Gateway LT3101u 11.6" netbook impressions/thoughts/reviews

Hi donaldson,

I am wondering if you can also share the pics with me. I just want to mod this mobo in order to be able use sierra 8781 card - so any help on this field will be appreciated.

Also would be great if someone can publich some step-by-step instruction or give an existing link.
Thanks.

 

Any luck with this yet? I think the cooling air flow should be sufficient as stock but use some good TIM............

 

Yes. I swapped in the TK-42 Thursday afternoon and have been using it ever since. So far I've encountered a few minor glitches. The wireless connection goes haywire on occasion, and I've been getting some ATA bus errors. I didn't have these problems with the TF-20. I'm guessing that they might be related to aggressive undervolting (I haven't nailed down the lowest stable VIDs yet), not getting enough power from the 30W power brick (I have yet give it a good test on battery power alone), or the new wireless card (I put in a true Draft-N card not long before the swap).

I doubt that the stock airflow is sufficient, unless you are comfortable with load temperatures in the 75°C range @ 1.6GHz. The holes I drilled made quite a difference. Both cores idle at ~32-33°C @ 800MHz/0.6750V. If I cover the holes up, the temperatures rise to ~37-38°C. I don't really want to try this under load, as I'm seeing temperatures ~65°C @ 1.6GHz/0.8750V with the extra holes. For the record, I'm using Arctic Silver Céramique (which hasn't set yet).

The TK-42 defaults to 1.6GHz out of the box. I have no idea why the TF-20 didn't do the same... If you want to limit it to 1.2GHz on battery power, you could:

• Use RMClock (Windows)
• Use the CPUFreq sysfs interface (Linux)
• Perform a ACPI DSDT table override (Windows & Linux)

I didn't drill a bunch of holes all willy-nilly.

I drilled in the area below the cooling fan, so it can take in some cooler outside air. Thinking and measuring?! :laugh: I guess you don't know me!

As for my findings, please see above.

 

I ordered the L310 from buyfromtaobao and so far the part number and everything seems to be accurate.

I also found a large 9-cell battery (84 WHr) that I'm going to test with the new processor.

 

I am intereseted for my Daughter, as that is where it is now. I doubt she'd run it at full load often if at all. So stock voltages would be fine for it. 1.6 GHz would just make it much more usable..........

 

Since the chassis uses most of the same components AND another guy on HardForum tried an Acer 751h battery in his LT3103u, I'm going to order a 9-cell 7200 mAh battery.

http://www.amazon.com/Battery-UM09B...2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1266978017&sr=8-2

My L310 is on its way and I'll let you know how it performs on the battery eater both stock and clocked to three different settings (1.0, stock, 1.3 and 1.6). I want to see how much performance I get can get out of this little guy compared to a CULV. If buyfromtaobao comes through, I will spring to buy a bunch of the L310s if anyone on here wants 'em since bulk will save on shipping and I know I can sell them.

 

just reporting another successful swap using a TL-52
running stable using RMClock: 1.2 Ghz @ 0.85 V
no cooling mods (yet, haha)
load temps still get kind of high...pushing 60 degrees
idle, low 40s

runs ok at 1.4 Ghz for short bursts,
but dies under stress test after a few minutes
...1.6 is completely unstable

 

You'll probably want to add 800MHz to that list, as that is where you'll see the longest battery life. I can get my TK-42 down to 0.6750V at that frequency. I had similar results with the L110 and TF-20.

 

I'll add that to the list. Now I just need to order the battery and get ready to disassemble this little guy. I just found my artic thermal paste so hopefully that will help.

 

the cooling on this thing is definitely poor. my stock (bought a 2nd) crashes by itself sometimes idling, and this is new out of box w/o use. The underside feels hot to the touch. it seems the heat is near where the fan/nb bridge is. so that's interesting... i will be amazed if i see any upgraded CPU w/o mods can run for 1 day plugged in that doesn't crash.

 

@Turmlos:

Can you post your voltages? I'm still playing with my TF-20 and wondering what your voltages look like. I have a L310 on the way and hope to transfer those voltages over to the new processor when it arrives.Thanks!

 

Just picked up my l310 from the USPS office and installed it. I'm going to do some tests to ensure stability.

Edit: This netbook just woke up with the new processor. Browsing is noticeably faster, boot time has decreased and so far has been really stable.

