well I thought I would document the upgrades I have done to my new Gateway and provide some new pictures as well.

What have I have done to date

1. CPU Upgrade to T8300

2. HD upgrade to 2 x 160 GB 7200 RPm Drives

3. WUXGA Upgrade

4. Memory Upgrade to 4 gigs. (Dual Channel)

I will post the benchmarks as well


So CPU uphrade been covered pretty well on this laptop, just to add, it is one of the most easiest laptops I have seen to upgrade the CPU on. Removal of the bottom cover plate via the 4 srews reveals the CPU, WiFi, Turbo memory, and Memory.

Next removal of the heat pipe assembly (via the 5 screws) and it lifts out easily.

Unlocking the CPU with a small flat blade screw driver and reverse the steps to reassemble. Note to clean the old thermal paste and apply some new AS5.

Also make sure you do not damage the thermal pad for the north bridge chip.
(See Photos)


The drives was covered very well already, as stated before the only pain was finding screws small enough and as the other have don I used two screws from the original drive to hold my second drive in place.

WXUGA display.

I will concentrate on this upgrade as it has the most difficulty in upgrading.

It seems that just about any 17 inch WUXGA dusplay will work on this laptop.

What I have found is that the stock WXGA display does not seem to work on other laptops. As an example. I took my E1705 WUXGA display and installed it on my Gateway, It worked fine but the Gateway WXGA screen would not work on my Dell. I also know another member tried his M1710 display with the same results.

In both cases the screen was dark. I suspect it is a Video Card BIOS issue and not reconizing the newer display model from the Gateway laptop.

I managed to pick up a Phillips WUXGA display and inverter for $ 115.00 on Ebay new in the box that was for a Dell laptop.


You have to pop off the 6 rubber covers on the display panel screws, then remove the 6 screws. Using a credit card or in my case my old Bell Calling card, to pry the front bezel from the back cover.

At this point I found it easiest to push the display to the full horizontal position.

Remove the screws holding the side brackets from the display, disconnect the inverter cable, the Web cam cable, and then very carefully you have to lift the tape holding the display video connector from the WXGA display. Take this step slowly and be mindful of the tension you are placing on the cable. Slow and easy win the race here. Once the tape has been lifted from the back side you can slide the conector off the display. also remember you will reuse this tape to connect to the WUXGA screen.


Now one difference I noticed from this display and my E1705 was the brackets that support the inverter were pressed onto the frame, no screws. It took some very careful work to pry the bracket off the bottom of the display, ensuring not to damage the glass. I used some small pliers, and cutters, I believe one person drilled them out. either way DELICATE is the Word.

If your lucky your WUXGA screen will have the screws like my original E1705 screen did, and save you the grief.

The side rails for the Gateway Screen matched up properly with both my Dell displays, and fit properly in the gateway bezels.

The Inverter on the gateway laptop is mounted in the frame for the display ( see picture) it really does not require any mods, just remove the inverter cable from the WXGA screen and plug in the inverter cable from the WUXGA screen. Also as a note I removed some of the tape along the bottom of the WXUGA screen to give me some more cable length on the inverter cable.

You do need to keep the original flex cable for the display as the Web Cam cable and connector are part of the assembly. Careful attention needs to be paid to installing the gateway cable on the new display, making sure the orientation and alignment are correct. I found the cable was not quite as nice to connect as my Dell, which utilized a licking mechanism. Once connected apply the tape t hold the connector in place.

I powered on at this point to verify my new display was working, once done, replacing the Bezel and screws was a breeze.


Last thing I did while the laptop was in a state of disassembly was to remove the keyboard and try to locate the GPU, What I did see seems to inducate to me that the GPU is part of the mainboard. Where I am not 100 % certain, it does seem likely this is the case.

According to the intel Chipset utility, the mainboard was identifed as having an intigrated GPU.

After upgrades 3Dmark06 scores in the 8K range. The lpatop plays COD4 etc great, and I will get some frap scrores posted shortly.

