Packard Bell Easynote BG45-U-300 Overview
If you’ve read through my blog you may of noticed that I own one of these little budget laptops. I originally had an ASUS 701 then a 901. The BG45 just stomps all over them.
- Getting the most out of your Easynote BG45-U-300
- See how fast it boots
- See it playing a game
- How to install a new hard drive
- How to upgrade the RAM
- Elecom ZeroShock III case for Packard Bell BG45-U-300
If you have recently re-installed your Easynote BG45-U-300 and accidently deleted your restore partition. You will need the following download to get your hotkeys working again. Once you download the file unpack the rar file then install the driver in ATK first then one in ATKAPP you may have to reboot once finished.
If you need any help with the Easynote just leave me a comment and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
April 3rd, 2009 05:21
Hi,
I would be really interested to know if you have any tips and advice on upgrading the hard-drive on the BG45 laptop, since the 80Gb is really restricting me.
Thanks
April 3rd, 2009 05:46
Hi Peter, I will see if I can sort some instructions out for you this evening.
April 3rd, 2009 06:10
That would be excellent, I changed the RAM relatively easily so hopefully the hard-drive won’t be too much harder… I trust you have my email address from these posts?
Thanks
April 5th, 2009 09:17
Peter… please see my quick guide for replacing the hard drive at…
http://www.bumpytrails.co.uk/2009/04/05/packard-bell-easynote-bg45-u-300-hard-drive-removal/
July 5th, 2009 13:07
Hi there, how is the BG45 doing?
am I right in saying the lid is rubbery, I saw one in a Curry’s but they don’t have it any more.
July 6th, 2009 08:29
Hey Chris, thanks for dropping back past the website. The laptop is still going strong - its running Windows 7 very very very well. It does have a rubbery lid yes which is kinda nice.
July 7th, 2009 08:09
I wish the BG46 didn’t have such an awful colour scheme. The CPU bump, ram, OS, battery, usb DVD seems nice for the extra £100 considering a 6-cell for the BG45 is £85.
Sorry I have dithering down to an artform.
I am not seeing much else that comes close. The new Medion 11″ looks nice, it is a single core 64-bit Sempron with an X1250. So not super powerful, but again there is that battery life to consider.
July 9th, 2009 15:53
ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww
July 10th, 2009 01:29
I assume you just saw the silver/white/green BG46! why o why
July 10th, 2009 07:47
Yeah its really nasty…. i would not buy one in that colour! I only got my BG45 because the price was right.. sub £300.
July 18th, 2009 06:58
Hi just found this blog and will be back to check on it, some nice (relevant) articles for me here.
Just wondering if anyone knows of where to find a 6-cell battery for the bg45? Cheapest I’ve found is £80. Have been using this laptop since summer last year and my only complaint is the dire battery life
July 18th, 2009 07:04
Thanks Andy! I also agree with you about the battery its not great, but hey you get what you pay for… I think if you go to the Packard Bell website there may be way of purchasing a better battery however it does add bulk to the laptop.
July 23rd, 2009 09:32
Just got my BG45
Very nice in the flesh.
Now need to buy a case, any recomendations?
Thinking about either a Zero Shock Sleeve or Ultimate Addons Messenger
July 23rd, 2009 09:35
Nice one dude…. I have a Swordfish 12″ slip case. Did you get it in black?
July 23rd, 2009 09:38
How much did you pay for it?
July 24th, 2009 00:20
I got it in Black. My dithering cost me, Dixons sold out at £250 and I had to buy the last one at EuroPC for £270.
I would unbox, but it comes in EuroPC packaging, which is super brown.
October 23rd, 2009 03:53
I have recently upgraded the wifi card to a
GIGABYTE GN-WI07HT-RH miniPCI EXPRESS Wireless card - Atheros Super AG 108 Mpbs AR5006 mini PCI-E, mPCIe
http://www.oxfordtec.com/uk/MiniPCI-EXPRESS-Wireless/c42/p145/GIGABYTE-GN-WI07HT-RH-miniPCI-EXPRESS-Wireless-card—Atheros-Super-AG-108-Mpbs-AR5006-mini-PCI-E,-mPCIe-adapter/product_info.html
Which should run at 108Mbps but it will only run at 54mbps,
I am connecting to a Netgear DG834GT which is 108Mbps enabled
From what i can find using Google it should be automatic but alas it does not run at full speed,
I have downloaded the latest drivers from the Gigabyte web page and installed them (it shows the driver version as 7.7.0.384)
My Netgear is using firmware V1.02.13 and is WEP enabled as well as Access Control switched On.
