Laptops With Serial Ports For Tuning Pfc Etc .

[discopotato03]

Hi all , I ended up with a cheapie 2nd hand P4 laptop with a serial port but I think I've found something better .

A mate of mine is into this kind of laptop stuff and he leaned me towards Pentium M ECU based LT's because they were a dedicated mobile type processor and with lowish power consumption .

I have a Dell Latitude D610 on the way with the 2 Ghz Pentium M ECU in it . These were the last Dell LT's in their range with this processor family , BTW Pentium M is apparently a souped up Pentium 3 with 2 meg of cache and they are supposed to be faster than their equivalent P4 frequency CPU ie 2Ghz Pentium M = 3.2 Ghz P4 - I think .

For the upgraders Intell did a 2.13 and 2.26 Ghz Pentium M and this Dell Latitude 610 can take 2 gig of DDR2 533 memory . They come with a 60G hard drive and a DVD +/-R burner LAN modem and the facility for a 2nd battery .

AND a serial port/parallel port , 4 USB2 . Mine has XP Pro and its system disc included and Pwr DVD .

Will owe me 380 plus post , what do yas think cheers A .

[Fishpaste~]

pentium M is actually a cut down P4, so it will never be a faster than a P4... however it will use a lot less power than a P4 in a note book (they are essentially the notebook version of the P4). Infact if anything most P4s will be faster because of the increased cache all depending on your application.

Also alot of DELLs (even the current range) will have serial ports, mainly because they are still used on a lot of high end network gear...

[Guilt-Toy]

my tune laptop is a Dell D600 i think. works great!

[discopotato03]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/displ...ntiumm-780.html

This mob sounds like they know a bit about Intel CPU's , everything I read says that the Pentium M CPU was a development of the late/last P3's but with the early P4's quad pumped transport bus + SSE and some other minor blingies .

The stack of cache , particularly in the later Dothan Pentium M family , was designed to carry more of the load reducing the power consumption and heat output of the CPU .

The early desktop P4's are notoriously hot and hungry making them not so good in portable computers . The mobile Pentium 4 , P4M , was better but not as miserly as it could have been .

Anyway everyone everywhere gives these Latitude 610s a big rap for being reliable and having good battery life , with two batteries it should be able to talk to the Datalogit for longer than this P4 POS can - which is about 2 minutes .

Hi GT , still haven't got the head n cams in yet or the 740's because the always going to leave it alone daily has to have its "built" engine fitted first ...

Don't have time/funds ATM to do anything turbo wise except fit an OP6 turbine housing , still should be interesting to see the results with what looks like a std 33 25 GTST .

Cheers , A .

Edited June 7, 2009 by discopotato03

[paulr33]

yeah ive got a dell latitude 600 i think, pentium III, 128mb of ram i think, runs win98

works a charm for all the tuning software etc.

see if you can find something called a toughbook

the telstra field techs use these for on-site installations

and they are sold new with true serial ports, as the guys need serial ports

for all the oldschool NTUs, and media converter boxes etc

not sure who makes it

[murrayis]

Paul that would be Panasonic. http://www.panasonic.com.au/products/categ...m?objectID=2482

[Keeper]

use a USB serial port emulator, I use one on my CONSULT cable

[Guilt-Toy]

yeah ive got a dell latitude 600 i think, pentium III, 128mb of ram i think, runs win98

works a charm for all the tuning software etc.

see if you can find something called a toughbook

the telstra field techs use these for on-site installations

and they are sold new with true serial ports, as the guys need serial ports

for all the oldschool NTUs, and media converter boxes etc

not sure who makes it

the dirt man has one of those and yes they are tough. he left it on his hit bonnet and it flew off at over 80km/h and survived lol

[fatz]

sato_gts ere

I 2nd the Toughbook series of laptop. I use a CF-28 awesome sh1t.

The model that I would like to get my grubby hands on is the CF-30 has touchscreen with a daylight readable screen .

Panasonic Toughbooks cant beat them

Edited June 8, 2009 by fatz

[MBS206]

For a REAL toughbook, you will pay in excess of around $5000 for one.

The Dells aren't a bad piece of gear for the ports they have on them, and alot of the higher end HPs are now also coming out with serial ports, as are the Toshiba's.

As for the network techs needing them for the "old gear" you'll find they also need alot of it for the new gear, IE Brand new cisco routers...

[aphid]

The only problem for us "network techs" is our higher ups in charge of budgeting struggle to understand why they can't save $100 in buying laptops without serial ports and make us use half assed serial to usb convertors that only work half the time anyway, and then can't understand why they're losing thousands of dollars in downtime when upgrades/cuttovers don't go as planned

[discopotato03]

The Dell D610 is finally here and came with a good supply of power adapters , the travel one has two separate removable plugs for 240 AC or 12V cig DC .

It all sits nicely in the 33 with the Datalogit connected and unlimited 12V DC .

All that's left to do is get the Tech Edge connected and running through the Datalogit as well . Actually I'm going to have to find 12v supply for that as well but may use the better all weather bike style socket and plug for that .

Really like this Dell Latitude D610 , used it heaps on the Wi Fi at home and even does an acceptable job of playing a DVD movie . Its light and compact (14" screen) and the battery is quite good too .

You can rip the DVD drive out and fit an optional 2nd battery or Hard Drive if needed .

Its been an ex corporate and they threw in unopened copies of XP Pro/Power DVD 7/Dell driver disc .

Bargain for 380 ?

Now about the Steak Knives ......LOL

[acsplit]

or buy an ibm t30 for something small or t31 small with serial.

The HP Nx series notebooks came with serial ports (the pentium m era one which were still floating around new about 18 months ago)

not sure if the new model has serial.

[Swiper the Fox]

the dirt man has one of those and yes they are tough. he left it on his hit bonnet and it flew off at over 80km/h and survived lol

not quite...but yes ive 'launched' one and it survived.

my new Toughbook is better...lots more RAM better touchscreen etc.