Gateway P-6860/6831 CPU Upgrade

I have been lurking here for a while and I finally bought a Gateway P-6860FX laptop yesterday thanks to some of the posts on this forum. So far I am very pleased with it and it is a significant improvement over my previous laptop.
I bought an Asus A8JS laptop about a year ago, and I've been suffering with it ever since. The Asus laptop functioned well, but mechanically it was a nightmare and has literally fell apart due to the cheap plastic construction of the case and screen.

I mainly use my laptop for work: Programming in MS Visual Studio, developing 3D apps, VMware, occasional 3D modeling, occasional Solidworks, lots of Visio, and lots of SSH/Xterm sessions to Solaris boxes. But I also like to be able to run games since I do have a lot of down time when on travel. The A8JS worked OK for work stuff, but the Geforce 7700 isn't really capable of running Age of Conan or Crysis.

My only complaint with the P-6860 was the CPU speed, so I promptly ordered a T9300 CPU from a local online supplier. I chose the T9300 because it is the fastest 45nm mobile chip currently (may/june 2008) available through normal retailers.
The new CPU arrived today (thanks to the fast shipping of Ewiz.com), and I haven't seen a good guide for upgrading the CPUs on these laptops, so I decided that my first post to this forum should be a CPU upgrade guide for the Gateway P-6860 FX.

WARNING: Upgrading your CPU in your laptop may void your warranty and may damage your laptop or components beyond repair. Proceed at your own risk.

Tools needed:

1. #1 phillips screwdriver.
2. Small flat head screw driver (with a very thin blade, or a jeweler's screwdriver).
3. Thermal grease (I used Arctic Ceramique).
4. ESD band and proper grounding recommended.

CPU Upgrade Procedure:

1. Ensure laptop power is off and power cord and battery has been removed. Turn the laptop upside down and place on a flat surface. Locate the bottom panel to the left of the Gateway sticker and Windows license sticker. This is the largest removable panel on the bottom of the computer. It is held in by 5 screws.



2. Loosen the five screws that hold the panel in place and remove the panel. You should see something that looks like this:




The CPU is located right underneath the middle of the copper heat pipe, underneath the two silver tension clips/springs, just to the lower left of the fan.

3. Remove the heat pipe/sink assembly. This is held into place by 5 screws: 1 at the very end of the heat pipe, to the right
But first, there are two silver-colored sticky cushion pads on the heat pipe (the square things on the heat pipe in the photo above), carefully remove them by peeling them off the heat pipe. Remove the end screw first, and then the four screws holding the clips over the heat pipe and CPU. Careful with these screws because they are small and can get lost easily down in the computer. I would recommend a magnetized screw driver for this work.

ALSO, the screws at the 2 O'clock and 8 O'clock positions have small springs underneath them. Make sure you do not lose these springs down in your computer or bad things could happen.

The whole heat pipe should come out like this:



3. Remove the T5550 CPU. For this, use the small flat head screwdriver to turn the CPU locking screw about 1/4 turn counter-clockwise. The CPU locking screw is a flat head screw located to the left of the CPU. The screw has a small dot on one side. The socket is labeled with a lock and unlock position. When the dot is facing the locked side, it is locked, and when the dot is facing unlocked, you guessed it.

This picture shows the OLD cpu with the locking screw (flat head screw to the left of the CPU) set to the unlocked position:



When unlocking the CPU you may feel some slight resistance, and then you will notice the CPU loosen.

Lift the old CPU out, and place the new CPU in the socket. DO NOT pry the old CPU out. If it is not loose, then you have not properly unlocked the CPU. DO NOT force the new CPU into place, it should just drop in. Make sure you have the CPU oriented correctly.

When the new CPU is in place, turn the locking screw 1/4 clockwise until it locks into place.

4. Apply thermal compound. Apply a thin layer of your thermal compound of choice to the core of the CPU, following the directions of the manufacturer. Now would also be a good time to clean any excess or old thermal compound from the heat pipe assembly:




5. Reinstall the heatpipe. Make you replace the springs underneat the heat pipe on the two screws, and replace the silver pads on the top of the heat pipe.

6. Install the CPU panel cover, tighten the 5 screws with your #1 phillips screwdriver.

7. Install your battery, and power, and boot into the bios. Your computer should now recognize your new CPU:



The bios recognizes the T9300 @ 2.5Ghz, but the CPU speed says "2400 Mhz"??? Luckily all my other benchmarks (CPUID, PC Wizard, Sandra) say 2.5Ghz for the CPU speed, so it just must be a bios display bug.