Edit 2: Accidentally forgot to plug in the fan and the computer failed to crash, even with 720p youtube. Hulu runs beautifully and full screen maxes out at 65% with 60 C as the max temperature.

 

Hey my l310 arrived in canada from buytabao.com and i installed it yesterday, didn't really need instructions just took it slow and paid attention to what needed to come out in order for the mobo to come out, you have to pull everything out of it pretty much except the sound card , anyways, booted it up, ran perfectly, temps and battery life the same, decided to go farther and overclock it with set fsb, my old cpu could hit 1.4ghz, this one maxes out at the same but im seeing temps as high as 71c while playing 3d intensive games, is this bad for the laptop these temps? Runs stable still and a lot faster, worth the time it took to get it and put it in!

 

I'm in for a Group Buy on the L310. I'll need 3 possibly, (price dependent)

PS:

I'm not starting one. I have zero experence ordering from China but I will go in on one if somebody with experence, like korath, is willing to put it together.

 

At first it seems sketchy, but they will show you pictures of the product before you agree to pay for shipping. Overall cost was only about $60 (cpu and shipping) which I consider a deal for a dual-core upgrade.

Once I get my tax credit, I may just buy a dozen and toss them on ebay.

Overclocking and underclocking seem to be quite good so far. I haven't pushed it yet at 1.4ghz but normal operation at stock speeds have been fine for me. I should see if I could install a better cooling solution (custom).

 

mine stock seems to crash (complete freeze) when playing a movie. is this the norm, or is it typical of vista?

 

I used to run the L110 to full potential all the time, and I never had a problem. Have you used CoreTemp to monitor your system when you load it?

You could always get your hands on some good thermal paste, disassemble the system, clean the processor and reapply it. It made the difference by lowering the temperatures from full load L110 to full load L310.

 

I noticed the load temps are much higher than partial load or idle temps...like mine goes from 49C while watching a movie to 73C playing 3d intensive games, hasnt crashed though yet (L310 dual core), I've never saw a cpu run that hot before though!

 

The hottest I've run at 720p flash is 60 centigrade. I don't use this for 3D since the graphics chip doesn't have a heatsink.

It's well below the max temperature, but new thermal paste and cleaning the heatsink/fans/copper helped me.

From this website:
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K8/AMD-Athlon X2 Dual-Core Mobile L310 - AMML310HAX5DM.html

 

I've been running the TK-42 at the following voltages:

0.9000v @ 1.6GHz
0.8250v @ 1.4GHz
0.7625v @ 1.2GHz
0.7125v @ 1.0GHz
0.6750v @ 0.8GHz

I get some lockups if I use 1.6GHz, so I've been limiting it to 1.4GHz until I find some time to experiment with it. My DSDT table is set to use 0.9000v at 1.6GHz; I'm guessing that it might need a little more power at this frequency. Unfortunately, I don't know what the stock voltage of this processor is. Linux doesn't have an application like CPU-Z.

This is incorrect. The chip you're seeing without the heatsink is the SB600 southbridge. The RS690 northbridge (which contains the IGP) uses the same heatsink as the CPU.

 

Sweet. I'm glad I'm wrong about the graphics chip not having a heatsink. I think I'm going to focus on creating a better cooling solution.

 

Hi there, does anyone have some updated info on the second mini-pcie slot and the 3g sim card adapter? I just got a brand new LT3111h yesterday and I noticed that in the intruction booklet, some models may have bluetooth and 3g enabled. I was curious so I emailed customer support asking about the upgrade modules or the LT31 model numbers that have the modules present, but they were not helpful, stating that they don't carry info on past models and led me to links to Costco, BestBuy and other resellers and told me to ask them instead.

I found out that the 3g models have some sort of a Qualcomm Gobi2000 module if this info helps at all? Thanks.

 

I think I found one of the models at least that have the 3g and bluetooth. Packard Bell Dot M/A. Here's a link showing the 2nd pci-e slot with the 3g module attached:

http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&number=3&artpage=4372&articID=958

 

That link has some interesting shots of the BIOS. I wonder why the LT31 doesn't have those options under the Advanced tab? It is essentially the same motherboard...

 

Hmm, I haven't really got around checking the BIOS yet since I'm still waiting to install either server 2008 r2 or server 2003 r2 on mine, but perhaps the LT31 BIOS could be flashed to the Packard Bell's to bring out those options?

