Gateway 3018GZ underclock?

BillyBuerger · Post by **BillyBuerger** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 9:36 am

I just recently purchased a Gateway 3018GZ laptop. I got it because I liked the size and the wide screen and it has a Celeron M processor.

I was very happy when I first turned it on. There is some slight whine and seek noise from the Fujitsu MHT2060AT drive. But it's not noticable unless in a very quiet room or if I put my ear within a few inches from it. The CPU fan is turned off on startup and stays off for a few minutes. But eventually, even at idle, it kicks in. I've never had it turn back off until shutdown. Maybe if it was sitting idle in a cold room. The noise isn't terrible but definitly noticable. Mostly whooshing with some clicking and bearing noise.

I had figured that most of the time, I would run the processor in low power mode. But as I've been looking around, I can't seem to find any way to do that. The BIOS has no CPU settings at all. I also couldn't find anything in Windows Power Management. Anyone have any ideas on how I could slow the CPU down?

Green Shoes · Post by **Green Shoes** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 9:46 am

Gateway, Dell, Compaq and most other major computer makers have the BIOS so locked down that you can't do much of anything to your computer. This makes perfect sense, as the less things Joe Sixpack can screw around with, the less customer service calls they have to deal with. Sometimes there's a secret keystroke within the BIOS to unlock other options, like CTRL or ALT + one of the function keys, but I'm pretty sure there isn't in Gateway. You may have some success with windows versions of voltage regulation...check out this SPCR article for some more info. It was written a couple of years ago, but the premise of undervolting/underclocking hasn't changed much since then. Good luck.

BillyBuerger · Post by **BillyBuerger** » Tue Apr 19, 2005 10:23 am

Yeah, I think I'm screwed on the BIOS options. But I figured there would have been something for adjusting the CPU power in Windows. I thought that was common for notebooks. Perhaps I was mistaken.

BillyBuerger · Post by **BillyBuerger** » Wed Apr 20, 2005 5:01 am

Another observation... The bad part about the CPU fan is that it's either on or off. So it starts off which is nice and quiet of course. Then it hit's the temperature limit and then the fan kicks in at full blast. It would actually probably be rather quiet if it was temperature controlled. For instance, at the moment it's blowing at full blast but the air is barely warm. When I'm doing some processor intensive tasks, the air will be quite warm. So it's necessary to run this fast. But not now.

So I've had this thing for less than a week and I'm already having thoughts of trying to mod the fan. But being a laptop, I'm quite nervous about trying anything. Maybe I'll just have a look and see how easy it would be to get at the fan. =)

BillyBuerger · Post by **BillyBuerger** » Fri Apr 22, 2005 5:21 am

Oh, it's worse than I thought. I opened it up and checked the fan voltage. When the fan first kicks in, it's actually at 5V. I forgot to write down what the fan model is. But it is a Delta rated at 0.27A. Later, I was playing some Kid Icarus with a NES emulator. I noticed then that the fan actually kicked in even more. I don't know if it jumped up to 12V, but it was definitly louder.

So this is definitly not a "silent" notebook PC.

BillyBuerger · Post by **BillyBuerger** » Mon Apr 25, 2005 8:44 am

Okay, final review of this notebook. I really like it. It does everything I want it to. But it's definitly not a "silent" notebook. You could possibly call it quiet. But that depends on your level of exceptance. I should have done a little more research before my purchase. I had thought that the Celeron M processor would be mostly the same as the Pentium M, just with less cache and slower clock speeds. As it turns out, the Celeron M doesn't have SpeedStep or any equivilent. So it's stuck at the default voltage, multiplier and FSB. I'm guessing that these could be modified manually if the motherboard supported it. But for this notebook, it doesn't. So there are no underclocking options.

As I mentioned earlier, the CPU fan is off on startup. It kicks in at 5V at about 120F. The sound isn't terrible, but not silent. Under load for a time, it kicks up the voltage again. At this point it is definitly noticable and too loud for me unless there is other noise around to drown it out. I took off the cover on the bottom exposing the CPU and heatsink. With the cover off and sitting idle, the CPU will cool off enough that the fan will actually turn off eventually. For a few minutes at least. Then it kicks back in at 5V.

I am very happy with my Gateway 3018GZ laptop. Had I researched more closely and been willing to spend the extra money, I would have gone with the Gateway 3522GZ instead. Same thing but with the Pentium M @1.6Ghz and a DVD+-RW.

Wraith · Post by **Wraith** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 4:39 pm

As it turns out, the Celeron M doesn't have SpeedStep or any equivilent.

Hmm, I didn't know that either. Is that going to hurt battery life, compared to a P-M with SpeedStep? We just got one of these, but I haven't seen it yet.

BillyBuerger · Post by **BillyBuerger** » Thu Apr 28, 2005 5:48 am

I would assume that a Pentium M would have a longer battery life as it can run at slower clock speeds and voltages. On my notebook at full battery power, it guestimates about 2hrs of battery life. I could turn down the screen brightness and get a little more life. But that's my only option. The additional CPU power savings would add more battery life as well.