Is the 7811 worth buying?

With the apparently huge number of problems and bugs this laptop has, would it be insane to actually buy one right now?

Another question: How many people have bought the 7811 and experienced no problems whatsoever? Are there any?

 

The first one I bought had the hard lock issues while gaming.

I exchanged it that same day, and have been running mine almost 24x7 since then and haven't had a single issue whatsoever. I have Crysis, CoD4, Gears of War, and WoW all installed on it and they all run extremely well... this is coming from someone who has a custom built GTX-280 SLI desktop...

I do however have one of the power bricks that is squealing, but I plan on submitting that to Gateway for an RMA.

I think that there is something to be said for the bang for the buck on a laptop like this... a comparable model from Dell etc would cost significantly more if not double the price. With that in mind you have to be willing to be subjected to the possibility of some issues appearing.

For my money, I am familiar enough with PC hardware / software to take that chance... and quite honestly this 7811FX is blowing my mind.

A guy I work with has a $4,0000 Alienware laptop that he bought less than six months ago and it can't even compete with this $1249- "crappy Gateway" LMAO

 

Well it's on special down to $1249 this week...I bought mine for $1449 and it'll get by me on Wednesday...so I'll just get my $200 back through their price drop guarantee policy.

 

i've not had issues in two weeks of constant use.

 

Dang, I'm torn on this. I want Blu Ray (will an external USB drive always work for any discs?) I want an LED backlight...

But for that price, with a free game!?! With close to the best GPU ever thrown in a notebook, and a very solid CPU, and what I consider a really nice physical design and layout (I think it's got the best keyboard of any notebook I've tried at Best Buy)... It even comes with a reinstall CD that I guess lets you reinstall 32-bit Vista instead?

....but then on top of those two issues, I hear about these lockups, that even Anandtech has had, and obviously it's not limited to just Anandtech's unit.

Heck, I'm not even sure the Swiss Gear laptop backpack Best Buy sells would fit this thing because of the way the battery sticks out, which could be another issue (and I hate the too-high resolution screen).

AAAARGH! I don't know. I Dell would just let you throw a real GPU into the Studio 17...

 

^ If you're so paranoid about lockups then buy an extended warranty.

You can buy a SATA Blu Ray drive for the laptop and replace the current drive from newegg.

The 7811 FX is a solid performer. You should keep in mind that all the people who have issues will use Google and visit these forums. Satisfied users are always the silent majority.

 

I picked mine up yesterday and its been running strong without shutdown for 18hours.

I played Crysis on high @ 1920x1200 (no AA) and it was actually really playable! Grid on Max at 1920x1200 without issue, Devil May Cry DX10 showed some slight hiccups here and there (nothing huge) but DX9 was flawless!

I haven't noticed any issues as far as build quality or defects.

 

I made them remove the floor sample in the store from all the security stuff so I could test fit the 7811 into a few of the different bags I found. I originally was looking for a backpack, but I travel almost weekly for work all over the country, so I kinda wanted something with wheels and with more space.

I noticed that they had two Wenger rolling cases, one for around $100- and the other was about $140- and even though they looked the same the 7811 only fit well into the more expensive one.

Here she is...

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=6735688&st=wenger&lp=2&type=product&cp=1&id=1093468590969



Ironically they list this on their website as being for 15.4" notebooks, but that is just not the case. The 7811 couldn't fit any better in there if Gateway designed it themselves. It is probably a bit large for most, but for someone like myself who needs the space and is sick of walking around with a strap over my shoulder or having my back sweating and sticking to my backpack this was the perfect fit.

The rear most pocket fits the power brick, my PSP case, and headphones. The middle case, which is padded and has a velcro adjustable strap holds the laptop nice and snug. A little pricey, but it will keep my new baby safe and sound.

 

I bought something like this at Sam's for my current 17 and works fine. I could not use the sleeve but don't need the extra sleeve for protection. Sleeve now stores cables and such ... all the stuff that kept me pulle over in airport lines for strip searches.

 

its okay, if you can get one that works, but the processor is too slow .... graphics look average for me (remember, i am use to looking at graphics with higher end cards)

my friend just got lucky, he got a deal from dell for a m1730 for only 2,195 (New).....dual 8800gtx cards and 9300 processor with bluetooth....awesome deal i think

 

How the heck did he do that? I'd probably break down and get that (although I assume there was no warrenty...and I'd be a bit more excitted about getting $1000 worth of GPUs than...bluetooth )
The 9800GTS is mid range technically, but by notebook standards it's astounding. That CPU's pretty strong too. That was sort of a weakness of the old model, but it does quite well in the benchmarks-it was hanging up there with stuff costing two or three times more.

 

Once I did a clean install on a new HD I've had zero problems. As I've said in other threads here, and now there's a second user reporting the same thing, my box fell apart in my hands as I pulled the computer out - every glue join failed completely. So it seems to me some of these units sat somewhere VERY hot and humid - or perhaps even got rained on - and that may explain why so many seem to have had issues. Of course we don't know how many have sold or what the percentage of returns are... more or less than usual? Who knows? Everything here is anecdotal, not statistical.

But buy it, try it in the BB parking lot - the battery comes well charged, enough for a boot or two, anyway, then take it somewhere nearby like a cafe where you can run it for a couple of hours and see if anything is flaky. If so just get another one, and if not you should be good to go.

At the sale price this weekend these things are an insane bargain, even if you have to return a unit or even two to get a good one. Good ones DO exist.

 

Yikes-that's interesting about the box falling apart. In a way, I hope it's something simple like that and not a real problem with the machine! Could have been sitting in China somewhere weird, or for all we know left in 112 degree weather in a thunder storm by Best Buy.

