Is the P-7811 worth it

i was looking for a gaming laptop, id like the 7811 but i see alot of people have problems with it, i was also thinking about the Asus G50V-A2, what are your opinions. i was going to buy the 7811 at a local best buy, but the acer i would have to order from newegg or buy.com (buy.com has it cheaper)

 

I have no problems yet ... one week and love it.

Something to know about Newegg and I assume But.com, there is basically no return. If problems arise you directly go to the brand. This 14 day return window for Best Buy is a nice thing (maybe too easy). I know in a perfect world no returns would be necessary but life is unkind at times. I love Newegg but laptops can be a tricky adventure. Just for what it's worth. I've been down that road before.

I find it hard to believe this lock up thing is not something workable by some future discovery. Why it happens to some and not others is a complete mystery ATM.

I feel your pain (and worry) and there is plenty reason for it.

If you do choose the Asus (with that dinky little screen and wimpy gpu, LOL) you might look at XoticPC for a vendor. Having one more person on your side at problem time is a good thing.
http://www.xoticpc.com/asus-g50va2-p-2480.html

 

alright, i guess the 7811 then, question though, once i get it, do some tests and make sure its not a bad model, id like to do raid, so i go and buy another seagate 200gb off of newegg, but i read that the other HDD tray doesnt have screws in it, so where would i get screws for that?


also hows the TIM on it, should i replace it with some AS5 or MX-2?

 

A lot of people on this forum do have problems with the P-7811 FX. However, a lot of people also do not have problems. I bought mine on 8-31-08 for the first day of the sale. I let them take it out and turn it on, under my direct supervision (no hiding in back rooms), ran a dxdiag, and made sure the screen and system was alright. Then took it home and put it through running Crysis for 2 hours. It was stable, not overheating, and therefore got a proper clean install of Vista x64. I haven't had a single problem...not even an application compatibility problem! (note: I give all my games admin rights)

I would definitely say this system is a great deal. I bought a $3,000 Dell a few years ago and the first one they sent me was a piece of junk. The second was great, but for $3,000 I expected things to be flawless. Here I pay $1,250 for this Gateway and it's just fine. Check out the box before you buy, make sure it's not deteriorating, let them turn it on and check it out in store while you're standing there watching them, and then go home and play an intense game and see if it locks up. Hopefully you'll wind up with just as flawless a system as I have.

EDIT: If you find out where to get those screws, let me know! I've been looking everywhere and can't find any, so I just borrowed 2 screws from the hard drive that came with the P-7811 FX. Both drives now have 2 screws on them (diagonally apart).

 

YOU CAN NOT DO RAID WITH THE p-7811 FX, period, final, don't even think about it. (If a BIOS flash with RAID enabled is released from Mt. Olympus buy Zeus (bios god), then you can but NOT NOW)

 

WHAT!?????? NO RAID!?

 

Here is the RAID thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3898428#post3898428

At first posting everyone believed raid was possible (all the pieces are there). But keep reading. I know of no one who has accomplished RAID. Maybe you can be the first and thus forever enshrined in the Gateway Hall of Fame.

 

Spoken like a true engineer! +1 rep to u

 

I too thought about the Asus quite a lot before buying the 7811; in fact I had one on order. But seeing one in person it's not hardly any smaller or thinner than the Gateway yet has the smaller screen, less powerful (by a lot) video card, DDR2 rather than DDR3, etc. It does support RAID out of the box tho, and has bluetooth neither of which the Gateway does, and has the faster CPU, so if any of that is important to you it might be the deciding factor.

If playing the latest 3D games is what you want a new laptop for the Gateway wins hands down: the GPU is roughly twice as powerful as the 9700. There's a survey on this forum showing that 2/3 of the buyers have had no issues whatsoever with their 7811; I'm one of them. I suspect that faulty memory MAY have been a factor in some of the issues reported but nobody who has had lock ups has bothered to troubleshoot the memory modules yet so that's just a guess.

As Dragon says check the machine out before you leave Best Buy; I booted mine in the parking lot, the battery had plenty of juice out of the box. I then took it to a Starbucks and really thumped on it for two hours before being convinced I had a "good 'un" and heading home.

Persistence pays; you have 14 days to exchange the machine IF it has issues, so you really can't get stuck.

