Gateway LT3101u 11.6" netbook impressions/thoughts/reviews

Ok.... so who has tried an SSD is this bugger? I currently have one but am dismayed at losing the ability to sleep and hibernate, my battery life went way down, and it's fast, but it's not THAT fast....

So let's figure out what I'm not doing that I should to get the SSD benefits (since I found out I can't return the thing, hmph).

Thanks!

LT3103u, stock everything except OCZ Solid3 120gb SSD
Original 3103 Phoenix BIOS
Win 7 Ultimate

 

BCM970015 Full HD Crystal Decoder latest than bcm970012 | eBay

1080p flawlessly and my L310 doesn't even heat up much over 50C now. Next I'm gonna try soldering in another PCIE slot to try and get the internal WIFI going again, although I'd rather have the HD decoder. Really like this little machine alot.

LT3113H X2 L310/320GB HD/BCM70015 1080p/9 cell battery/WIN 7

 

Hello guys,

I have a LT3101u and was thinking about a cpu upgrade.

Do you guys think it is a good option to change the L110 to a TL-52 ? The TL-52 price is awesome.

 

No. The TLs will not work for you. I tried to upgrade mine with a TK-42, spent almost a year screwing around with DSDT to get it so it wouldn't shut down randomly (this is only running at 1.4 Ghz, mind you). The voltage regulator just can't handle the extra power draw in my revision. Do yourself a favor, grab a L310 off of eBay for 50 bucks and call it a day. I OC mine to 1.4 Ghz and it runs just fine =).

 

@misstenacity, it is also really bizarre that your battery life decrease drastically. IF anything, it should have increased. You really shouldn't have lost any of those other abilities either, it's just an HD (SSD, whatever, it shouldn't matter). Did you clone your original drive to the new SSD? I would imagine not, as mine is a 250GB and you replaced it with a 120GB. I installed, albiet briefly, a 60GB OCZ in mine and it worked just fine. I didn't really notice a difference in performance or battery life that would justify the cost, so I installed the SSD in my desktop and but the old HDD back in. At 1.2 ghz, I don't think there is really much of a benefit to the SSD unless you do a lot of random read/writes for some reason.

 

Sorry for the delay - yeah, I know the battery should have gone up! Anyway... I am now the potentially proud owner of an HP DM1Z-4000 and the much-beloved LT3103u will be going up on Craigslist, probably with its original HD.

Thank you for your thoughts!

 

Yes, old thread but new news. I started tinkering with the laptop again and I tried an L510. It does work but the BIOS doesn't recognize it. Other Windows apps don't see it either. It seems to run very well but not full blown 1.6 ghz stress test under prime95. If I let it sit in the BIOS, it will eventually shut the computer down. So, best to have it using RMClock and have it spike to 1.6 ghz. I have the L310 too and in comparison that runs hotter when idle. Even at 20 watts, L310 seems a bit hot on the lap.

 

You left out the best part!.. LOL.. how does it perform with the L510? Looking at passmark benchmarks, from what I recall it's a 40% speed jump? I upgraded from the L110 to the L310, and it was well worth it. Price for processor off ebay was great, but I see the L510 is still quite costly@ ~$100 Where did you get yours?

Did you update Bios? I have a Gateway and noticed an update bios available. Not sure if they added support for the processor, only remarks I saw noted were that of correcting notebok hibernation problem, but there certainly could have been additional improvements.

Let me know I got this laptop working with a DIY Vdock and it is impresive.

 

I'm surprised you got the 510 to boot up OK. It might pull a little less power than the TK-42, but I had all sorts of trouble with that guy. After that experience, I'll be loath to purchase a $100 proc (unless they magically turn cheap cheap =)

 

One last post to this old thread, which; along with some other places on the web provided me enough info to help me decide how to upgrade this neat little machine! I was given one of these a few weeks ago by one of my sons, who had bought it used from a friend. I think he bought it for his wife to use, but she is very much an iPhone person and this machine was too slow I think, for her. They knew that I can't say no to a computer, so I brought it home. That evening, it wanted to download and install some updates (Win7 x64). That took forever! I spent the next few days combing the web for info and decrappifying the machine. After uninstalling a bunch of ipod/iphone updating stuff, getting rid of all the eye candy for the OS, adding a 8GB SD card for Readyboost and defraqgging the HD, it started to pep up a bit. I'm still not 100% sure of the effect of Readyboost....but it 'seemed' to help. Next, I found that some folks upgraded to 4GB of memory. Got that...still a bit of a pricey upgrade, but 2GB on Win7 is just too meager in my book. The machine is usable at this point, no speed demon, but it wasn't meant to be even in it's day. Next, I started experimenting with overclocking with SetFSB. Four years of experience from other folks helped there and soon I was running @ 1.43Ghz. Now we're talking. What more could I do? Well, some folks upgraded the CPU. Too many to list, some worked, some worked sometimes with special tricks. You also have to crack this thing open and get it back together without screwing anything up! Much different than a desktop which I've done numerous times. Fast forward to yesterday. The L310 processor that cost $16.35 and wasn't supposed to be here until tomorrow (thanks USPS for not cancelling Saturday delivery just yet!) arrived. I ran across a good take apart tutorial for the Packard Bell Dot M/A (what kind of name is that?) and it went pretty easily once I got the keyboard off. Booted right up and ran well, but I had a few crashes (not BSOD's). Today, I updated the BIOS to the latest on Gateway's site and this seems to have fixed the crashes (fingers crossed). Now this thing is really usable. Plays Youtube, Hulu and Netflix with no sweat. Still no speed demon, but it's a nice little machine. All laptops are portable....but some are more portable than others. I'm happy with the ~$90 investment!

 

Necro-replying, just in case you come back and read this: I always get heavy graphics corruption under Linux. Also, did you ever make a BIOS with custom DSDT to work with that processor? I would very much like it, I have an lt31, and I have the same processor. But perhaps you are just underclocking in Linux? In which case I want your recipe. I might knock everything over 1.2GHz off the top. Thanks for these voltages though.