......




Ordered up a cheap PCMCIA card off ebay.

Adds bluetooth and another usb 2.0 port.Supposedly sits flush to the case once installed.

Meh, the slot it empty all the time anyways. We'll see how it works once it gets here....

And so, "chickletification" begins:



The key board lighting in now a dead project.

The laptop wont recognize the keystrokes, the key hinges need too much reworking and the chicklet keys wont all fit on the non chicklet keyboard.

Short of an some sort of last minute epiphany, i can't think of any other way to backlight them.

Feeling pretty gutted right now. I think I'll put the rest of the work on hold also.

At least for a couple days to get my motivation back.

All I feel like doing now is the CF vinyl application and leaving it at that...

 

Wow!
Awesome work Great White! Very informative and a fun read.

Keep the updates coming!

 

Got up this morning and picked up the laptop.

Frigged with some led's, still felt gutted and then put it down.

Enthusiasm seems to be gone. The keyboard fiasco was a major let down.

No worries, I've had it since 2003 and have kept at it ever since.

I think I just need to walk away from it for a couple weeks......time to go back to a less frustrating project like my 85 Interceptor update:



Yeah, that's the ticket.....time for some satisfying progress!



After a day or so of sitting back and thinking about it, I'm scrapping the original mold idea.

I'm a car guy and an "alien" type laptop just isn't what I want. If I'm going through all this trouble I want a car themed laptop dadgummit!

The lower case will be reworked to look like a car nose in front and possibly a car rear in the back.

I've always liked the styling of the Asus VX7 and I might take a few styling cues from that.

More to follow.....

 

I'm very interested to see how it turns out after you actually cast the finish case product. I've been keeping my eye on this thread.

 

I toyed with the idea of doing something with the screen cover to make taillights, but decided to just throw the cf vinyl on for now:





It's just, in essence, a big sticker but it looks pretty good!

Interior concept:



The silver parts will be covered in cf. The black parts will remain as is.

The triangular shapes on the palm rests will be leather.

The touch pad and buttons will stay silver.

I haven't decided yet if the leaves palm rests will be black or a color closer to the touchpad/buttons....

 

Awesome the buttons could get a small rework with "backlit" stickers, dont remember the name but you get my point

 

Quick Photochop:



Checked the touch pad and it works just fine when covered with the cf vinyl so I may go that way....

 

Cf skin is on the main body:



Now to let it sit overnight and establish a good bond.

Tomorrow I'll get the heat gun back out and massage a few spots where the vinyl needs a touch of adjustment.

The speaker grills, keyboard and touch pad are installed to help form the vinyl. Same reason it's mounted on the lower chassis, help to finish form the vinyl...

 

Back together and working great!



Was just playing one of my favorite old games in it; Mechwarrior 2. Yup, that's an oldie but still a goody!

I think the leather palm rests won't happen. The color and placement just doesn't seem right. I'll leave the outlines in the vinyl where they were oing to go as it breaks up the big expanse of vinyl/plastic.

I'm thinking the touchpad and buttons will stay silver.

Undecided on the speaker grills. I want to say paint them black but I just don't know yet.

There's an awful lot of black now and I'm thinking of ways of breaking it up a bit. Some chrome or stainless trim would perk things up. I just need to figure how to do it tastefully.

The lower case will be worked on soon. I'm tossed up between the "alien" style bottom or remaking one more like an automotive front fascia. The one that's already cast is halfway done (as seen earlier in this thread), a more automotive style one would be starting from scratch.

On another note, the laptop is now gps enabled. I was able to incorporate a gps receiver into the case. The PCMCIA card will also give it bluetooth.

A 5400 or 7200 drive is in the future somewhere.

That's probably as far as things will go as I'm probably getting close to the limits of what the old hardware will support.

The last few things I may toy with is a USB sound card in the new lower case for 5.1 out, a blue ray rom/dvd rw/cdr ide combo drive and possibly a USB-HDMI converter so I can watch movies on hotel TV's when I'm traveling instead of the 17" lappy screen.

But that may push the old girl past what it's capable of supporting.....

 

tragic crash.

Severe driver conflict.

BSOD.

Won't even boot into safe mode.

Recovery panel reveals windows system 32 file is gone. Not corrupt.....GONE!

No restore points are available even though there should be one from yesterday?

"Repair XP" not an option because it was a manufacturer install.

Lost everything that wasn't backed up......scrambling to see what can be done.....might be terminal....XP install is dead for sure.

Looking to see if I even have any full installation discs left around.....

 

dug around, not one good xp disc left. All scratched or deteriorated.

so, I "found" a copy "somewhere else".

Problem is, even though I have a valid COA, it's a "royalty" key.

I may have to do something I don't usually do and "find" a way to activate my single install.

Vista is just too heavy for this old machine and win7 is just too much for the old hardware. Not to mention most of the drivers won't work.

Kinda backed into a corner here.....

 

Is it XP Home Edition, Professional, or Media Center Edition? If it's Professional or MCE, I can make you a copy if you want. It's not illegal if you have a valid product key. Just shoot me a PM if you're interested. I believe I have a copy of Home Edition laying around somewhere, but I can't give any guarantees.

 

aha.

Xp Home edition retail cd, OEM license key.

It's too old to justify buying windows 7 for. I don't think most of the hardware drivers are even available in 7 anyways.

Oh boy, now the trouble begins......gotta dig for the Toshiba P30 recovery disc.

Not likely to have that hanging around after all these years.......

 

Well, someones lookin' down on me.

Found an old XP home (retail) jewelcase in the back of my cabinet.

Sure enough, there's the COA key still on it. No disc to be found though, anywhere.

So I closed my eyes, dropped in the "found" copy and hit install.

Formatted the drive, loaded up and activated. Fresh XP home install up and running.

Off to Microsoft we go. WGA confirms the key is good and an hour or so later I've got a genuine and up to date XP Home SP3.

Then it's off to the Toshiba Canada website and download all the OEM drivers for my lappy.

Up goes the antivirus and a quick download of malwarebites just in case.

Lost all my customizations and programs, but Xp is fresh and clean. Newly formatted.

Most of the programs I had installed I can either re-download off the net or I have backup copies in my external drives so it's not all bad.

On a plus note, I installed Vista Inspirat 2 from Brico packs which "skins" XP to something like vista. Appearance, sounds, even gives you something called "rocket dock" which is like a Mac OS program bar. Gotta say, I really like it so far......goes nicely with the new Carbon Fiber look on the lappy case. I even like the wallpaper!

So, I guess there was a silver lining in the big crash of '12 after all.

Now that all that drama with Microsoft's OS is over with i can get back to working on the lower case remodel.