• Tag Archives Gateway

  • Digital Archaeology: Gateway DX4300-11

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    I know I’ve said it before, but once upon a time, Gateway (AKA Gateway 2000) used to make awesome systems. Before I started building my own systems, I had a 1993 era 486 from Gateway 2000 and a 1997 era Pentium II from them as well and they were both great computers. At one point i was seriously considering buying one of their Destination systems that came along a couple of years later. I think it was sometime during the Pentium 4 era maybe that they really started going downhill. In 2004, Gateway bought eMachines and not long after that it seemed like most Gateway PCs were on the same level as eMachines in terms of components and build quality. Things did not improve when Acer bought Gateway in 2007 and ultimately the brand was quietly retired. A sad end for a once great company. It’s not a unique story of course, Compaq suffered pretty much the same fate.

    Anyway, this particular Gateway with the pretty generic model name of DX4300-11 was being sold in 2009. This was a couple of years after being purchased by Acer so in my mind, this is really an Acer computer. I believe the motherboard is even made by Acer. In includes a Phenom II processor and 8 GB of RAM. I guess its most unique features were the angled card reader at the top and an included TV tuner card. Specs include:

    • CPU: Phenom II X4 805 @ 2.5GHz
    • RAM: 8 GB PC2-6400 (400 MHz)
    • Video: Radeon HD 5670 (upgraded from on-board Radeon HD 3200)

    For more complete specs, check out the output of HWiNFO or CPU-Z.

    Physically, it has a sleek black theme that was popular at the time. It looks nice enough but isn’t very distinctive. As far as the components go, they went pretty cheap. The motherboard features AM2+ support. The processor itself is an AM3 processor but these worked in AM2+ boards though with DDR2 memory instead of DDR3. I believe this was the lowest end quad core Phenom II processor and it was released roughly a year before this PC was being sold. The motherboard featured the 780G chipset which includes AMD Radeon HD 3200 (RS780) integrated video. As far as integrated video goes, I guess it wasn’t that bad. However, the cheapest discrete video card at the time was likely many times better. I’ve added a Radeon HD 5670 just to try out.

    Upgradeability of OEM systems is often limited, difficult and/or impractical. This machine is certainly no exception. The CPU is upgradeable but you are limited to 95 watt processors so not just any AM2+/AM3 processor will work. Still, there are some six core Phenom IIs that may work. I believe the RAM is maxed out at 8 GB. At least that is the max that is officially supported. There is an x16 PCI-E slot for a video card upgrade but you are really limited unless you also upgrade the power supply which is only 300 watt. The HD 5670 i added requires no external power so it is ok. The good news is that a standard ATX power supply is used so it is fairly easily replaced. In theory, you can even upgrade the motherboard but I’m not sure if the front panel connectors are standard or not.

    Reviews at the time basically said that this was an ok computer but was more expensive that similar models from other vendors. It seems that Gateway was trying to appeal to customers who wanted TV capability in their PC by including a TV tuner card. A very generic and seemingly obscure TV tuner card I might add.

    I probably won’t end up keeping this machine. Gateway was my favorite PC maker back in the day but ones from this era just make me sad. However, for now, when it is running it crunches tasks for BOINC. It can still crunch tasks for all of the projects I participate in including Einstein@home, Milkyway@home, Asteroids@home, Universe@home, Rosetta@home, and World Community Grid.


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  • Digital Archaeology: Gateway M250XL

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    Gateway, or Gateway 2000 as it was known as at the time, was my favorite producer of computers in the 1990s and early 2000s. I never bought a new laptop from them but I did get a couple of desktops over the years including a 486 model in 1993 and a Pentium II model in 1997. I would start building my own computers after that but Gateway also had nice Pentium III and Athlon based systems a little later on.

    I’m not sure when Gateway’s quality started to decline. I think it was probably around the Pentium IV era. I don’t know that they were necessarily unreliable or anything but they just seemed to be not as great of a value and they had a cheaper look and feel. They no longer stood out as exceptional machines as they once did.

    As I recall, their laptops were pretty nice too, at least during the early days with the Solo line. This particular model, the Gateway M250(XL?) was released in 2005 so it’s from quite a bit later than the Solo line. It doesn’t seem to be a bad machine but it doesn’t really stand out from the crowd either. Still, it’s probably as good as most laptops of the time outside of high end workstations and gaming machines.

    The M250 line was first introduced in June 2005 and featured three models:

    1. The M250S which was a low-end version featuring a 1.4GHz Celeron M 360 CPU, 256MB of DDR2 RAM and a 40GB hard drive for $849.99
    2. The M250E a middle of the road model pushed for education and business use that featured a 1.6GHz Pentium M CPU, 256MB of DDR2 RAM and a 40GB hard drive for $1,269.00.
    3. The top of the line (at least for this model range) M250XL which featured a 1.87GHz Pentium M CPU, 512MB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive.

    This particular model features a 2.0GHz Pentium M, 2GB of DDR2 RAM and an 80GB hard drive. I assume that this is a slightly later refresh of the M250XL and has probably had the RAM upgraded.

    This model features the following:

    • Processor: Pentium M 760 @ 2.00 GHz
    • RAM: 2 GB DDR2
    • Video: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express
    • Screen: 17-inch 1280×768
    • Hard Drive: HITACHI HTS541010G9AT00 Travelstar 5K100
    • Optical Drive: QSI 8x DVD+-RW SDW-082

    Plus the usual array of ports including 4 USB ports, firewire, VGA out, S-Video out, Ethernet, mic input, headphone, SD card and modem. A much larger port variety than you will find on modern laptops.

    You can see more detailed specs here.

