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| System76 Gazelle Professional gazp6 |
In my post of yesterday, I had described my need for a backup computer system, followed by the subsequent happy discovery and purchase (or shall we say, rescue) of a System76 gazp6 from a life of misery as a Windows machine [1]. The plan was for the gazp6 to function as my backup laptop, should anything happen to cause the loss of my primary computing platform of the last 7 years, my System76 panp8.
After bringing the gazp6 home, I discovered that it could not operate on battery power alone for more than 45 minutes at a time. It also seemed to take hours to charge from empty to not more than 65% as indicated on Ubuntu's battery indicator. Since it was evident that it needed a new battery, I dediced to upgrade whatever else I could as well. That meant the RAM and hard disk drive as well.
When it was built 6 years ago, the gazp6 had been configured by its original owner for 8 GB of RAM under the following configuration, based on a system report:
- 8 GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 2 X 4GB
To verify this, I got in touch with System76's online customer support, helpful as always. However, I believe there was an error in communication. The System76 tech support person confirmed the speed and maximum memory capacity for the gazp6, but informed me that it took SODIMM DDR3L memory modules, not DDR3. This was surprising, but I took it anyway and went in search of 16GB DDR3L modules at the local Vancouver shops.
To my further confusion, I was told that it was outdated server RAM. No one had any for a laptop, either in stock or online. Both eBay and Amazon didn't show availability as well, or seemed to indicate that it was Mac memory. Finally, I opened up the gazp6 memory compartment and called A-power, a local computer store. I inquired part availability based on the part numbers on the memory modules that I could see currently sitting in the RAM slots. I was suprised to be inormed that it was using DDR3 RAM after all. It turned out that there was Kingston memory available in two 8GB modules that would work, but would take some time to source and was expensive. I decided to bite the bullet and go for it anyway.
The RAM arrived a couple of weeks later. I took a photo for reference before and during installation, as shown below.
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| Kingston DDR3 SDRAM, 1333 MHz, 2x 8GB SODIMM modules for the gazp6 |
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| System76 Gazelle Professional gazp6 with memory modules |
The battery sourcing and installation was easier. Since System76 sourced and used Clevo laptop chassis at the time, the gazp6 used a SIMPLO P150HMBAT-8 battery. This was available on Amazon and eBay from various resellers. However, I decided to buy direct from System76, though it was more expensive as opposed to the cheaper options available online. This was again in the interests of having a reliable battery whose origin, supplier, quality and hence warranty could be guaranteed by System76 based on the supplier that they bought from. A photo of the battery before installation is shown below.
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| SIMPLO P-150HMBAT-8 battery for System76 gazp6 |
With the new battery installed, the gazp6 was able to achieve just over 2 hours of runtime on standby power, and about 1.5 hours of regular use. I took a screenshot of a typical charge/discharge cycle after upgrade and have posted them below.
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| Gazp6 battery discharge: time to empty with new SIMPLO P150HMBAT-8 |
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| Gazp6 battery discharge: charge capacity with new SIMPLO P150HMBAT-8 |
In my next post, I'll go through the process of upgrading the hard drives on both my panp8 and gazp6, again with the objective of building long-term reliability and redundancy for my systems.
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