Any questions, comments , Etc Welcomed.


last point, I am not a Vista Fan so one member here was kind enough to point a site out to me that gives you step by step process to install Windows XP. I have done so and it works great.

I picked up an external Floppy drive fpr $ 10.00 on Ebay, and used gateways RAID drivers to install the XP OS. Using the F6 key for third party drivers upon Windows boot up with the Xp install Disk.

here is the link which has also been posted elsewhere.

http://neonpulse.net/2008/03/06/wind...x/#comment-271

a lot of people are downgrading to XP. good luck. it may be tricky.

Im gonna sticky this thread since it seems you are going to upgrade us with your progress

Bechmarks follow next

I have HDTune with the oroignal 250 GB 5400 Drive

Then the RAID 0 Array using the 2 x 160 Gig 7200 RPM drives
both an battery and AC.


3DMark06 Scores Before / After Upgrade

Stock was 7470 in 3DMark06

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=6206182

7849 after CPu upgrade

3DMark06 score 8138 after all upgrades and XP install

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=6261273



Fraps results as follows

BF2

Min Max Avg
87 101 98.917


BF2142

Min Max Avg
49 101 94.9


COD4

Min Max Avg
64 78 70.77


Crysis

Min Max Avg
44 69 53.283

You should submit your benchmarks to the NFB database...

And I'm going to try and find out what's wrong with those HD-Tune scores...

download EFDInspector

http://www.hdtune.com/EFDInspector.exe

and attach the output file to this thread. it will help diagnosis whats wrong

Ok Will will copy all my scores to the database

going to run FRAPS now on Bf2, Bf2142, Cod4, and Crysis

I have it working 100% no problem. The link in my first pst has all the info, but will be happy to help anyone who has any problems

Again, your burst rate test should always be higher than your MAX rate.

It should look like this

I submitted my 3DMark06 Score to the database.

I tried that utility, it crashed, and almost crapped my drives

That's not good.

Wonder if it's something to do with gateways RAID drivers.

I will try to find some other oes this weekend after I back up my files lol

So my next project with this laptop was to try 64 bit Vista

(64 Bit XP is even more poorly supported)

I purchased 2 x Hitachi 200 GB 7200 RPM Sata Drives and of course
Vista had no problem installing on the Raid 0 (Spanning) setup.

System reports all 4 GB of Ram with a Score of 5.1 for memory.

I also installed the intel turbo memory card in the second pci slot.

Will finish installing the last 2 drivers (one Video and one I am still figuring out)

Will post Benchmarks when I have it all ready

Oh yes and I will try the Drive test again under Vista to see if I had the same problem above,

Nice guide Dave but a few questions

1. Now that its a month later and Im assuming you have all the kinks worked out. When you apply the Dell 1920x1200 screen to the Gateway, does it still have a dim display?

2. I got a bit lost with some of the wording, which inverter cables did you have to swip swap in order to get everything to work?

3. So you got a WUXGA off ebay that works for a Dell laptop, now did you use this Phillips screen on the Gateway or Dell?

Im really just confused on what parts didnt work with what.

Hey Ghaz

1. The Dells screens (all I tried) worked on the Gateway no problem. it was getting the newer gateway scren (WXXGA) to work on dells that is the problem.

2. I retained the inverter grom the gateway laptop and used it with the Phillips WUXGA screen (which came with a Dell Inverter).

3. Phillips (Dell Part #) is on the Gateway.

Bugs are worked out, I ran a 64 Bit Vista OS for a day to cerify proper operation, when i have some time I plan to install the 2 200 GB 7200 RPM drives and setup a Dual Boot as some of my apps will only run in XP.

Well I installed 2 x 299GB 7200 rpm Hitachi drives and installed Xp, ran HDTune and still the burst rate is lower than the max. rate. will post the results here

Seems to me it maybe a problem with the raid driver, but it does not seem to effect performance per say.