Jakamo5's P-7811/7801u/7805u FX Fresh Format Guide

EDIT: Everything here applies to all P-78** users.

Before I begin, I should say that this guide should be considered one of personal preference, and in no way is considered by anyone other than myself to be the best setup for the 7811. The main purpose is to provide some tips or suggestions to those interested. I also welcome suggestions and criticism from others, and when I hear good suggestions I will likely update this Guide to include them.

I also am writing this all from memory, so look out for errors and please PM or post with corrections.

Please also note that I prefer a very lightweight resource load. Let's begin...

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Step 1) Get a second Seagate Momentus 200GB 7200.2RPM HDD, and put it into the second hard drive slot. If you decide that you're fine with only one hard drive, then you can safely skip to step 4, but should probably complete step 2 first. If your laptop is not a 7811, make sure you get a drive that is the same size/speed as your primary one!

Once you've got the second HDD, make sure your laptop is powered off. Remove the battery and press the power button once or twice (in case there's still power in capacitors), then flip it upside down. Now watch this video. The video applies to newer models as well, such as the 7811/7801u, as they use the same casing as the 6831/6860. Remember, the main thing we want to prevent here is static shock.


Step 2) Make sure you have a bios higher than 9c.05.00. I prefer 9c.08.00.

Methods of checking the bios:
-Upon booting your laptop, press F2 to enter the bios, which should display the version.
-Press Windows key + R > Type "cmd" without quotes and hit enter > Type "systeminfo" without quotes and hit enter (credit Metalangel)
-Press the Start Menu button > go to All Programs > go to Intel Matrix Storage Manager > go to "View" > click "System Report"

If you would like to switch to a different Bios version, E-wrecked has made them available here and here. DO NOT use the bios update from Gateway's Website (94.28), it is NOT compatible with the Montevina chipset in the P-7811, despite whatever Gateway tells you.

[As per iaTa's suggestion, this is when you should download the latest Intel RAID drivers from here, and move them onto a USB stick.]

Step 3) Setup a Raid 0 Array with 2 Volumes. Warning: This will delete all of the data off of your hard drives.

Enter the bios by pressing F2 when at the boot screen. Navigate to the Advanced tab, and disable "Quiet Boot." Then under the "Sata" drop down menu, select "Raid." If you do not see this option, then you have either not installed your second hard drive properly, or you are using bios 9c.05.00.

Now save and exit using F10, and your laptop should reboot. After the boot screen, when you see a dialog saying "Press Crtl + I", do so. You will then have entered the Raid Configuration Screen, which is pretty straightforward.

Start by creating two Raid Volumes. The first will be used for the Operating System, Documents, and Programs. The second will be used for Media including Pictures, Music, and Videos, as well as for Games. The first Volume should be set to Raid Level: Raid 0 (Stripe), Stripe Size: 16kb, Capacity: 50 GB, and you can name it what you'd like. I named mine Recon. The second Volume should be set to Raid Level: Raid 0 (Stripe), Stripe Size: 128kb, Capacity: 322GB (remainder of space), and I named mine Assault. Don't fret about the total space not equaling 400GB. This is a characteristic of all hard drives of all sizes, and more information about why the usable capacity is smaller than what it's marketed as can be found here.

Once this is complete, you can Exit the Intel Matrix Storage Manager (option 4). Now re-enter the bios by hitting F2 repeatedly when the laptop boots up again, and go back to the Advanced tab and re-enable "Quiet Boot." It won't do much as you'll still see the Raid Controller flash your Raid specs when the laptop boots, it's something you'll have to live with.

Step 4) Use the Gateway Recovery CD and install Vista.

Simply insert the CD and reboot your laptop. The installation wizard should appear, and is extremely straightforward. [As per iaTa's suggestion, at this point you should insert your USB stick and click "Load Drivers". Then navigate to your flash stick and select the Raid driver to install it. Then continue on with the rest of the directions.] If you've setup Raid, Vista will likely need you to Format one of the volumes before you can install the OS onto either. You should take this opportunity to format both volumes, but you will be installing the OS onto your first volume, the 50gb one. So choose the first volume for installation after the drives are formatted. The best optimization for formatting a raid 0 volume, in my opinion, is to use a 1:4 stripe:cluster ratio. If you want to know what it means, just look it up on Google, you'll get a better explanation than I can give you. What I will tell you is how. When you format the drive, you should see an option to set the cluster size, it might be called "allocation unit size". Basically, on your 128kb stripe size drive, you want the cluster size to be set to 32kb when you format it. On the 16kb cluster size drive, where your OS is going, you want to format the drive to 4kb cluster size, which is actually what Windows uses by default.

