Extending the life of the W3V

While I'm waiting for a couple of laptops to drop in June and July (thanks John Ratsey), I was exploring ways of improving my W3V's performance. I ordered a new stick of 1gb ram which should bring me up to 2 gigs and hopefully give me a nice little boost in games like Company of Heroes and Photoshop / Modo.

Any other suggestions for not too expensive ways in which I can improve, increase the performance of this laptop?

 

ram should help...maybe a bigger/faster hard drive? If you're using a 5400 rpm drive, dropping in a 7200 rpm one should make the laptop feel snappier. Likewise, the newer bigger 5400 rpm drives like the WD 250 gig PATA have higher platter density and perpendicular recording so they should also perform better. But that's a bit more costly of an upgrade.

If you're still running a 1.86 proc and you're comfortable with opening it up and doing a swap (it's pretty easy, not much harder than the ram), go on ebay and try to find a 1.6 or 1.7 400 fsb dothan, and pinmod it. That should give you 2.13/2.26 (you could also try 1.8 to 2.4, but that's much more rare it seems), so at least another 15% or so boost in performance, and these chips are about 20 bucks on ebay.

 

Wow. Thanks. Does overclocking work for these chipsets?

 

He's not really talking about overclocking it, but rather hotwiring the cpu with a piece of copper wire. Somebody around here did that way back in the day (I can't remember who) and got it up to 2.26, but I only remember seeing that one case and no one else that went and replicated it.

If you're going to replace it in 2-3 months, buy the RAM (because it's cheap) and save the rest of what you'd spend on upgrades and use it for your new machine .

 

It's overclocking (since you're running the chip above spec), but it's done by hardware instead of software. Look up dothan pinmod either here or on google and you should find lots of information.

I think for 20 bucks it's well worth it. If you get a good stepping, you can pinmod and still undervolt the processor. C0 is I believe the latest stepping for 400 FSB dothans. I have a 1.6 that I've successfully pinmodded to 2.16 in a z63a before, and the stepping is SL89T. Ebay shows 4 ongoing auctions with that stepping.

There should be a 1.7 with a C0 stepping, but I can't find any info on it.

 

What would I need to do to increase battery life? I just ordered a XPS 1530 after a lot of debate but I can see myself continuing to use the W3V on occasions where a smaller form factor is needed for email, etc.

Could i extend the stock battery life (which I believe gave me close to 3 hours) to about 4 hours if I never planned on using it for anything more than browsing, email et?

 

With a *new* battery, cpu undervolting, 50% or less LCD brightness and underclocking the gpu you might be able to get near 4 hours. With the original battery, you're never going to be able to hit that due to battery wear.

 

You are very right - I have 66% battery wear right now and I just ordered a replacement in case I want to sell the W3V.

Any guides on undervolting the W3V?

 

Try ikovac's guide here. That's a good place to start for the P-M chips and should tell you all you need to get it done.

 

Thanks.

I'm assuming you are a W3V owner so i have one more question for you.

My system has 1.5 gb and I just got a new stick of 1gb ram and opened up the memory slot to discover that there's only one place where I can stick it in - so only one upgrade slot? Is this standard?

 

I've got the W3a/Z63, which is the same chassis/chipset without the discrete gpu so I'll always get better battery life .

The W3 series has one RAM slot accessible through the bottom cover, and the second RAM slot is under the keyboard. To remove the kb from the W3v/a, pull the screws marked K out of the bottom, and then pop the 3 clips along the top of the kb with a credit card or thin flat screwdriver. Remove the kb and its cable, replace the ram, then reassemble in reverse.

 

Thank you so much. I would never have guessed that.

 

Hmm - slight issue.Got the keyboard, out, Ram in but thekeyboard cable came out. I'm not able to get the cable back into the slot - any suggestions?

 

Never mind. Excercised some patience and it worked.