 

After installing the L310, Im having some random BSOD's on cold boots once and a while (like once a week), not sure if its just unstable on coolboot sometimes or if its software related, anyway to increase voltage on these things?

 

It may be the brick can't supply the amps when it is cold. Does this happen if you boot with battery as well?

 

ya it does too with or without the battery, happens once to twice a week at random only on cold boots,

 

Hmmm, I've never had a BSOD on mine under load or on a cold boot. My guess would be software related, at least until you eliminate that.

 

I thought one of you guys were going to get a few l310's and say put them up on ebay. I still haven't seen them easily available but I guess that is because of the low cost and therefore profit margin for them as well.

 

Does anyone know if the amd l510's work when swapped into the netbook? and has anyone done it yet, they default at 1.6ghz so I was wondering if it will run at that when you swap it in or not, I've still been overclocking my l310 to 1.4ghz with no problems except the random BSOD on startup which I checked is coming from the ati control center program (not sure why yet), but I can't get the l310 to run anymore than 1.4ghz

 

UnPilot, you mentioned you were able to get power management / sleep to work on the LT31 by changing some settings in USB in device manager? What did you do? My laptop won't go into sleep mode, the screen goes black and fan/everything stays on. The computer has to be hard switched off to turn it back on again. I'm running Win7 ultimate.

Also noticed that the wireless driver is flakey, speed is really poor and the laptop has a hard time making a connection to WAP. I have the Atheros AR5B95 and correct driver from Gateway.com, but I think that something is still wrong with it.

Thanks for the help,
Mark

 

Anybody know of a current stocked source for L310s? I really want one of these but can't find a vendor that isn't out of stock.

 

Hi guys, posting another successful TF-20 upgrade. System tested fine with Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, Ubuntu 9.10, and Vista Home Basic 32-bit. Thanks a lot to everyone who posted here on their results and findings, without which I would not have been able to transplant this CPU.

 

Have the Crucial 4GB 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 800 in my LT3103u makes it run great. No problems installing it, open cover removed old 2 gb memory, installed new 4 gb module, closed and started it, found new memory on boot with no problems. Thought I would just up date on what I did.

 

Chevy,

Where did you get the Crucial stick? All the 4GB sticks I've found are in excess of $120.

 

I managed to hack BIOS version 1.3302 and replace the dsdt with a fixed one, allowing cpu freq. scaling in all OSs without need of extra software or custom kernels.

Here's the link:
fixedbios.rar

In order to install it, you'll need Phoenix' Winphlash tool (you can extract it from the BIOS update file from Gateway/Packard-Bell)

 

Nevermind.

 

That's very interesting. Any chance you could explain how you did this? I have a TK-42 in my system, so I'd need to use a different DSDT table.

The BIOS and flash utilities only appear to be available from Packard Bell's site. Are you sure that the LT31 & DOT M/A BIOS images are interchangeable? I'd be hesitant to flash that DOT M/A image onto my LT31.

 

In thery, WinPhlash checks for BIOS compatibility...

WinPhlash download link (both 32 and 64-bit)
WinPhlash.rar

What I did:

I taked the BIOS update file, and ran it inside a virtual machine, where it freezed, but leaved unpacked, in a temporal folder, the winphlash utility and the BIOS file (BIOS1.WPH).

Then, I got from somewhere else Phoenix BIOS editor Pro 2.2, I opened the BIOS1.WPH file, opened the acpi editor and replaced the DSDT by the one used as overried when compiling the linux kernel (you can find it in this thread, IIRC).

Then I built the bios, and then flashed.

WinPhlash has an option to only backup your current BIOS, but I think it also backups the BIOS settings. We could all backup our BIOSes and then upload them somewhere, or at least put a list of BIOS versions and their md5sums, to see if they are actually the same for different models (with default settings).

Anyway, there's a way to recover from a bad BIOS flash, making an USB crisis disk. It's explained somewhere in these forums too.

I also posted in the Phoenix BIOS mod requests thread requesting for an AMD-V enblaed BIOS...

 

Thanks for the information. I don't have Windows on the LT31, so I ended up using Phlash16 to get the original BIOS backed up. I'll have to mess around with Phoenix BIOS Editor Pro on a different machine later.