You will have the option of choosing 32 or 64 bit Vista. I hands-down use 64-bit, as I believe it to be the future. Main concerns with 64-bit are that not all programs are compatible with it, however I know from experience that this criticism is strongly exaggerated, and that even those programs that aren't compatible will either be discontinued or made compatible sometime in the future. Regardless, you will not be able to utilize the full 4GB of RAM in your laptop unless you choose 64-bit.

Step 5) Install the most recent drivers, or in the case of video drivers, those which you prefer.
The process of updating drivers is well documented, and so I will not go into much detail on how to update them, but will describe what to look for and where.

A compilation of the drivers for the P-7811 can be found in 3 places:

Ashura's P-7811 Fx Drivers Thread updated 9/05/08 <<< NOT FOR 7801u/7805u
Gateway's Website (these results specific to 7811 with Vista 64-bit) updates rarely <<< NOT FOR 7801u/7805u
iaTa's Definitive nVidia Drivers Upgrade Guide updates current

For the most accurate recently updated drivers, it is always best to search the manufacturer's website yourself to find the drivers. However, this can lead to complications in different ways, such as the drivers not being available, or incorrectly listed as compatible, etc. This is where these compilations come in handy. If for no other reason, these compilations can also be used as an index to tell you which drivers to look for on the internet.

Of these three compilations choices, iaTa's would by far be the one to use if possible. While it is meant to be more video driver specific, it also lists other drivers used by the 7811, and because it is so well maintained, it should be held in higher esteem than the other compilations. It also correctly describes the process for updating video drivers, which can prevent many unfortunately common problems with nVidia drivers.

Please note that Intel suggests that the Chipset driver be updated before all other drivers, as it is required for many other drivers to function properly.

For those less savvy or lazy users, a freeware program called DriverMax has received some good reviews and has been recommended by some.


Step 6) Tweak Vista

NBR has a great Vista tweaking page, which is described below. But first, I will describe a few tweaks more specific to the 7811's specs.

-If you've setup a Raid Array, you'll want to go into Start > All Programs > Intel Matrix Storage Manager. Under "Volumes", right click both volumes and click "Enable Write-Back Cache." This will improve your bursts, if you know what that means. If you don't see it there, follow this link to download it.

-One of the complaints about 1920x1200 LCDs is that the text and icons are too small. Right click the desktop and go to "Personalize." Along the left sidebar, click "Adjust Font Size" and change it to 120DPI. The change won't fully take affect until after your next reboot, but you will see that not only does the text size increase, but also the icons and shortcuts, the taskbar, and the picture at the login screen.

-While in "Personalize", I like to change "Windows Color and Appearance" to Orange to match the 7811 trim. I also like the "Aurora" screen saver best, even though it seems to use the GPU more than expected.

-Also while in "Personalize", on the left sidebar click "Change Desktop Icons." I like to keep on my desktop the following from those choices: Recycle Bin, Computer, Control Panel, Network. I also create a shortcut to Documents and a shortcut to Downloads (which is within Documents) and I place each of these on the desktop. Later on, I put Firefox and iTunes shortcuts on the Desktop as well. These are my only 8 shortcuts on the desktop.

-If you've setup a Raid Array as described, go into C: > Users > (your login name). Individually right click Videos, Music, and Pictures. For each of these, go to Properties, then the Location tab. Change their locations to D:\Videos, D:\Music, and D:\Pictures.

-Right click your desktop and got o nVidia Control Panel. Click "Adjust Desktop Color Settings", and slide the "Digital Vibrance" bar to 50%, then hit Apply. I like 50%, but you should try other percentages to see what you like best.

-Press Windows key + R and type "msconfig" without quotes and hit enter. Click the Startup tab and uncheck "Chicony traybar" to keep that annoying Camera Assistant Toolbar from loading at startup.

-The 7811 comes with Vista Home Premium, which excludes some cool features of Vista Ultimate. As a remedy, there are options available to mimic those excluded features found here: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3. Of these, I only use Part 2, Dreamscene mimic. Note that you still won't be able to use dreamscene files, but you can use video files such as .wmv's. I can't find the one I use now anywhere, so maybe I'll upload it, but for now you can use some of these on deviantArt. Most are in .wmv format. Keep in mind you can right click the desktop to Pause and Play the Dreamscene. Here is a link to some really good ones in wmv format.

-Install Stardock's freeware utility LogonStudio Vista which allows you to set a custom Logon Screen. You can find these screens on the internet (make sure you're looking for Vista specific ones). I'll upload the one that I use soon.