    I would say that this laptop was a mid-range model. Compared to it’s larger brother, the 680XL, this laptop is a bit more limited. It has many similarities, including a similar (though slightly slower) CPU and design. It is a smaller, more portable laptop but the smaller screen has a lower resolution. That and the lack of a dedicated graphics chip are probably the most significant differences. However, that lack of dedicated graphics definitely puts in into a lower class for things like games.

    The CPU is a 2.00 GHz Pentium M 760. This is one of the fastest Pentium M CPUs. It generally matches the speed or comes close to the fastest Core Solo CPUs as well. It clocks in at 2 GHz with a 533 MHz bus and 2 MB L2 cache.

    As mentioned above, this laptop does not include a dedicated graphics chip. Instead it relies on the integrated graphics of the Intel 915GM chipset. While this of course is more than sufficient to drive the 14-inch 1280×768 display for most typical tasks, it’s not so great for games or other graphically intensive apps. However, it is better for power consumption and battery life. It also came it at a lower price.

    In more modern usage, there are two drawbacks. First, having a 32-bit CPU is increasingly becoming a liability. Of course, 64-bit CPUs have been around a really long time at this point but 32-bit CPUs were still supported by modern operating systems until recently. Earlier versions of Windows 10 supported 32-bit CPUs for instance. However, later versions of Windows 10 dropped support for 32-bit CPUs and Windows 11 only supports 64-bit CPUs. In addition, most linux distributions have dropped support for 32-bit CPUs. Debian still supports 32-bit CPUs but who knows for how much longer. This laptop is currently running Debian 10.

    The other main drawback is limited RAM. This laptop probably shipped with 512MB and has since been upgraded to 2GB. However, I believe that this is the max amount of RAM that this laptop can handle. It’s definitely the maximum that is officially supported though it is possible that it might recognize 3GB or even 4GB. Even though there is at least one modern version of Linux still being released in a 32-bit version, you really want a full 4GB if possible. Software has gotten a lot more memory hungry over the years.

    So while it is still possible to use this machine in a modern environment, it probably works best as a retro machine. It was originally designed for Windows XP and while the lack of a dedicated GPU makes it not the best choice for retrogaming, there’s still plenty of older games you could play on it. The nice thing about retrogaming is it is just a matter of going back another year or two in gaming releases to get to something that works well on your hardware.

    This laptop is also not quite yet too old to run BOINC projects though options are becoming more limited. Fewer and fewer projects support 32-bit CPUs. Still, this machine is receiving work from four projects which is more than the 680XL was getting but I think that come down to the fact that I’m running a slightly newer version of Linux with a slightly newer version of BOINC. Those projects include Einstein@home, Asteroids@home, Rosetta@home, and World Community Grid. You can check out its overall stats at FreeDC or BOINCStats.


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  • Digital Archaeology: Gateway M-6316

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    When looking at another Gateway laptop I pondered when exactly when Gateway’s quality started to decline. I think it may have been with Core 2 Duo era laptops. While previous Pentium M and Turion 64 laptops (nearly identical in construction) may have lost some of the excitement of earlier models, they at least seemed pretty solid and of decent quality. The Core 2 Duo era laptop I’m looking at here, while it has an attractive silver and red design, it also has a flimsier feeling keyboard and buttons. Still, I would say it holds up better than Dell Inspiron models of similar age.

    The Gateway M-6316 I am looking at here has the following features:

    • CPU: Pentium T2330 @ 1.60GHz
    • Memory: 2 GB DDR2-666/PC2-5300
    • Video: Intel GMA X3100
    • Screen: 1280×800
    • Hard Drive: Toshiba MQ01ABF0 (500 GB)
    • Optical Drive: HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T20N

    Check out the output of HardInfo for a more complete look at the hardware.

    This is definitely a lower-end laptop. The CPU, while labeled a “Pentium”, is essentially a Core 2 Duo. They gave lower end versions of Core 2 Duo processors either a Pentium or Celeron designation though the naming conventions don’t appear to have been terribly consistent. In addition to typically lower clock speeds, Pentium and Celeron variants had less cache. The Pentium Dual-Core had 2MB of cache while the Celeron had 512KB to 2GB depending on the specific model. Core 2 Duo processors had 2-4MB. At least among the Merom variants.

    The video hardware is also low end. About as low end as you could get in fact. This laptop contains an Intel GMA X3100 which was an Intel chipset integrated solution. This chip has the dubious distinction of being Intel’s first chip with hardware transform and lighting making it Vista ready. However, for gaming purposes, it was pretty useless.

    Vista was in fact the version of Windows that shipped with this laptop. I’m not sure if it was the 32-bit or 64-bit version. It seems like the 32-bit version was typically included at the default install. Some users likely would have downgraded to Windows XP as well. Windows 7 and/or Windows 8 are probably the best choices for a Microsoft OS for this laptop. Any of those are fine for retro use but if you really plan to use it in a modern context then Linux would be the best choice.

    With perhaps the slowest dual core Merom processor and pretty much the lowest end video solution, this was definitely a laptop for bargain hunters. Still, having two cores and a 64-bit processor it is really still good enough to run a modern OS. The cap of 4GB of RAM is actually the biggest limitation. Windows 10 really does better with 8 GB, especially when the rest of your hardware is already low end. However, I’m running a modern version of Xubuntu and it does fine. Web browsing is problematic because modern web browsers are such memory hogs. However, if you stick to 1 or 2 tabs then it is usable, if not exactly snappy.

    It’s also still good enough to run BOINC and most projects, at least the ones I am most interested in. You can see how it is doing in Einstein@home, MilkyWay@home, Rosetta@home, Asteroids@home, Universe@home and World Community Grid or see how it is doing overall at FreeDC.


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