Assistance with the A25 series (Toshiba)

So...something as old as these is probly dead to most of y'all...but this is what
has brought me to your humble(?) group....namely...

A host of A25 laptops...all of these route to the same bios on Toshiba's
support site...sure, v 1.40 sounds flashy, but here I am with this poor ol'
2.66/512/400 chip sitting in the machine...and a flashy 2.66/1m/533 chip
right next to me. Or perhaps a 3.06/1m/800. Both of the other chips, aside
from having double the L2, are hyperthreaders. I at one point thought that
might be part of the limitation, but lo' and behold, a 2.4/512/800 HT chip
boots just fine. So obviously, this is more a matter of updating microcode.

Now, I know that we are supposed to have a donor bios, and the original
bios...is it possible to just use the linux microcode database for adding to
the rom? The list as such shows well more than just my socket 478 cpu's
I seek to add support for, but what the [censored], right?

Donor link: (hopefully)
https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_...ocode#help

Original Bios link:
http://support.toshiba.com/support/drive...ext=914446

Now, from here, I want to point out...it's not that I would mind doing it myself...
by hand if need be with a hex editor, or some such...
but I lack the knowledge of what tools are even going to touch the files,
let alone allow me to alter them, and see if I brick my machine or not lol

So...if someone can try this, I'd appreciate it...if you can direct me to at least
what editor will open this (Is it an ACPI bios like the Tecras? I'm finding
nothing for good reference material on this...)

For lack of anything better to do in the meantime, I'm going to try a pheonix
editor and see if anything happens, heh.

Updates, suggestions, and advice are welcome, always!