Dell B130 CPU Upgrade

[Pederv]

Well after years of procrastinating, I finally bought a laptop. With the discounts of Dells recent EPP sale, I couldn't pass up the oppurunity. I picked up a B130 with the following configuration:
1.5GHz 370 Celeron M
1 GB DDR2 533
80 GB hard drive
DVD DL burner
1470 wireless card
6 cell (56 WHr) battery
XP Home
and a case to put it all in
The cost $685 including shipping and tax.

This wasn't meant to be a gaming system, it was meant to be portable, so the Intel graphics was of no concern. It wasn't until after I put the order in that I found out the Celeron doesn't have speed-step and thus my battery time was less than it could be. I tried to re-order with a Pentium M, but the allocated coupons had been used up.
I found an un-opened retail 745 Pentium for $140 ($80 more than if I had purchased the B130 with a Pentium M). Dropped the new CPU into the B130 and it works fine. The Celeron inside logo that pops up in the lower right of the B130, during bootup, changed to a Pentium inside logo. Speed step is working. I haven't had time to see how much longer my battery will last me, but the power meter reports that I have 2 more hours than I did with the Celeron.
I've made an image of the hard drive (before I turned on the system for the first time), so I'm set to re-format the hard drive and put XP Professional on the system.

 

[Pneumothorax]

Although Intel's spec sheets dispute this the 910GML chipset in your laptop also supports 533Mhz FSB. My GF's B130 has a 1.6 pinmodded to 2.13ghz. Runs great! Much better battery life than the Celery M.

 

[Pederv]

I was considering a Pentium M 740 or a 725 and doing the pin mod, but when the price on the 745 went from $180 to $140, the 740 became too expensive ($200) and the 725 wasn't worth it ($115). From what I've found, my B130 runs about as fast as an XP 2000 desktop with low-end graphics - maybe a little faster.