Gateway P-6831FX User Review

I had been in touch with Gateway a bunch about the harddrive and when I messed up the keyboard, so naturally they have my address.

Today I received a 2 disc set of Gateway Application, drivers and operating system discs, that are NOT the same as the Vista disc it shipped with. I gues they're complete gateway recovery discs, which I don't really need, but they appear to exist.

 

Hello, did I get a different batch from everyones 8800M GTS? I see an 8800M GT on my laptop? Sorry if this is a stupid question. Other than that this machine is solid.

 

There is a update on Gateway. Download the updated drivers from gateway.com or Microsoft Update or get the latest drivers from laptopvideo2go.com

 

Can anyone who owns this post their experience running World of Warcraft? I'm seriously considering the Gateway but I need to know if it will run at max or nearly max settings. Thanks.

 

It will not have a problem with WOW. A 8600 could probably run WOW maxed, depending on resolution of course.

 

Much appreciated for the prompt reply. From a fellow TO resident.

 

Does anyone know if the specs for the P-6831fx size includes the battery pack's bulge? I have this laptop ordered at Best Buy and I was wanting to get a Tom Bihn brain cell for it at the same time. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Size specs from Best Buy's site:
Product Height 1.7"
Product Width 15.75"
Product Depth 11.75"

 

when I went into Bestbuy today and they were unfortunately sold out again ..lol it really didn't matter though I plucked down my 1300 bones and said when the next one gets here its mine! HA I've been reading so many great reviews from all of you guys and Ledwvig had an awesome write up on it. I paid 1199.99 + I got a free game Crysis.

Hopefully financially Gateway can get its house in order, because if they can keep cranking out these great laptops at these prices there going to scare the bejesus out of Dell, HP, and all the other boutique manufactures.

LONG LIVE GATEWAY! ...lol

 

WTF? Now I have to write this again...I guess I forgot to hit Post.

Anyone get theirs to work with HDMI? By work I mean the audio portion. For some reason testing works, but games and other audio won't go thru to the tv. Yet the test part does. What am I missing here?

 

I bought this laptop to mainly play wow on. It does an awesome job. I have every setting maxed out and get 40+ fps in outland. In shatt I will drop to about 28fps during peak hours.

 

Hello, I just got a $1199-P6831 at Best Buy with The Orange Box game. After reading the posts I canceled my 2200 order for a 171 XL. Saves a lot of money!! The thing is great! Plus I can upgrade the CPU in the future. I was concerned about not having a 1900 x 1200 screen, but this one is fine. Thanks to all you guys, after reading these posts, I was able to save a lot of money. Great job!

 

BUMP. Can anyone help? BTW, Crysis looks amazing on a 50" plasma. Too bad I can only hear it thru my laptop...

 

Flynn,

I have been running EQ2 and LoTRo in DX10 on max settings and it is running great. In EQ2 when raiding I have to dumb it down, but other than that I have been very happy with it.

 

Just picked up my P-6831FX from BB this past week. My T9300 should be arriving in the mail tomorrow. I have installed CPU's before, but never on a laptop. I know retail desktop CPU's come with a thermal paste factory installed. Will the same be true for the T9300 retail? If not, where can I locally purchase thermal paste? Any of the big name stores carry it?

 

Exactly the info I was looking for, thank you very much!

 

Fry's usually does.

 

bought my T9300 this morning from Lagoom.com, if anyone was looking for online stores who actually have it instock. Its $340.

 

please tell me which forceware driver did you install??? i cant get anyone to wotk please give me a link... thanks dude

 

I have RAID 0 HD Tune benchmarks...

I removed my original 250gb hard drive and added two 5400rpm 320gb Scorpio's (WD3200BEVT). I don't know much about hard drive benchmarks but seems like this RAID 0 5400rpm drive configuration is as good as the RAID 0 7200rpm ones...

