• Tag Archives Gateway

  • Digital Archaeology: Gateway NV57H

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    The Gateway NV57H is an i3-2310M based laptop. As such, it certainly isn’t “vintage” and it would be stretching things quite a bit to even call it “retro”. It’s really just kind of old. It dates back to circa 2012. This is well after Acer bought them and was basically using the name to rebadge Acer’s low to mid-range hardware.

    The model number, like most, is pretty indecipherable. The hardware includes:

    • CPU: Intel i3-2310M @ 2.1 GHz
    • RAM: 4 GB DDR3
    • Video: Intel
    • Hard Drive: 300 GB
    • Screen: 1366×768

    For more complete hardware specs, check out the output from HardInfo.

    I was a huge fan of Gateway back in the day. Before they were bough by Acer. Before they bought E-Machines. Before then, they made some pretty good hardware. After that, it was pretty generic stuff. Not necessarily bad for what you were paying but nothing that really stood out from the crowd either. Today, you can still buy Gateway laptops in Wal-Mart. But again, these are just rebadged machines from other makers. Gateway hasn’t made anything in a long time.

    I assume this laptop was designed for the budget minded consumer. It has no discrete GPU and otherwise pretty average/lowish-end stats for the time. If you were buying this machine it was because it was the best deal at the time or because you liked how it looked (I do kind of like the red color). It certainly wasn’t for the high-end specs or unique features.

    There’s nothing wrong with a budget laptop if it meets your needs. My biggest problem with them is that cheap laptops tend to have cheap screens. For instance, this one only has a resolution of 1366×768. For a machine you are going to use a lot, a higher resolution screen is a huge benefit, even when this one was made.

    Obviously, this laptop isn’t useful for gaming. The 4 GB of RAM is enough for Windows 7 (which it shipped with), Windows 8, or Windows 10 if you are a bit of a masochist. It runs Linux fairly well (I have it running Xubuntu currently). Also, you should be able to upgrade it to 8 GB of RAM. This would be beneficial for any 64-bit OS and it would help Window 10 significantly. The other major upgrade you could do is to replace the hard drive with an SSD. With those two upgrades it would be quite useable in a modern environment (with the exception that you can’t install Windows 11).

    One problem I’ve notice with my particular machine is that the CPU throttles under heavy load. This could either be because of poor thermal design or because the heatsink is clogged with dust on the back side. I haven’t taken it apart yet to check…looks like it might be a pain to disassemble.

    Despite the throttling, I have this laptop running BOINC like I do with all of the hardware I use. It can do work for pretty much any project and so far it has returned work units for Einstein@home, MilkyWay@home, Asteroids@home and World Community Grid. You can see how it is doing overall at FreeDC.


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  • Digital Archaeology: Gateway MX6426

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    The Gateway MX6426 has an interesting dichotomy of features. It has a Turion 64 processor which is among the earliest 64-bit laptop processors. It competed with the Pentium M early in it life and later on with the Core and Core 2 processors. It was quite a bit faster than even the fastest Pentium M processors and competed favorably in terms of price.

    However, this laptop (and probably lots of other featuring the Turion 64) has some limitations that prevent this processor from reaching its true potential. The biggest limitation is the fact that this laptop only supports a maximum of 2 GB of RAM (it originally shipped with 1 GB). I’m not sure why they skimped on the hardare this way as the biggest advantage of 64-bit processors was support for RAM above 4 GB.

    The next limitation makes the first one a little less important. This laptop shipped with Windows XP which is a 32-bit OS. This isn’t really the fault of Gateway though, AMD just had 64-bit CPUs available commercially before 64-bit operating systems were ready for prime time. This laptop can of course be upgraded to a 64-bit OS and I have it running a 64-bit version of Xubuntu at the moment. However, the 2GB limitation means that this really isn’t much of an advantage.

    Unfortunately, the video solution isn’t that great either, at least if you were hoping to play any games. This laptop features the Mobility Radeon Xpress 200. While slightly better, this was more or less the equivalent of the Intel GMA 950 which is about as low end as you can go. So while the CPU would have been more than enough for the latest games, the Xpress 200 with its shared memory and limited capabilities would have been useful only for older titles or those with very light requirements at the time.