BTW I've read on the Asus forums that those machine have keyboard problems, many of them will not recognize combo keystrokes like W + D + SPACE. You might want to check it out before deciding.

We all have our fingers crossed that a future BIOS update will enable RAID on the 7811, the hardware supports it, it's just a matter of Gateway (Phoenix actually) enabling that support.

 

This is like the worst poll ever... it's like polling the National Republican Convention on who was going to win the election!

Anyway, if you compare the 2 laptops your looking at here is what you get.

G50V-A2 is $700 more expensive, has blue-ray disc, comes with RAID, has a 15.4in display, and has a 9700m GT video card.

7811FX has a 17in monitor, not capable of raid YET (hardware is, bios isn't), has a 9800M GTS vid card, and no blue-ray disc.

Thats the basic breakdown anyway. I didn't care about blue-ray and if I do in the future I can upgrade. I wanted the bigger monitor, but the smaller one could make it a bit more portable. Raid wasn't a big issue for me and I actually think that Gateway will update the bios at some point fairly soon. (last model was raid capable.)

The real deal breaker for me is the difference between the 9700M GT and the 9800M GTS. If you actually go research the two cards it is a HUGE difference. The 9700M GT only has 128bit wide Memory channels and 32 shaders, the 9800M GTS has 256bit wide Memory channels and 64 shaders. The 9700M GT is also on a older G96 core.

And here you go: http://laptoping.com/nvidia-geforce-9700m-gt-gts-9800m-gts-gt-gtx.html

 

A true engineer would have put a small piece of bubble gum in the opposing corners and then secured the whole thing (just to make sure) with bailing wire!

 

Bubble Gum... This is a Gateway, not a bubble gum-scented Asus!

I did consider putting something on the two empty spots, but with temps in the low 40C's and the fact that I tend to move the laptop around a lot, I decided not to. I did try to get the IT department to find me some screws...but no luck. I don't think they normally open up their Mac computers....I'm one of the last remaining Windows people.

 

You are asking in a Gateway forum. Come on, did you really except people to say no to the 7811FX?

I second what earlier people said. A lot of people have had problems with the 7811FX and some have even gone thru multiple exchanges to get a properly working one. At the same time, a lot of people have got a perfect machine on the first try. So ya, its a gamble. Up to you if you are willing to take the chance of getting a lemon then going to exchange. If you are not, you might want to look other places. My guess is about 1/5 7811FX turn out to be a lemon, i.e. ~20% failure rate. If thats true or not, I have no way of proving, its just a guess.

If I was in the market to buy a gaming laptop, I personally would buy the 7811FX since I dont mind having to do multiple exchanges to get a working one, but I am not

For the price, the specs on the 7811FX are way better then the asus.

 

Worth it! Do it! buy it!
Remember that people on forums are 95% complainers and 5% people who take time out of having fun with their computers to tell people what's up.

Though out of the owners of 7811 it's probably 90% happy and 10% upset

 

so im certain now that im going to buy one later this week, is there anything special i should make them do while im there? also is there anything i should buy along with it?

 

buy a laptop bag

the targus one works great!

 

A bluetooth USB dongle, tiniest one you can find(Best Buy has one by Kensington that's almost invisible it's so small, so it stays well out of the way), and the Logic V470 bluetooth mouse. See Amazon for reviews on the latter, including a good little video review. I have both items and response is tops.

You want tiny USB items or to attach them via a tiny cord connected to a hub somewhere, as there are only 3 USB slots on the 7811, and one of them is on the right hand side where you'd use a mouse, and the other two on the back left have almost no space between them, making using things like a fat USB Pen like one of the Corsair's a little tricky if you also want to use anything that isn't close to as skinny as a USB plug itself.

If you tend to use a lot of USB stuff, a nice small hub couldn't hurt, too. I got a pretty nice one from Belkin that holds four USB items. Useful for me, as I tend to use a lot of external devices like hard drives and USB Pens. It's also nice to be able to plug them all in at once by using a hub, rather than constantly switching in and out of the laptop directly. Probably less wear and tear on the laptop too.

 

I tried to be impartial but it's a no-brainer, the 7811 beats that Asus by a mile. Based on specs alone it beats it and then when you factor in bang for the buck+ability to buy it locally there is no contest.

$1900? Heck, for that price I could buy two P-6860FX's and still have $330 left over.

 

the result so far is about what I would expect.