Really does make you wonder what happened...

 

I dont believe it man, how did he get that for only $2000?

 

Just got mine today but still have yet to turn it on. Tallan, the box on mine was the same way. The glue seam on the side of the box basically separated. The laptop looks good and will try it out as soon as I image the original hard drive.

Btw: I got mine from Colma, CA

 

he said it's because of some previous order he made (long story to post)....he just got lucky.......yeah, I think he got the 1-year warranty though

 

@fire

you got yours from colma? did you choose which unit you want? or did they just take one out and that's yours? should i have my uncle ask bb to put a straw rope around it so that it stays together? omigosh... this is so scary...

 

My box fell apart, too. Vienna, VA.

I haven't tortured mine yet to make sure it's solid, either. It went through one run of 3DMark Vantage with no hiccups other than the ones you'd expect running it at 1920x1200.

 

They just gave me the closest one. The box had a seal on it as well as BB's 15% restocking fee warning label. Both labels were intact.

I just powered it on about 10 mins ago and of the issues that have been discussed here on the forums I have:

1. minor light bleed at the bottom of the screen
2. minor ghosting of the screen (shows up as whispy faint streaks) and if I press on it, it goes away
3. fan out of the blue would speed up to max for about a sec then turn off. It does this about once every couple of mins

Still have yet to play games on it, benchmark it, as well as check the temps.

 

Ditto, rubbing the screen made my white blotches go away but the slight bleed at the bottom remains.

For checking for dead pixels, download UDPixel. It works in Vista 64-bit, but when you try and close it it gives you a harmless execution error.

 

The only issue I am having with mine is one itty bitty dead pixel...But me being on deployment is kind of stopping me from going to best buy if I have any problems with it...So I am putting 100% faith into this laptop and would recommend it to anybody especially for the price it is now...

 

nope its just a giant POS...come on dude!!! everyone and their mom is buying one. I love mine. not a single thing wrong with it.

 

Clearly shows that this sub forum's poster's average age is below the age of being able to own a credit card. X_X

 

Ok, when I cloned the hard drive so that I could mess around with the laptop (and put back the original when things turn out ok) I found that the second hard drive bay had a sticky metalic shield covering the SATA ports. Do you guys have the same thing?

So, so far I can recommend the machine (until I run some games and see if it locks up). It definitely is worth the price (~$1200 with the BB sale). For the same specs for a Sager 5796, it would have probably run about $2000. I could almost buy 2 of these for 1 of those...

 

i had one of those on my 6860 when i opened up the hard drive bay to see if i could put another hard drive in. they probably do it to trick you into thinking 'oh ****, this could void my warranty'

 

I'm on my third (due to screen ghosting issues) and of the two that I opened the HD bays on they both had the foil sticker you describe.

I would definitely recommend the 7811fx. I also read the Sager 5796 forums and they seemed to have their fair share of problems too - at almost twice the price. Best Buy seems to be good about exchanges so I'd just exchange until you get one that lives up to your expectations.

 

I've only been dinking with it for a little over 3 days now. But so far I'd say it's worth it.

I, like fire, also had an e1705 with the 7900gs in it originally that died. And this laptop so far has been as good as the dell was to me. The only thing that concerns me is the post I've already made regarding the HD temp.

My box did come unglued on me as I opened it up, but meh... if that's the worst thing that happens to me, I think I'm doing pretty good.

Good build quality. From what I can tell good hardware. I was able to easily blow away the factory install to make sure all the random bloatware and such was taken care of. Kinda dumb that the drivers aren't on the gateway site yet...but thanks to these forums I was able to find everything I needed to. The latest nvidia Cuda drivers work great with the video card. And I did about a 2hr WoW test session last night with no problems at all.

I think this hit exactly the mark I was looking to hit with a replacement for my e1705. Something that wasn't just insanely expensive and powerful enough to keep my gaming appetite fed while away from home and my main PC.

The only other laptop that really hit this mark was the Asus G50V-X1 laptop.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220379

But thanks to the BB sale... uh yeah, no brainer...

 

Cowprince, glad to hear that you got a replacement for that POS E1705. I was driving myself crazy trying to find a replacement gfx card for that thing. I was also looking at the Sager NP5796 (17") and the NP8660 (15.4"), AW M17x and the XPS 1730 before I found about Gateway 7811 from a review in Maximum PC magazine (got a 9/10 rating).

The Gateway was definitely worth the price considering that the others are ~$2000 for a decent setup with a 9800 gfx card.

Btw: did you ever get the E1705 up and running again?

 

I also hope this elusive BIOS update will give us more options. I used to think the Dell XPS BIOSes were limited, sheesh.

 

Naw, actually getting ready to piece it out on ebay to help offset the new laptop's cost.

The cost of a new 7900gs or anything to replace it when I was looking about a month ago was a minimum of $300 on ebay or any random laptop parts vendors. I figured for that much I'd be over 1/4 of the way to a new laptop.

 

I bought this laptop last month and just got a price match from best buy. I've only had one problem with it - It's much too fast, and way too good a value. Nah but honestly no problems except for anything having to do with Gateway customer service. I also would have liked to Raid the HDDs, but hopefully a future bios update will allow this.

 

Buy it, use it, and then wish that you purhcased it earlier.

 

I take what i said back about this machine......if you can get a working one, its a pretty good laptop for the money your spending. I got to see how the graphics look and how the games run on here when they do work and it was pretty good. I'm getting a refund only because my friend has got a 1730 now but i would recommend this computer to anyone who doesn't have $2000 to spend on a gaming laptop