8. Boot into your OS and make sure everything is functioning correctly.



Hopefully my first post here was a help to someone. Sure, it's not difficult once you understand it. Be careful, take your time, and it should be an easy upgrade.

 

Nice guide!

 

That's a remarkable guide. Very well done. There's a guide or two, including one linked to notebookforums with an additional LCD replacement guide I believe.

Great job.

 

Great Guide!

One of my buddies is probably going to buy one this week. I already told him that we WILL be replacing the CPU ASAP lol.

I still scratch my head on this laptop. Great price, great specs! But the CPU, WTFBBQ? lol. Even with the extra cost of a T9300 it is still a smoking system for the price.

 

Nice upgrade their. Isnt i nice that Gateway made their FX series laptops very eaasy to maintain/upgrade.

If you have not already, give undervolting a shot, you will be able to get the same performance with less heat.

K-TRON

 

Very good post! Welcome. With that informative post I would like to hear your overall opinion of the machine. Build quality in particular.

 

I recently re-applied the thermal compound. I was getting 40-42 C idle using the Arctic ceramique. I decided to go with AS5 and I am glad that I did. I am now getting 36-38C idle after a break-in period, and it seems to be getting better every day.

Now that I have had the 6860 for a couple weeks now, I can give a quick mini-review.

Overall, the quality of the Gateway P-6860 FX is far superior to my previous laptop (Asus A8JS). The laptop seems strong and fairly rugged. I would say it is as good as any HP laptop, maybe a little better than the current Dell laptops. The screen hinges seem rugged and over-engineered. The screen latch seems well made and locks positively. The keys have a nice spring feel.

It still feels heavy to me for a laptop (9 pounds) - and it is was quite a increase in weight over my 5-pound Asus laptop.
The resolution of the screen is a little large for the size compared to my previous laptop (6860 is 17" @ 1440x900, where my A8JS was 14.1" @ 1440x900). But the screen is very clear and I find my self sitting with better posteur since I can actually see the screen from more than a 18".
The 6860 only has 3 USB ports, and I find myself using them all: 1 for wireless mouse, 1 for thumbdrive, 1 for external 2.5" drive. I do wish it had more usb.

My biggest complaint is the shiney finish on the screen and the faux carbon-fiber looking panel near the touch pad. This shiney surafce attracts and shows dust and fingerprints terribly. I feel like I need to carry a can of air and cleaning cloth around with me at all times. It just looks terrible.
At the very least, I wish I could replace or cover the shiney plastic near the touchpad with something what has more of a matte finish.

My second complaint is the orange lettering on the number keys - this orange lettering is impossible to see in low light conditions.

I've never been a fan of media buttons across the top of a keyboard, and I do not use them on this laptop. I do use the wireless on/off switch, although I have spent a few minutes wondering why a wifi AP is not available when the wireless switch was set to off. The touch volume control looks cool, but it seems sluggish and I do not find myself using it often.

I have hated Windows Vista since it came out, but Vista x64 SP1 seems to work OK and I have started to not mind using it on this laptop.
I installed a second hard drive (Seagate Momentus 7200.2) for 32-bit Windows XP, since I really need it for software development and testing software. Battery life seems to have not been significantly reduced. With both the original 320GB WD and the Seagate 7200 rpm drive, I can still work for around 3.5 hours on one battery charge doing typical work activities (non-gaming).

This laptop is completely playable for some of the newer high-end games. I have FSX and Age of Conan installed and both work great on moderate to high settings.

 

Overall sounds positive. On the fingerprint issue. Some have painted other parts on there notebook. Kevin the administrator did his touchpad buttons I believe? I am personally hesitant on this as everything I have ever painted seems to fail. But I do know with the correct paint and proper technique might be a possibility.

 

Very nice alpinex! Short and Sweet. Rep....

 

I was thinking the same thing but to be honest the 1.83ghz CPU that comes with the 6860 is actually a pretty damn good processor. It ran every program I normally use very quickly and efficiently. The GPU on this machine is awesome and runs most games on high settings except for maybe Crysis which I am going to load tonight. The 3dMark 06 with the stock CPU were right in the 7400 range which isn't bad and the cpu mark at around 1360-1380 range. When I ran it again with the new T-9300 Cpu I did get 8695 3d Marks and the CPU mark went up to 2290 which is a nice increase.