Any help you can provide would be appreciated
October 26th, 2009 07:51
Me again.
Im glad to report my EasyNote BG45-U-300 is now running at 108Mbps using my new wifi adapter, we do have a minor niggle though as the 108 speed only comes on when required due to increased traffic flow, however is is not always very quick to change from 54 to 108 when watching the status monitor in the background,
Does anyone know if there is a way to have the 108 speed always on?
thanks in advance
M
November 14th, 2009 02:39
Hello,
I have an Easynote… Do you know what’s on restore partition?
Can I just delete it, or maybe back it up somewhere else? It would be good to have the extra space, but I still want to be able to recover the laptop if it goes wrong again (last time I recovered it I used an external DVD drive, but I’m not sure if it reads anything from that 10GB partition).
Thanks,
Nigel
November 14th, 2009 14:18
I wouldn’t delete the restore partition if you are unsure of how to recover a PC without one. However if you plug in an external DVD drive you can create Recovery Discs. Once you have them you can delete the partition. Its probably more handy to keep that recovery partition there though for those unexpected times when you need to restore quickly. Its only 10gb.
November 17th, 2009 23:55
So do you mean it’s just the same content as I have on the recovery discs?
If so I’ll probably just delete it - I have the recovery discs as well as ISO copies of them on another computer.
February 18th, 2010 17:38
More upgrades on my BG45
I have been running Win 7 64bit for 6 weeks now with no issues, i was concerned that i would have to use 32bit, but no the 64 works a treat, looks like it’s time to upgrade the ram to 4Gb
Also tonight i upgraded the WiFi (again) this time i found a SparkLan N Draft card which only requires 2 Ariel points
http://www.oxfordtec.com/uk/MiniPCI-EXPRESS-Wireless/c42/p204/SparkLAN-WPEA-110N–802.11n-a/b/g/N-draft-2.0-2.4/5GHz-Dual-band-2T/2R-Mini-PCI-Express-Module,-Atheros-AR9280,-chipset,-also-compatible-with-most-HP/Compaq/product_info.html
Initially after install the connection speed changed to 130Mbs but after resetting my Router (WAG325N) it went straight to 300Mbs
I will let you all know if there are any issues/updates
March 4th, 2010 10:38
I upgraded my 4GB BG45 to Windows 7 64bit about 5 months ago, its been spot on and I found this forum particularly useful as i utilised the hotkey ATK APP successfully to resolve my hotkeys not working after the upgrade. Strange thing is recently the volume control using the fn and f6/7 no longer controls my audio. I’ve tried upgrading the driver and still no resolution. All other functions work ok so i am puzzled.
Has anyone else experienced this problem and if so, do you know a solution?
Cheers
Warren
April 16th, 2010 11:57
Hi Folks. What Windows 7 option did you use to upgrade you BG45? Mine came with Vista Basic and it looks like the Win 7 Home Premium Upgrde does the trick but I have seen some sites saying that you need Vista Home Preium for that uopgrade pack to work. I am keen on moving to the 64 bit install so know I need to do a clean install - again does the Win 7 Home Premium Upgrade version allow that?
Thanks
January 29th, 2011 10:59
Has anyone ever managed to upgrade the processor on a BG45? What socket does it have… or does anyone know what other processors are compatible?
December 16th, 2011 14:01
Hello. I have removed my vista and now it is windows 7 64 bit on it. I have also 2,5 Gb ram. it is much better then this win vista with 1 GB ram that was on it from netshop. It was not function at all. it took 10 minutes for it to start up. I send it back to Packard Bell and told them that it was not possible for me to use. They returned it to me and should also let me pay 160 dollar for their control of the laptop. I will never buy a new laptop from acer / packard bell because of their customer support.
I will instead of them use HP and Dell. Both of them have a fantastic customer support.
December 16th, 2011 14:21
You get what you pay for… Dell do have good service great units to - I worked as a professional technician for a while and wouldn’t touch a HP as the majority of units are glitchy.