Toshiba Satellite L350
Toshiba Satellite L350 PSLD8E-003009N5. Not entirely unpalatable but with a quirk or two.
Appearance
Looks like a 17″ laptop. Silvery on the outside and black on the inside.
Almost full-sized keyboard. With a keypad, even! Nothing to comment about here – the insert/home/end/pgup/pgdn keys could have been placed more to the left instead of the bullshit, useless scroll lock but otherwise no big complaints.
The left side has a VGA out (again?), CPU fan, network connector, two USB and a PCMCIA socket. I’ve tested two copies of this laptop. On the one the fan is almost always quiet – spinning but quiet. On the other the fan sometimes decides to spin up to full speed and won’t come down again until a reset. Both laptops were laying next to each other on the same table and none of them was doing anything of interest. Weird.
The right side has one USB, DVD ram, power connector and a keylock thing. Does anyone even use that lock thing?
The control is to the far left of the keyboard – correct behavior.
The front gives us a bunch of LEDs, a physical WLAN switch, microphone and headphone jack and a volume control (which works off the bat).
Above the keyboard is a power switch and some hotkeys which I’ve neither tested nor used.
Components
Wlan and audio worked with a vanilla 8.10 liveCD. Nothing weird to report.
Notice that the wlan is a usb device…
Haven’t tested the headphone jack but I’ll go ahead and assume it works just as the shitty speakers work.
Sometimes the volume control doesn’t work. Probably just some acpid bug that’ll go away with time.
Haven’t tested VGA output or suspend or whatever. Not my cup of tea. I guess I treat laptops like I treat desktop boxes, and I don’t switch off desktops.
CPU fan
I’m unimpressed with the sheer loudness the CPU fan is capable of. Why is it even spinning up like that on the one laptop? Quality control issues?
System information
Tested with Ubuntu 8.10.
Linux laptopname 2.6.27-11-generic #1 SMP Thu Jan 22 17:22:40 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux
lsusb
Bus 008 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 005 Device 002: ID 046d:c018 Logitech, Inc. Optical Wheel Mouse Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub Bus 004 Device 003: ID 0bda:8197 Realtek Semiconductor Corp. RTL8187B Wireless Adapter Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 002: ID 04f2:b070 Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07) 00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07) 00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03) 00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03) 00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03) 00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03) 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03) 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03) 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03) 00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03) 00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03) 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller (rev 03) 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation ICH9M/M-E SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03) 00:1f.6 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) Thermal Subsystem (rev 03) 02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)
lspci -v
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff66 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: agpgart-intel Kernel modules: intel-agp 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff67 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16 Memory at 90000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M] Memory at 80000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M] I/O ports at 4110 [size=8] Capabilities: <access denied> 00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff67 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Memory at 92500000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M] Capabilities: <access denied> 00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 03) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff66 Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16 I/O ports at 40e0 [size=32] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd Kernel modules: uhci-hcd 00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff66 Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 21 I/O ports at 40c0 [size=32] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd Kernel modules: uhci-hcd 00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03) (prog-if 20) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff66 Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 19 Memory at 94605c00 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd Kernel modules: ehci-hcd 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff66 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 22 Memory at 94600000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: HDA Intel Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00002000-00003fff Memory behind bridge: 93600000-945fffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 0000000090400000-00000000914fffff Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: pcieport-driver Kernel modules: shpchp 00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=06, subordinate=07, sec-latency=0 I/O behind bridge: 00001000-00001fff Memory behind bridge: 92600000-935fffff Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 0000000091500000-00000000924fffff Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: pcieport-driver Kernel modules: shpchp 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff66 Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 23 I/O ports at 40a0 [size=32] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd Kernel modules: uhci-hcd 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff66 Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 19 I/O ports at 4080 [size=32] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd Kernel modules: uhci-hcd 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff66 Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16 I/O ports at 4060 [size=32] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd Kernel modules: uhci-hcd 00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #6 (rev 03) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff66 Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18 I/O ports at 4040 [size=32] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: uhci_hcd Kernel modules: uhci-hcd 00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03) (prog-if 20) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff66 Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 23 Memory at 94605800 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd Kernel modules: ehci-hcd 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93) (prog-if 01) Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0 Bus: primary=00, secondary=03, subordinate=03, sec-latency=32 Capabilities: <access denied> 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller (rev 03) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff66 Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0 Capabilities: <access denied> 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation ICH9M/M-E SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03) (prog-if 01) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff66 Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 221 I/O ports at 4108 [size=8] I/O ports at 411c [size=4] I/O ports at 4100 [size=8] I/O ports at 4118 [size=4] I/O ports at 4020 [size=32] Memory at 94605000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: ahci Kernel modules: ahci 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff66 Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 11 Memory at 94606000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256] I/O ports at 4000 [size=32] Kernel modules: i2c-i801 00:1f.6 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) Thermal Subsystem (rev 03) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff66 Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 11 Memory at 94604000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K] Capabilities: <access denied> 02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02) Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems Device ff66 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 220 I/O ports at 2000 [size=256] Memory at 90410000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K] Memory at 90400000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=64K] Capabilities: <access denied> Kernel driver in use: r8169 Kernel modules: r8169
Summary
Large laptop that can still be carried around, albeit in a rather large case. The keyboard is nice, the monitor has unimpressive resolution for its size and the cpu fan on the one laptop worries me.
Acceptable, but not much more.