Is my gateway a lemon?

Hey guys, my first post

I bought a gateway FX 6864 with

ntel Core 2 Duo T5750 2 GHz CPU
AMD RADEON Mobility 2600 with 512 MB of RAM
14.1" WXGA High-Definition Display With 1280 x 800 Resolution
200 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
4 GB DDR2 System Memory
LabelFlash Super Multi 8X DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support

and the only game that I love to run is Generals Zero hour, a 5 year old game...

It was working fine but then it got choppy with 8 players...

Now with just one enemy, the game crashes and it gives me a message of something like "over heated hardware, virus, or poor hardware" have resulted in it crashing.

I have no viruses on this thing, I did not download any additional software besides updates, and I know the hardware is good..

The guy at bestbuy told me (over the phone) not to expect good gaming performance from a laptop. W.T.F.

I have the coverage plan, should I take it back and say its a lemon?

I will try other games on it to see if its only Generals thats messing up.. my 3 year old toshiba runs it without issues!

 

You describe it having become worse than at first? The guy at Best Buy is well a guy at Best Buy nough said, he is wrong.

First just out of curiosity I would install an application so I could see temps. Just to rule out heat. Many free. The one I like is NHC there are others NHC does not do GPU only CPU and HDD.

A kind of desperate thought is compatibility issue. With Vista you can "install/run" in compatibility mode for example Windows 98?

Those would be the first two things I would try to establish where you stand.

Your system has the hardware to run a 5 year old game.

 

monitor the temps with CPUID and play your game, after it crashes check the temps. make sure your not playing on a bad surface

 

ok so I downloaded a temperature monitoring program..

my readings after the game crashed were

core 0 - 60 degrees celc

core 1 - 64 degrees

I shut it down, let it cool down for half an hour.. and started playing again.. it crashed after 2 mins of game play! and I know its not a heating problem because i have my laptop set up like a desk top, its on a laptop stand and Im using an external mouse and keyboard...

so the heating issue has been ruled out...

 

Have you updated your video card drivers?

 

Make lemonade?

Did it come with 4GB of RAM? Or did you add in another 1/2GB? Try running memtest or something?

 

I played hours of Mass Effect on my m-6864fx with no problems.

That is one funky error message.

 

Have you played with this?



Have you tried? I researched and found Generals Zero hour not compatible with Vista. I know that does not mean it won't always not play. But it does say it has not passed and could have issues. You my friend are definitely having issues.

I would try the compatibility mode. Also if still issues I would play with GPU settings? Maybe one of vid cards function is having issues. I would start with all "anti-aliasing" type functions/quality features on minimum. Does it run like that? If so start adding options until crash. Then you would know the issue.

Also just to make clear not hardware problem. Do other games (newer) run fine?

 

how do I get to that screen? There is no divx player properties in my player, just preferences..

 

Right click on your Generals Zero hour short cut

 

Did not work and it came with the 4 gigs of ram, I did modify the computer in anyways..

btw, I forgot to mention.. Im playing a modified version of Generals, its called Version 5 with some new generals thrown in... but it should still work because its fine on my old crappy toshiba

 

right click on it, and click on properties, then click on the compatibility tab.

 

hey guys,
I also have a gateway 6864fx. After playing COD2 multiplayer for a while, it froze and crashed. I looked into the recent events in the control panel to find the error (0x800441003) (listed in registry). The cooling fan was blowing out pretty hot air (it was on a desk though). Despite the fact that it gets 3,860 points on 3dmark06, I'm surprised that it has trouble with such an easy game. Also, I tested the data transfer of the hd(SATA 200gb, 7200rpm), and found to my surprise that the data burst rate was only 74mb/s, while on an apparent Compaq craptop, I achieved a burst rate of 104 mb/s (IDE hdd!) I have had this laptop for about 2 months, and im not sure if these things are lemons.

 

Once I experienced the same problem from a laptop of a Chinese guy, his copy of Generals is not the genuine one, he copy the game directly from another computer.

 

How about updated your video drivers? and do make sure when you clean the old ones that you use Driver Sweeper.