Gateway P-6831FX User Review

Based on their site it does look like you get the game, it says you can add any game to your cart up to 50 bucks for free, no mention of geeksquad on bestbuy.com

but for ad it was 1249 for laptop only

 

wow that's really good... $100 cheaper already... add a 10% off to that(ymmv), another $100, and then use rewardzone card to buy it and get back another $25 in term of rewardzone coupons(half a game), plus the free game... too bad there is tax...

sg

 

wait wait howd you get the extra 10% off? lol

 

What should I get with it, Crysis or UT? or BF 2142 or COD4 modern warfare orrrrr orange box

 

I just picked mine up today at $1250.00 plus I went with the Best Buy warranty for $250.00 vice Gateway's warranty. Great machine, in the middle of my Vista reinstall now.

 

UT3 tons of replay value, awesome addicting fun, graphics are incredible, a must have, and your machine will run it max settings. I got the price match today and it came out to $107.65 I didn't even mention the game the girl said "go pick out a game $49.99 or less" love BestBuy!

 

ARghhh really? UT over Crysis? blah such a hard decision lol

 

Thought Crysis was boring never finished it, plus all the weird problems it has, UT3 runs super smooth. Or just flip a coin!

 

Did my price match today too! Got 108.63 back plus a free game! I went with The Witcher. (Love RPG genre)

*edit* Went back to BB with my cash and picked up a rocketfish Bluetooth Keybord & Laser Mouse (on sale for 80.00)

 

"sigh"
Now idk if i want the witcher either seeing as I just looked at what it was
god I hate how indecisive I am
edit: I also heard oblivion was good......

 

Oblivion is the best game of all time!!!

 

Lol I have no idea if your being sarcastic
My friend just got COD4 said the SP was amazing and the MP is amazing so im probably going to go with that. It got pretty good reviews too. Should be fun playing something besides CSS for a little while atleast

 

Anyone in Canada gotten Bestbuy to pricematch? It's listed on the canadian site now, but only on sale on the American site.

 

Question since it appears many people now own this notebook.

Does anyone have a kill-a-watt or does it say on the power brick how much juice the laptop needs to run? I am curious if it would be possible to run in my car off a DC->AC transformer or gateway adapter (if one is sold)

 

Most laptops can be run out of your car if you have the right adapter....

 

And if its not an adapter made for the specific computer making sure its voltage is the same and the + and -

 

First general point, many devices are set to run 12volts. So its perfect to run off car battery for example.

As for FX, juice it needs to run is 12 volts. Watts it consume at power saver is 25000mwh(25watts/hour) to 80000mwh when playing crysis on high power. Getting a general AC/DC power adaptor defeats the whole purpose of car battery 12volt DC -> ac/dc convertor -> AC power to FX. But its better then spending extra $100 from Gateway for the proper 12volt car power adaptor.

The AC power adaptor is rated at 6amps 18volts output. So I am little confused on Everest volt measurement. Maybe there is another regulator inside the FX that transform 18v to 12v?

 

My reason for wanting a wattage is because my car I would use it in has 12volt jacks and combined they can put out a total of 120 watts so I wanted to know if watching a dvd or playing games was possible without draining battery because I think a fuse trips if the amount is exceeded.

 

While watching a DVD, it was drawing about 50000mwh. Mind you, it was on battery with brightness set to low-med. I don't think you can test wattage with a/c plug in FX. Only battery. So number could change (to higher) once you plug in your A/C adaptor into your car DC transformer. Also your AC/DC car transformer will take some wattage along with laptop AC adaptor. Its not much but you should take that into your consideration.

 

Wait till you try the HDMI output to an HDTV. Was playing HL2 with Fakefactory's Cinematic Mod on my 50" screen and it looked as good as any game on my 360 or PS3.

I have read lots of good things about that one. Its on my list too.

He is serious. That game can eat 150 hours easy. This notebook runs it smoothly at Ultra High settings.

The 'we match US prices' banner is gone. Probably due to the currency fluctuations. Fingers crossed.

 

The power adapter is 120 watt, I don't know what Dr Tesla was talking about, get one of those cheap inverters and you can easily run it in the car.

