Inside the 6831FX

Got off work early today with nothing better to do so I said what the heck. After 50 something screws and about 45 minutes later I had it apart this is not recommended for the faint of heart. If you’re not organized forget ever going in this one. Sad to say GPU is soldered on to the main board. Yes I got it back together I'm on it right now posting this thread.

 

hehehe, well dude, can u post a picture with all the components laying to each other once u disassembled them, i am sure you have one of those !!

 

Did the same thing 2 weeks ago. Had some time on my hands took me more then a hour give or take wanted too really see the GPU and place some real thermal grease (Arctic Silver Céramique) .The thermal paste that Gateway has on GPU is not enough.. .My past job i had was self-assembling and Disassembling notebooks for a family owned computer shop for 5 years. More fun when its your own notebook then a clients Littleoldme is right not for the amateur that "thinks" he or she can jump into this even if you do have a manual or a some one thats posted a PDF file on the whole thing.When i place it all back together my temps lowered by 3 Degrees was at (40C -104F) with stock thermal paste, (37C-98.6F)with Céramique

 

A + rep to you littleoldme! I was too chicken to pull it totally down

Did you pull the screen, then the keyboard/topdeck before the bottom deck?

50 people were saying they were going to peek but your's is the first post I've seen come back.

 

Yes you need to do the topside first, screen must go, under the hinges on both sides there are screws just be careful with the screws for the keyboard there is one oddball. For a new style laptop this sure has a lot of screws brings me back to the old days when the whole bench was used to lay everything out. In all I think there are 6 different screw lengths. I didn't post any other pictures because I don't want anybody doing this if they don't know what they are doing. Everything just about must be stripped to get inside. Why they made this where you have to take off the cpu heat pipe to lift out the main board is beyond me the cpu heat pipe should have been made to come off thru the bottom panel like it is but should be able to pass thru the topside to get the board out. Yes I am a fan of Ceramique as well that’s all I have used since it came out, something about putting a silver paste where it could contact electrical components just bothers me.

 

littleoldme did you see where the sound card module was located? Odd that it was almost right in the middle of mother board bottom area . And the wire job on it was like WTF Gateway what where you thinking Had a hell of a time line it up the two bottom screws to place the screen back in it place almost striped the screws...

 

wow, great job! glad to see someone was able to get in there and see what was in there. I'm a little dissappointed that the GPU is soldered on, but this notebook should last a couple years before I decide to buy another one anyways. Again, thanks for posting up your pictures.

 

Jay

I think that was the modem board if it was the one buried in the center with the long winding wire that connects to the daughter board for the rj11.

 

Yep, I had several laptops apart. This one looks as bad as my ZE5000 when I repaired pwr jack. I was bit..n several post back that if we have to change out a fan, it's going to get ugly.

Several test have been completed with plain old silicon based to exotic silver based thermal compound. Only a 3-5 degree difference. I used AS-5. The new compound won't short your pins but may cause capacitance change. Misuse is the biggest problem.
Here's one; http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/cooling/thermal_paste/
thx

 

Thanks for the link hydra I think between AS5 and Ceramique is about 1 or 2 degrees Celsius not much of a difference.

 

Bummer. no way to fit everything into a thin case and include an MXM module I suppose.

Thanks man! I was going to do a writeup, and you have spared me the work.

 

Any step by step photo?
If nobody post this I'll do it myself during spring break.

 

If you let AS5 go through 200 hour "burn-in" period, the temp difference will be much more to like 5C.

 

Richteralan
Once I get back home will do a close up of all the important chips but not a step by step guide, go for it. I don't plan to over clock the Ceramique will be more than enough for me.

 

Are you home yet ?

 

Going to bump this thread, for I am interested in the general steps to taking this apart!

 

I'm assuming there are different versions of this mobo? I had mine apart the first day and it had a removable GPU. The whole fan/heatsink was bolted to the card and came out as one unit. I didn't actually separate the card from the heatsink since I wans't sure what I was getting into. Still wondering if anybody has opened up the GPU for AS5 yet?