HD Tune: Intel Raid 0 Volume Benchmark

Transfer Rate Minimum : 59.4 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Maximum : 107.2 MB/sec
Transfer Rate Average : 85.2 MB/sec
Access Time : 16.6 ms
Burst Rate : 79.3 MB/sec
CPU Usage : 7.9%


I got these (SimpleTech or Passport) drives at Best Buy for $135 each (on sale for $150 + used a 10% coupon). They are external drives so you need to open them up. No big deal except it voids the warranty

 

please tell me which forceware driver did you install??? i cant get anyone to wotk please give me a link... thanks dude

 

Personally I'm using 174.12 from :
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showforum=89
Best so far performance in Crysis on mine P-6831FX.

 

yes thanks but evry time i download forceware it enter install any says nvidia couldnt locate any drivers compatible with your curent hardware ... i dunno what to do please help!!!

 

Are you replacing (after unpacking/unzipping driver) original INF with modded one:
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9243
you can also try that method when installing new drivers:
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=11997

 

oh its new so you intall the software right away? right?

 

really thanks you helped allot!!!

 

Thanks man! I love tech and writing about it and I am glad you dug it! Acer owns Gateway now - so it is in good shape. Technically its part of third largest PC maker in the world - and closing fast on Dell.

Yup it works great. You need to change the default audio device and restart the program you are running. The mixer assigned programs to output devices and the only way to change the mapping is to restart the program after switching output device.

1. Right click on speaker icon in system tray.
2. Select Playback Devices
3. On teh Sound control panel that opens click on Digital Output Device (HDMI)
4. Click the 'Set Default' button.
5. Click 'OK'

Enjoy.

Reverse the process to get PC speakers back.

 

lewdvig, are you still thinking about pulling bottom cover for video or pictures?

I got as far as all 13 screws and drives but looks like I need to come top down as well. I would love a shop PDF like I have for the dell..

Great Review!

 

All you could ever want to know about the guts/upgrading your p6831fx with detailed pics:

http://www.notebookforums.com/thread212385.html

and here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23708977@N03/

 

BTDT last week..still no GPU shots.

 

Anyone else installed T9300 and have CPU temps? Installed mine yesterday and have been keeping an eye on temps to make sure everything is OK. Here are the current temps...

Idle: Temps hover aroung 40C
Under 100% load (20 minute test): Max temp 59C Average 52C

GPU hovers around 45C - no load. This seems higher than I previosuly remembered, but it appears it share the same heatsink as the CPU. If the CPU is operating at a higher temp now, then does it make sense that the GPU might be slightly effected also?

Do there temps seem the be within the normal ranges?

 

That looks in the ballpark as mine. What app did you use to max your CPU for 20 minutes?

 

Everest Ultimate

 

The price at bestbuy went back up to 1350 with no financing. who knows when the price is going drop. I really want this but i need to do the financing. Thanks.

 

yeah i just looked online cuz i was curious...luckily i got mine at that price then got the price drop on it. i also looked at the surround sound i bought from there for 410, it is now 599 wtf is that about. did something happen this week to cause that to happen?

 

The only people I'm seeing with problems on a clean install are the folks who fail to make a GRC disk before starting over. While it took me awhile to get it all installed, I never had any real problems getting it cleanly installed. The only way to truely get rid of the bloat in my opinion is a clean install

 

WOW runs maxed out multiple add-ins from curse with no problems. I easily hit 60FPS even in front of the IF AH on a friday night

 

Ok, got some ???..concerns with my temps here.
Got T9300 installed..7200HD drive..have setting set to power...

After playing Two Worlds for several hours..these are my temps:

CPU Cores - top out at 44c
HD - 49c
ACPI (not sure what this is) - TZS0 - 57c
TZS1 - 67c (never changes)
GPU - tops out at 75c.

Worried about the GPU temp. Seems way too high and fan is always on.
When you pull off the cooler on the CPU, does it also come off the GPU?
Is so, can this be why it gets hot?

Scott

 

I am planning on buying this laptop once Best Buy gets it back in stock. I also planned on ordering the Windows Vista 64 bit edition off the windows website, problem is, I hear the drivers don't work for it without some modding? And I also looked through a lot of this topic, people are having problems just doing a clean install to remove all the blotware. What precautions should I do to install it, and where/how can I get these modded drivers so they work for 64 bit vista?