    The hardware of the MX6426 includes:

    • CPU: Turion 64 MK-40 @2.2 GHz (K8)
    • RAM: 1 GB DDR-333
    • Video: Mobility Xpress 200 (RS480M)
    • Screen: 1280×800
    • Hard Drive: Fujitsu MHV2080A (80 GB)
    • Optical Drive: HL-DT-ST DVD-RW GWA-4082N

    For more complete specs, see the output of hardinfo here.

    As far as the design, it’s similar to other Gateway laptops of the era. They had an understated gray and black design with blue lighting that seemed to be popular with many manufacturers at the time. It feels solid and well built and the keyboard is reasonably nice to type on. Overall, it seems like a pretty good choice for a budget laptop. Obviously for gaming you would have needed something with a dedicated GPU as opposed to the integrated motherboard solution this laptop provides.

    Though useable with a modern OS, it’s not the greatest choice. The single core and limited RAM expansion really hurt it in that regard. However, if you are looking to play around with Windows XP it would work great.

    Like all the old (and new) computers I play around with, this one runs BOINC and it supports most of my favorite projects including Einstein@home, Asteroids@home, Universe@home, and World Community Grid. It hasn’t received any work for Rosetta@home but that project doesn’t alway provide non-VM work and this laptop may not have enough memory for Rosetta work anyway. You can also check how this laptop is doing on FreeDC or BOINCStats.


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  • Digital Archaeology: Gateway MT6723

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    At first glance, the Gateway MT6723 seems to be a pretty nice laptop. It has solid construction, a decent keyboard, and a nice screen even though it has a pretty mediocre resolution. However, the low end processor, integrated video and questionable thermals really bring down my opinion. The basic stats of this laptop include:

    • CPU: Pentium Dual Core T2310 (Merom) @ 1.46 GHz
    • 2 GB PC2-5300
    • Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 (integrated)
    • 15.4″ TFT Display with 1280×800 resolution
    • 160GB SATA HDD @ 5400RPM
    • 10/100 Fast Ethernet
    • 56k V.92 Modem
    • 8x DVD-RW Drive
    • Line-On/Realtek WN6300L 802.11b/g MiniPCI-Express Adapter
    • ExpressCard/54 Slot
    • 5-in-1 Card Reader

    For more complete specs, check out the output from HardInfo.

    The Core 2 Duo line of processors covered a massive range. “Pentium” and “Celeron” variations tended to be lower end models with less cache and lower clock speeds, at least compared to other Core 2 Duo CPUs in the same generation. This one is a Pentium and it is definitely on the lower end of the scale. In fact, this must me one of the slowest CPUs in the entire range.

    Being one of the slowest, you would think this CPU would run relatively cool. But in this laptop at least, it runs so hot under full load that it will throttle. I checked to make sure the fan and heatsink were relatively dust free and that the fan seemed to be working well but it still runs hot. Perhaps reapplying thermal paste would help but it really seems like this laptop just doesn’t cool well.

    As far as upgrade possibilities, being a laptop there aren’t many. I couldn’t find any information on CPU upgrades for this model. You may be able to upgrade it to a faster Core 2 Duo or you may not. You can of course upgrade to a larger hard drive or SSD. Mine already has 2 GB which is the maximum officially supported though information online suggests that 4 GB works as well.

    The integrated Intel video cements this as a low end machine. It has a pretty nice screen for a low-end laptop so if your main need was for word processing, spreadsheets, and e-mail then this would have been an ok budget machine when new. However, for both retro usage and modern usage it is pretty lousy. Using integrated Intel graphics makes it useless for retrogaming which is one of the main retro uses. The extra slow CPU and the RAM being limited to at best 4 GB makes it less than ideal for Windows 10 or modern mainstream Linux distributions.

    Like all the machines I use, I have BOINC installed on this one and it is able to do work for all of my usual projects including Einstein@home, Milkyway@home, Rosetta@home, Asteroids@home, Universe@home and World Community Grid. You can see how it is doin overall at FreeDC.


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