-In the taskbar, right click the battery icon near the clock on the right, and click "Power Options." Change from "Balanced" to "High Performance."

Now we can move on to NBR's Vista Tweaks found here. It is ultimately up to you to decide which tweaks you want to use, but since this Guide is of my own personal preference, I will list the ones I use.

#1, #3, #4, #5, #6, #10 (although this doesn't affect us since we're in a Raid array), #11 (use iaTa's guide), #15, #17 (more below), #23.

Note: I would recommend leaving UAC turned on.

iaTa adds that there are also quite a few Vista tweaks which aren't included in the NBR guide but really do speed up the OS. One of the best utilities that will do most of the tweaks easily for you is Vista Manager, rather than having to manually use regedit etc. The removal of unnecessary scheduled tasks especially speeds up boot-up time.


Step 7) Install Software
This is relatively straightforward with some minor exceptions.

A list of what I install (these all go onto the 50gb volume except for Steam):

1) Firefox with the following extensions: Adblock Plus, Download Statusbar, Flagfox, NoSquint, NoScript, WOT, and with the Theme "Aquatint Black Gloss." iaTa suggests another extension, Webmail Notifier, which checks your webmail accounts and notifies of the number of unread emails.

...-In Adblock Plus, use the EasyList subscription list. iaTa points out that EasyList homepage has 3 elements, EasyList, EasyElement, and EasyPrivacy. If you subscribe through Adblock Plus, you'll only get EasyList + EasyElement. If you want EasyPrivacy as well, you can get it at the homepage. In Download Statusbar, check "Automatically continue downloads in the downloads manager...". In WOT settings, under Ratings uncheck Child Safety, under Searching check Only Show Negative Ratings, under Advanced check Enable Automatic Updates.

...-In Firefox, go to Tools > Options > Privacy Tab. Check "Always clear my private data when I close Firefox." Then click Settings and check off everything.

2) WinRar

3) SpywareBlaster and run updates then enable all protection.

4) Spybot S&D and run update, then immunize. I don't run TeaTimer full-time since it is so much like Windows Defender.

5) Avira Premium Edition with Free 3 Month License or with a Free 6 Month License

6) K-Lite Codec Pack

7) uTorrent

8) Blocklist Manager and use it to block blacklisted IP's in uTorrent

9) CCleaner, Defraggler, and Recuva - Amazing freeware from Piriform

10) Microsoft Office

11) iTunes and Quicktime - When you download iTunes use the 64 bit IE and you will get the iTunes64Setup.exe (64 bit iTunes). Otherwise if you use Firefox (like I originally did) you will get the 32 bit version. Credit Harold_Callahan.


12) Pidgin (alternative to AIM)

13) Steam (this goes onto the larger volume!!!)

14) XBMC

15) HWMonitor

16) Powercalc (if you can find the executable, it runs in compatibility mode for XP SP2)

17) Nvidia System Tools

18) Driver Sweeper

Then I install my games, movies, and music onto the larger Raid volume.


Step 8) Vista Sidebar Gadgets

I've gone through a lot of Gadgets and have settled on theses from top to bottom:

zCalendar
Standard Clock with face #3 of 8, and with seconds hand visible
Pro Weather (amazing btw)
nVidia GPU Temp Gadget
All CPU Meter
Wired Network Meter

Step 9) Overclock the GPU Optional - At your own risk!

Prerequisite: the latest version of Nvidia System Tools is installed.

Navigate to Start > All Programs > nVidia Corporation > nVidia Control Panel > Performance > Device Settings

Change Core to 698 Mhz, Memory to 998 Mhz, and Shaders to 1798 Mhz. Click Apply and close out. When asked if you want to load the settings at startup, choose yes. Credit E-wrecked for the clocks.
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And that should be it! Now just go back into msconfig and uncheck anything you don't want running at startup (quicktime), then run CCleaner and clean the registry as well as files. I hope that this Guide helped you. Now I welcome suggestions, additions, criticism, and corrections.

 

Cool thread. +rep.

 

i'm a bit of a raid newb...

"The first Volume should be set to Raid Level: Raid 0 (Stripe), Stripe Size: 16kb, Capacity: 50 GB"

say I want to set the first volume to ~100gb, would I still use the stripe size settings you have listed above?

btw, I plan on adding a 320gb momentus instead of 200, that's why I'm curious about settings.

Thanks,
Jon

 

are you going to be using 2 320 gb drives for raid or the 200 gb stock one and a 320 gb one? kind of pointless to use a 200 gb drive and a 320 gb drive as you'll have 120 gb of wasted space, due to raid only being as large as the smallest drive.

oh, and Jak...+rep. good thread....dammit. i guess i gotta spread the love before giving you rep again. here is your coupon for +1 rep credit.

