Toshiba Satellite L300

Hardware
PCI/USB ID
Working?
Touchpad
Yes
Keyboard
Yes
GPU
8086:2a02
Yes
Webcam
04f2:b070
Yes
Ethernet
10ec:8136
Yes
SD-card reader
Yes
Audio
8086:284b
Yes
Wi-Fi
168c:002a
Yes
PCMCIA
Untested
Modem
Untested
This document applies to the entire L300 series, in particular the L300-OG1 and L300-12K.
If your laptop is eligible to a BIOS update and has a version lower than v2.20 you probably have fan control problems and the
Fn
key and PC speaker might not work. See below for a method to upgrade your BIOS.
Accessibility
The appearance of the BIOS is pretty simple (blue or dark grey on a light grey background), so it might work well with OCR software. It is fully keyboard driven.
The BIOS is accessed with the
F2
key, while
F12
opens the boot device selection menu.
Firmware
This device uses a BIOS, it will not be supported by
fwupd
and does not provide
Secure Boot
.
BIOS upgrade
Most of the L300 and L305 series laptops come with the InsydeH2O BIOS version 1.50. This BIOS might results in a dead
Fn
key and an improperly controlled fan depending on the exact laptop model (i.e the L300-OG1 needs the BIOS update from 1.50 to 2.20, but on the L300-12K everything is working on version 1.50). Get the fan working properly especially if you wish to use suspend and/or hibernate. The dead
Fn
key problem however is not a show stopper. The upgraded BIOS will also mean the PC speaker will start working. 
Ensure you get the correct file for your specific model: for example, the latest BIOS version (v2.20 since 2010) for the L300-OG1 is available from
Dynabook Canada
. Other models can be found starting at
Dynabook global website
, selecting the region it was sold in, going to the support section for discontinued products and entering either the serial number or choosing from the family/series/model drop-down menus.
This file is a Windows-only executable - it does not contain anything usable under DOS. Nor can this BIOS be flashed using the Linux
flashrom
application. There are only two ways to flash the ROM with that file:
Run the file as an executable under a Microsoft Windows environment or,
Use the undocumented "brick" repair method (below) proposed by Toshiba.
As the first method is straightforward it will not be discussed here. Below is the alternate method outlined for Linux-only users:
Warning
Do this at your own risk - if done improperly you may permanently "brick" your laptop. Read the
Windows PE
page to create an external medium with a Microsoft Windows environment suitable for the supported BIOS update procedure.
The
.exe
file is a
7zip
compressed file. Use the command
7z e filename.exe
to extract.
The only important file is the
.fd
file. Rename that file to
BIOS.fd
.
Copy the
BIOS.fd
file onto the root directory of a USB flash drive.
Remove any inserted CD, the power cord, the battery, and the hard drive from your laptop.
Insert the USB flash drive into a USB port on your laptop.
Simultaneously hold down the
Fn
and
F
keys.
Plug in the power cord to the laptop while still holding
Fn+F
.
Press the "Power On" button of laptop while still holding
Fn+F
.
The USB flash drive light should start to flash. You may now release the
Fn+F
keys after a few seconds.
Leave the laptop for about 1 minute. The ROM is being flashed. Your laptop will eventually turn itself off and it may reboot.
You may turn off laptop now if it has rebooted successfully. If it just turned itself off then continue...
Unplug the power cord, remove the USB flash drive, replace the laptop hard drive and battery. Re-plug power cord.
Reboot laptop and enter the BIOS setup using
F2
. You should see that it has successfully upgraded your BIOS.
Function keys
Key
Visible?
1
Marked?
2
Effect
Fn+Esc
Yes
Yes
XF86AudioMute
Fn+F1
Yes
Yes
XF86ScreenSaver
Fn+F2
Yes
Yes
XF86Battery
Fn+F3
Yes
Yes
XF86Sleep
3
Fn+F4
Yes
Yes
XF86Suspend
3
Fn+F5
Yes
Yes
XF86Display
Fn+F6
Yes
Yes
XF86MonBrightnessDown
Fn+F7
Yes
Yes
XF86MonBrightnessUp
Fn+F8
Yes
Yes
XF86WLAN
Fn+F9
No
Yes
See
Touchpad Synaptics#Software toggle
Fn+F10
See
4
Yes
XF86Num_Lock
4
Fn+F11
See
4
Yes
XF86Num_Lock
4
Fn+F12
Yes
Yes
XF86Scroll_Lock
Fn+1
No
Yes
Marking looks like
XF86ZoomOut
, untested outside of twm.
Fn+2
No
Yes
Marking looks like
XF86ZoomIn
, untested outside of twm.
The key is visible to
xev
and similar tools
The physical key has a symbol on it, which describes its function
systemd-logind handles this by default
Before sending
XF86Num_Lock
, toggles between secondary functions: either the numeric pad (
9
to
0
,
/
,
*
,
-
,
+
) or navigation keys (
Home
,
Up
,
PageUp
,
Left
,
Right
,
End
,
Down
,
PageDown
,
Ins
and
Del
) while lighting up the corresponding LED on the keyboard.