I used this stuff as Thermal grease Tuniq TX-2 Thermal Compound - Retail
A small amount goes a long way. Some people make the mistake of caking that stuff on there which you really shouldn't do. About a rice size amount will be plenty. At idle the cpu temp is between 35-36c. The older CPU was running in the 44-45c range at idle so the new CPU runs a lot cooler.

Overall I was hesitant getting the Gateway and already ordered a Dell XPS 1530 but I decided to send it back in lieu of the Gateway and so far I don't regret my decission. It is a very well built Machine with the right parts and
it is easily upgradeable. If I can swap a CPU and install Raid 0 on this thing anybody can

My biggest gripe is the finish on the laptop. It is too damn shiny and if you do touch it it leaves fingerprints all over it. I put some mild car wax on it but now it shines even more but the fingerprints don't show as easily and are easier to wipe off The 3 USB slots are no big deal. I have a Mini Hub that I am using which works great with my Tom Tom and Ipod.

Overall this is a very High Quality Laptop which easily should cost 3000 + with the components that are in there. It is not very portable and at 9+ pounds I am not taking it on any long Journey's. For that I have my old 1505 Dell. This is more of a True Desktop replacement which actually outdoes my current Desktop in every single aspect.

Best Bang for the buck of any Gaming/Desktop replacement type notebook out there.

 

Hey Alpinex, Great Post Btw and very nice pics. One question...did you reuse the Thermal Pad on the chipset or did you put Thermal Grease on it?
I was told by others to reuse the Thermal Pad which I did. Just wondering since you said you had some issues with the new T-9300 running a bit on the Hot Side. Mine is running way cooler than the slower 1.83. Let's see if I can make it a bit Hotter while playing Crisis tonight

 

what did your WEI rating go up to after the upgrade? mine now sits at 5.2 instead of 4.5

 

Mine is at 5.1 up from 4.5. The 5.1 is from the lowest subscore which is the stock memory of 5.1 What memory are you running?

 

Here are my WEI scores:

Processor: 5.4
Memory: 5.1
Graphics: 5.9
Gaming Graphics: 5.8
Primary Hard Disk: 5.9

So the slow part is the memory but I didn't think that the chipset supports any higher speed memory except maybe a lower latency 667 ram. Like 4 instead of 5 clocks. But I didn't think it will make much of a difference.

Next, I want to swap out my 1900x1600 screen from my Dell 1705 to this gateway. Just wondering if it is possible to do? I know the screen can be replaced on this computer but how difficult is it to transplant the screen out of the Dell?

 

Wow the T9300 only gets a 5.2?
Dont rely on the wei, it is a very bad benchmark.
My opteron 185 in my Voodoo gets a 5.8 on the WEI, and the core was made in 2003. AMD is so superior
Server cpu's in laptops so own laptop cpus

K-TRON

 

not all of us have 10K to spend on a laptop...

 

what hard drive do you have? my WEI scores are:
Processor: 5.4
Memory: 5.2
Graphics: 5.9
Gaming Graphics: 5.8
Hard Disk: 5.3

 

What Memory do you have? I swapped out my memory from my Dell to the Gateway and still only get 5.1 on the Memory score.

I have Dual WD 320gig Scorpio drives running in Raid 0 mode. Those are only 5400 rpm drives but are faster than some of the 7200 rpm drives out there.
They beat my Dell 7200 rpm drive hands down.

 

I see that you are running Kingston 667. Is that the HyperX type or maybe low latency memory? I was thinking or getting some GSkill from New Egg but I am not sure if it would be worth the small difference?

 

im running 5-5-5-15 memory...none of the low latency stuff.

 

I have moved this cpu upgrade guide to the Gateway section

I dunno if anyone has told you yet but WEI is a horrible horrible benchmarking tool.

 

WOW, then I wonder why your memory score is 0.1 (5.2) higher than mine since we are running pretty much everything else the same. I guess Kingston beats Corsair in basic speed.

 

Or maybe, just maybe, WEI's demented?

 

ill go with that...it is of course, microsoft.

 

WEI is Good. It is a product of our Master Bill Gates and therefore is pure and true. Or it is demented Either way WEI likes Kingston brand over Corsair.

 

Might want to lay off the caffeine a little

 

I have 4gb kingston on 64bit and it still says 4.8 for the RAM score. Talk about inconsistency. Dont use WEI!