 

general question.....I have some USB Logitech Headphones/mic and i plugged then in and now i unplug and my speakers dont work anymore..no sound...only sound on headphones...please advise

 

Will the T9500 work in this laptop? Also, any news on the quad cores?

 

Anyone have a solution to this problem...

I formatted my HD and performed a clean install of Vista. I noticed I no longer have an option of accessing the recovery partition during boot by pressing F8 or F11....It brings up a menu with options for normal boot, safe mode, etc, but no recovery option. I'm asuming I deleted this file during my format. Does anyone know how to remedy this problem so I can access the recovery partition during startup in the rare event I wanted to perform a factory recovery?

Thanks

 

You probably deleted it - its gone. Is there two HDD volumes listed in windows explorer?

There is no way to restore it unless you created an image of your drive prior to the formatting.

You might want to get Acronis True Image or something similar and create a backup set.

 

This is a crazy notebook. Best value for the price and I'm glad I was able to get one before Best Buy sold out up here in Canada. Can't wait to receive my 9300.

 

I still have the recovery partition and can access files from it in Vista, the problem is that when I press F8 during startup there is no longer a recovery option...not sure what file is responsible for this...boot.cfg, boot.ini? Anyone have know which file I need?

Also:

I notice a LOT of HD activity immediately following Vista loading. Probably 2-5 minutes of 100% HD activity. Not sure what is going on here. Is there a way to limit this?

And finally:

The first time I attempt to open MS Word after startup it takes a LONG time to load. Sometimes up to 5 minutes. I tried re-installing but the problem persists.

Any suggestions?

 

It kills me how you guys all go out and buy this computer and then bring it home and create so many problems for yourselves. All I did was brought this home and removed the bloat ware,removed the junk and missing links from the registry, upgraded the cpu and I have NEVER had an issue. You VISTA haters have never really given it a chance because your so convinced its the worst thing since the Yugo. Give it a chance and your going to get used to it, Vista is here to stay and theres not a whole lot of difference. My only point is enjoy this computer, its an awesome laptop for the money and it plays games just as good if not better then the big boys.

 

Its true. This is a great computer right out of the box.

As for the bloat, as the benchmarks show you don't gain much performance by removing it. You will free up some RAM (but there is ample supply already) and you will get the satisfaction of running a clean machine.

pcdecrapifier is a great tool that use too.

www.pcdecrapifier.com

 

I've been looking for a 17" desktop replacement under $1400 and saw this.....will the price go down again or should I pick it up right now? My Amex card is getting impatient

Frag

 

I think this is going to stay the price for now. I saw this in Bestbuy and sold my XPSM1710 to get it and don't regret it for a second. This is the best laptop iv ever had. Just don't do what most have done and wipe everything for a clean install, Just remove the junk and enjoy.

 

I've been playing on a Geforce Go 7300 on a 6400 Dell with all the settings low for the past year or so. Most recent games are not even playable. To solve my gaming problems I've been toying with the idea of buying a Vostro with an 8600m and even the lowly 8400m...Glad I didn't buy the Vostro!.

I got the 6831FX a few days ago and I'm never looking back. Forgot how fun it is to have all the detail and speed. The thing is a fricken monster even with the 1.6 core 2. I don't care for top 3dmark scores or care to pay hundreds for a few more frames.

Pros: Amazing hardware, Price, User upgradable

Cons: Shell/chassis build quality, Bloatware galore

Short comings aside, this is the best value gaming laptop today. Nothing even comes close to the performance/price ratio. There are 3 other laptops in our house for biz use so this one fits the bill for pure gaming. If you were like me, I was trying to buy a laptop that solved every scenario including some everyday use (internet, biz apps). The problem is that those don't hold a candle to this laptop for gaming. They are just two different animals.

BUY THIS LAPTOP! Stop thinking XPS, Alienware, Sager. You won't find a better gaming laptop out there.

 

I just picked up this laptop yesterday. On getting home I noticed that it showed the processor as a T5550 which is 1.83GHz and the BIOS lists it as that as well. Yet all the info I've seen about the laptop says it should be a T5450 (1.67GHz).

Anyone know if there was a recent stealth model update? (It still says P-6831FX and was $1349.) 3DMark06 scored around 7000.