 

Yea I found a 30 or 40 dollar slim Duracell 175watt portable inverter

http://www.amazon.com/Duracell-Pock..._2?ie=UTF8&s=automotive&qid=1201491592&sr=8-2

or

http://www.amazon.com/Kensington-33..._1?ie=UTF8&s=automotive&qid=1201491628&sr=1-1

Duracell will probably suffice and is cheaper

 

Any of them will be fine. If its main function is to power up your FX, consider getting the in-car power adaptor from Gateway. Better effeciency and cleaner power.

 

It seems like there arent any gateway branded 12V dc adapters on their website or am I just not looking in the right place?

 

How do I find my serial number on this product?

The SN on the sticker that also has the Notebook model is about 20 digits long instead of this 10 digit numeric/13 digit alphanumeric # the gateway site is looking for.

Edit: Nevermind, I'm dumb. It was the # underneath the "20 digit" SN.

 

I've just ordered it.
man, i can't wait for it to come, even though i will probably wait like a week or so, as i live in Europe :|.
anyways, it's worth the wait
BTW the price,1250 $,is sooo sweeeet

 

Just picked the last one up and luving it....

Quick questions...Waiting for the T9** chips to surface for cpu upgrade.

Looking for faster memory..anyone know how fast this machine will except and what type to get??

Also, as for the driver update for the video, Nivida says to use Gateway's website, will the day-to-day forceware drivers work without hurting it?
There is no memtion of suprroting the 8M mobile chips in the forceware drivers, just want to be sure first.

And last, hard drive..looking for faster of course..what size drive and brand and good place to go.

Will Gateway offer upgrades at there site for the DVD rom? Like to put in a BD Rom as soon as possible too.

Sorry for all the questions, need to get this beast upgraded before I head back to Iraq this summer.

Thanks, Scott

 

Called the Best Buy in Burlington ON, they don't do US price matching, but on the plus side now that it's listed on the Canadia site it's 1399$ instead of 1349$, so us Canadians saved 50$, not so bad.

 

Took me less than 5 minutes to get a 100.00 refund on the laptop today.

 

Anyone know the max size memory it can hold...will 4gb work and at 800 speed??

Also, what size hardive does it take..looking at upgrade tp 7200rpm drive soon??

Scott

 

800 MHz RAM, 4 GB is fine but without Vista 64 you can only use 3 GB. The new Gateway drivers should be fine. Otherwise you need modded drivers: www.laptopvideo2go.com . This notebook takes two SATA 2.5" drives. 7200RPM drives are around but they are typically smaller. You get size or speed (for now). Hitatchi 7200rpm drives were the best last time I checked. I doubt you will ever see an official BR upgrade - the drive is not user upgradable.

The price went up? I think we will see a sale in the next week or two. New BB Canada ads come out Thursday.

 

Tybalt, I have been trying to answer your message, but I am having no luck, getting the website to work correctly, sorry.

I have been asked what was involved in replacing the CPU. It was a very involved process that requires much skill...NOT!

The process took no more than 5 minutes (3 is more like it). It involves all the obvious stuff; 1. power down, 2. clean flat surface, 3. remove battery, 4. turn over and remove a few screws to remove cover on bottom of laptop.

Next

1. This is the really tricky part you will need a phillips and slotted screwdriver.
2. You will need to remove 5 screws that attach the heatsink to the frame.
3. You will need to unlock the "locking" screw on the processor.
4. Pull out old process
5. Put in new processor. Make sure it is aligned correctly and just "falls" into place. You should NEVER have to force a modern processor.
6. Tighten/lock cpu screw.
7. Place a little heatsink compound on the CPU.
8. Replace heatsink and screws.
9. Put cover back on laptop.
10. turn on laptop.

That is it. I didn't have to make any other chances to BIOS or OS. If you have any questions I will try to answer. Keep in mind I only play an IT guy on TV.

 

Awesome :]

Thanks for the reply.

 

Crysis and Bioshock aren't running in DX 10 mode. Not that I really want them to, but they should be by default. Everything in the OS says I'm running DX 10, but the games both use DX 9, and won't allow DX 10. Crysis tells me it's using DX 9 mode when I run the info, and Bioshock greys out DX 10 surfaces. Anyone else having this problem, or got a solution?