I compared the original Gateway BIOS (v1.3302) to the Packard Bell version, and there is no difference aside from the last line of each file:

Code:

todd@gateway ~ $ diff -a BIOS1-LT31.WPH BIOS1-DOTMA.WPH
2871c2871
< </assembly>PAPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPA�q�F��(�}��#(PHPHPHPHPADDING0 ����ȡСء������������@
volumein�fo.bin
\ No newline at end of file
---
> </assembly>PAPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPADDINGXXPADDINGPA�q�F��(�}��#(ADDINGXXPADDING0 ����ȡСء������������@
volumein�fo.bin
\ No newline at end of file

Being binaries, I have no idea what the difference means.

Regardless, I ended up flashing my LT31 with the Packard Bell image and haven't had any problems. Any LT31 users out there with an older BIOS version should be safe using the Packard Bell image.

 

Actually, it runs well under wine, provided you install visual basic 6 runtime (winetricks vb6run). You'll also need to install microsoft's ASL compiler and copy asl.exe to the folder where Phoenix BIOS editor Pro installs.

It's to confirm that they are compatible. Mmm the WinPhlash backed up BIOSes are slightly smaller than the installable ones; Phoenix BIOS editor Pro refuse to open them because of a wrong filesize. They can be succesfully flashed, though.

If you backup yout current BIOS with phlash16, and compare the backup and the file you flashed, are they the same size? same md5sum?

PD: My Phoenix BIOS editor Pro can't modify a BIOS file twice; I can open an original, modify it and then rebuild it, but if I open a previously modified one, it fails to build it. I've posted a link to the original BIOS1.WPH file from packard-bell in the Phoenix BIOS mod request thread, for those interested (that download also includes a fixed dsdt table to replace put in the BIOS using BIOS editor).

 

Hate to bump an old thread, but has anyone managed to solder a mini-PCIe connector on to pop in a Broadcom Crystal HD or something similar?

 

For those who the love their LT31's but want a bit more..............

 

Welp, got the Intel 6300 WiFi in, tried to pop it in and install a third antenna but the damn thing will not POST or display anything on screen with the new card in. Anyone have any idea / words of wisdom?

The card is tested and works in another system and I tried popping in a RAlink card and the system has no problems either.

 

Just got done with the L310 upgrade. That keyboard is a pain to remove though, the clipping system it tough.

Well no speed demon it runs much better booting and other tasks are smoother and now even 720P flash works well full screen albeit with a saturated CPU load. haven't tried the overclock with it but I don't see over 55c full load with the 720p Flash. This is using MX5 on the CPU.

In all a worth while upgrade and it makes the system much more usable.........

 

Not sure if anyone is interested in these anymore but my daughter loves the L310. It has been a couple of days now and she states the system is much more responsive. The only one problem is she was using the book sitting on a leather couch and since the air vents were blocked it over heated.

Normal usage though is fine. Temps never see over 55c just as before. Batttery life went from about 3:45 to 3:15 but the amount of work that can get done without waiting for the CPU to unflood more than makes up for the loss of life. So it seems this is the cpu these should have had from day one. Now it is time for a larger battery...................

 

My daughter didn't listen and ran the system sitting on the leather couch again. Now the video card over heated and fried. Ran great while it lasted................

 

Oooh, this is info I can use. Have you posted the USB tweak details somewhere in these forums? I'll run a search if that's the case....

I have the sleep/wake issues, and also the wifi crapping out randomly. Much more of both problems in the last month....

 

Hi all. About half and a year ago I bought a Packard Bell DOT M/A here in Spain (I think it's the same machine that yours lt3103) and after upgrading the cpu from the factory L110 to a L310 bought through Ebay I'm having quite temp problems.
The L310 idles about 50-55ºC but when it's time to watch a youtube 720p video it raises to 70ºC or little more. After one minute or two, the netbook crashes: sometimes it turns itself off, sometimes I get a blank screen and freezes.
Today I changed the thermal compound to artic silver 5 but I still getting the same problems.
I tried to monitor the fan speed but I didn't find any compatible software (my fan is working, but it seems quite silent to me). Also I'm thinking about a north bridge problem: its thermal pad seems to be quite crappy, but I can't change it for only thermal grease because of the needed thickness.
Any advice?¿ Thanks!

P.D. I tested with a bigger power supply (90W) and got the same results...