 

indeed... and i even tried to stand tall for the WEI..... dv9740us 3gb ram gets a 5.1 while 6860fx gets a 5.0 with 4gb ram. i switched them both and it still didn't change.

 

after reformatting the computer (to get rid of ALL the bloatware, and to fix an issue i was having with 2 "essential" services stopping at startup) my wei is now a 5.1....for the memory.

 

I believe the WEI memory score is directely related to the processor speed.
Prior to the T-9300 upgrade I believe the WEI memory score was only 4.5

So what would be a good benchmark program besides 3d mark?

 

Next step is CPU upgrade.. T9300/T9500. Keep going back to RAM question? Running the stock stuff now. What 2 buy??

 

PCMark - System (CPU/RAM etc)

3dmark - Gfx card

HDtune - Hard drive

 

kb0vhy...changing the RAM manufacturer is not going to really improve much at this point. Check other posts..especially from Johnkss. You have a great setup as it stands...the T9300 is a HUGE improvement across the board. My next thought is the display....but I am enjoying this lappy so much I cannot think of why I should spend the money at this point.....

 

think of your display as your highdef tv's at home (for those who have them and the service) well that's what your laptop will be transformed into. which also means that you dont have to play all games on super high. because now you pick up more pixels. but for the naysayers...of course the very high settings are suppose to look the best... lol...but not at no 800x600/1024x768.

edit: but text will be very small

 

Where can I get a 1900X1200 screen for my Gateway? I pondered swapping the screen with my 1705 Dell but after searching some posts I saw that the screens are not 100% compatible. Meaning, I can probably make the screen from my old Dell work in this one but not the other way around. Plus the older screens probably have a longer response time. I want to keep the response time down to more modern levels. I saw some screens on E-Bay but I don't know if I can trust those. Also I found someone selling his 1600X900 (or something like that) for about 100 bucks which I think is a great deal but I think if I upgrade I might as well go for the Gold and do it right the first time and go with the 1900X1200 Resolution. Maybe I can sell me Dell and get enough money out of it to get the better screen and maybe a Blueray player. Are Blueray disks really worth it? Right now they seem still over twice as much as regular DVD's and I have an upconvert DVD player that does a pretty good job on my 55 inch Sony HDTV LCD. But it would be kinda cool to watch HD movies on my Laptop especially if my better half wants to watch some chick flick on the Big Screen

 

well...your dell screen will fit, but you have to take off the inverter and the other piece that is attached. there is a tread on it somewhere.

blu rays look way more in depth than a regular dvd. love the quality that it shows.

have you did a search for the screens yet? quite a few threads on screens.

 

I know that the Dell screen will work on the Gateway but the Gateway screen will not work on the Dell and I am not going to hack up a perfectly working computer just so I can put a higher resolution screen in this thing.
I can wait on the screen. This thing is great the way it is.

 

never said you had to hack up your perfectly good computer. your question was...would the dell screen fit.

 

What do you mean? You run your games 1:1 windowed?

 

It is a great Lappy!! It will do more than I'm capable of... Was just dissapointed at the score for the RAM.. The CPU will probably help that.

I'm running Age of Conan maxed out with no Hickups!! Have 1 dead Pixel!!! Screen will be the last thing I replace.

 

not quite sure what your getting at...

 

He means, do you run your programs in windowed mode at the 800 x 600 for example, or do you play full screen at 800 x 600.

 

thanks dtwn83.

when testing for heat/cpu speed/gpu clocks and so forth.... i run in window mode.

now while fully gaming, full screen.

 

Thanks dtwn, pretty much what I meant. I was curious about your statement since I have been in a high rez vs low rez state of confusion.

 

I live to serve. And translate.

 

I really want to put the t9300 in mine, but I was just wondering if it is important for the mhz of the CPU and the mhz of the RAM to match? I know it will work in there, but will it lower the speed of the CPU to match the RAM?

 

Nope. Doesn't work that way. The T9300 is fine.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I was just wanting to make sure that it wasn't that important. I had just wondered if there was a correlation between to two since I normally see them matching. I'm hopefully going to be ordering the t9300 in the next week or two.

 

There are a number of guides around. Have a look.

Just don't wind up like me and strip your screws.

 

I better learn these guides. The guy at the computer stores is charging $45-$85 to switch CPUs.