 

You have to upgrade the driver stock one doesn't support DX10 for some reason I used 169.09 and the DX10 was restored. Was doing Windows updates today and they do have one for the 8800GTS which is driver related, that might cure it.

 

HELP!!!!!!!

Just did a fresh install from the Gateway DVD to get rid of all the bloat.
Installed the video drivers from the Gateway website...
But, need the network, mass storage and some other unidentified drivers to finish..

Are these on the DVD?...cannot connect to the internet without the network drivers first...can someone point me in the right direction to finish this install?

Thanks,
Scott

 

Did you pick the option to save a file called windows.old? Do a file search for it and make sure to check "search everywhere"

 

No, I deleted all partions and reformatted with no backups done.
I think I have the Intel network drivers based on the PM965 chipset and the Intel 4965AGN driver...but what about the mass storage driver..anyone got it?

Scott

 

Yeah, its a western digital HD, I installed a WD 250gb scorpio in the 2nd drive, and the part #s almost identical

 

So I'm trying to put the laptopvideo2go 169.28 drivers on. I downloaded the official 169.28 drivers, extracted them, put the new .ini file in the folder, and I can't get it to install, following the instructions it says it cannot install. do I have to uninstall the gateway drivers before I try?

 

Yes uninstall old drivers,restart then install new I just click the setup.exe in the new driver

 

Ok, got everything up and running except the webcam and HD audio...
Where can I get the drivers/programs for these..?

Also, I would like to update the video drivers..can someone walk me thru putting the latest and greatest on..?

Thanks in advance,
Scott

 

I tried, but the screen went black while uninstalling, so I pressed power, and let the notebook shutdown. I then used driver cleaner in safe mode, but upon reboot it auto installed some GT drivers, then had errors while installing the 169.28 laptopvideo2go drivers (NVCP.dll and one other dll weren't found). I'd really like to be able to use DX 10, does anyone have a step by step guide for any of the laptopvideo2go drivers that will support DX10 on this computer?

 

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9243

 

Those, and the "Have disk" method are what I went by and the drivers installed, and I restarted, but the gateway ones were still being used, then I couldn't get the gateway drivers to uninstall.

 

Uninstall the Gateway drivers first, then use the "have disk" method.

now, try to install the Gateway driver one more time, then uinstall it.
affter that reinstall new drivers use method "have disk".

 

alright, got them installed:

uninstalled gateway drivers. Screen went black. waited about 10 mins.
Shut down.
Rebooted, manually switched drivers to "generic VGA".
Uninstalled nvidia drivers again, rebooted.
Installed LV2G 169.09 drivers.

WORKED.

 

Hey guys,

I was looking for a laptop and after seeing this post, went out and bought it the same day. I hope I dont have buyers remorse lmao, but so far so good. Its a nice machine. If it does what it claims to do, at this price, its a steal.

I dont like Vista. I wanted to format the C: last night and install XP. When I tried to boot from my XP disk (2005 era disk), it gave me a .sys error after going through the initial setup. 2nd time I tried, it couldnt find the C: to install to. I dont know why I cant setup XP from my disk. Old disk maybe (doesnt have drivers for the latest machines etc, this is a 2005 disk), or maybe Vista has taken control of the machine with the new file system or something (I know the basics, not a pro, think XP was NTFS no?).

1) Is Vista really that bad? (FPS wise)
2) If I format and install Vista, is there any annoying bloat on that disk? (or is it pure Vista - this is my most important question)?
3) If I get XP working, are the drivers readily available?
4) Does Gateway have a one-stop file for driver updates, or so we need to hunt for them individually (which would suck).

Thanks guys. Appreciate the time.

PS. First time reader, first time poster. Nice review.

 

Sounds like your having conflict with recovery partition in front of the harddrive. Size is about 10 gigs and has all your VISTA drivers in there. DVD you got with the laptop do not have any drivers. Its like OEM Vista DVD. So far, only few people got their FX to work with XP. Problems with unknown drivers, audio, bluetooth and so on makes it hard to install XP and there are no XP support from Gateway.

Best advice I could give you is go back to Vista, find and install all the drivers from the recovery partition. If none don't work, get a replacement from bestbuy and don't forget to make a driver DVD before formating.

 

Does that OEM CD come with all that other crap on it?