 

Thanks for the info...that's why I said I was a RAID newb

Looks like i'll be going with the stock drive + another 200gb drive.

Back to the original question of mine...

Would the settings change any if I decided to make my first volume 100gb vs Jakamo's 50gb config?

Thanks,
Jon

 

Nope, the stripe size is more configured for whats going to be put on the volume, not how large the volume is. So you can use 100gb with that stripe and have the same performance. That stripe size is meant for files that are generally smaller (OS files, documents, and program files). So if you think you're going to be installing 100gb of programs (would be impressive), you can set the volume to 100 instead of 50. Just remember that that's 50gb less you can use for media/games.

 

Thanks for all the help Jakamo!

Looks like I'll be picking up a Seagate Momentus 7200.2 200GB 7200 RPM /16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Notebook Hard Drive - OEM

Pretty good deal for $75 at newegg!

Thanks for the help guys!

Jon

 

Great guide. One tip - you should really load Intel's latest RAID driver from here at Windows Setup instead of using the default driver.

 

I've got the gateway recovery DVD made (for simple driver purposes), and I'm going to be loading all the latest updated chipset drivers as suggested by Jakamo.

One question for you...when you say to load it at "windows setup", what do you mean? Do you mean after vista has been installed and when I begin installing all my drivers?

Basically, where does installing the new RAID driver come in on Jakamo's concise step-by-step guide?

Explain yourself !

Sorry in advance for the noob questions...Like I said before, I'm somewhat of a novice (although I can follow well laid out instructions such as Jakamo's.)

Thank's,

Jon

 

No when you first run Windows Setup at the drive selection screen there is an option to 'Load Driver'. You press that and have the Intel RAID drivers ready on a USB flash disk / hard drive.

 

thanks added that and also realized I forgot digital vibrance so I added that too

 

Thanks for the help. You guys have been really helpful to a noob

 

nice how-to jak.. +rep for details.

EDIT: Gotta spread some luv.. remind me to hitcha up

 

ugh that makes 3 people that tried to give me rep and couldn't in the past 3 days lol, you, danja, and diablo

 

Another great Firefox extension by the way is WebMail Notifier. There are also quite a few Vista tweaks which aren't included in the NBR guide but really do speed up the OS. One of the best utilities that will do most of the tweaks easily for you is Vista Manager, rather than having to manually use regedit etc. The removal of unnecessary scheduled tasks especially speeds up boot-up time.

Also the EasyList homepage has three elements (EasyList, EasyElement, EasyPrivacy) and I'm not sure the default sign-up in ABP includes all three, so I always sign up from there.

 

added thanks

 

Great guide plus rep.

 

hey Jak...

do you think the 4kb cluster/16kb stripe size would be fine for the RAID volume as a whole? just curious as i am about to re-install my raid array and would like to know beforehand.

keep in mind i am not worried about storage space or having a small file take up 16 or even 128 kb worth of space. i had my raid setup with a 128kb stripe before and still had plenty of space even after all my programs/games were installed.

 

Actually I had said somewhere else that smaller files will take up 16kb on a 16kb stripe, etc, but someone corrected me and it seemed that I was wrong about this. The cluster size works this way, but stripe size does not.

To answer your question though, simply putting your drives into a Raid 0 array will give the biggest performance increase. From there on, adjusting the stripe size of the array to fit your needs will give you a small additional performance increase, but an existent one none-the-less.

So:

If you're looking at No Raid vs 1 Raid Volume with 16kb stripe, you'll have a good performance increase.

If you're looking at Raid 128kb vs Raid 16kb each on a single volume, then I'd have to say it depends on what you're doing. Programs and OS tasks will have a better performance advantage over Gaming, etc. However, the performance difference won't be that big.

If you decide to make two volumes, one 4:16kb and one 32:128kb, with OS/Docs/Programs on the first and Games/Videos/Music/Pictures on the second, you'll have (in my largely researched opinion) the best possible performance for all tasks.

Actually, the one thing I didn't explain in my guide is how to set cluster sizes with vista... maybe i'll edit it tomorrow

 

thanks Jak. i decided to just go with a 4kb:16kb raid setup and it does seem faster than when i had a 128kb stripe. but at the same time, i dont have all my games installed. i'm so glad i went back to a raid setup.

 

Jak, still trying to rep ya. Still gotta spread some love before givin you more lovin. :|

 

Could someone tell me the exact name of each device in Device Manager for the following items on the 7811:

Webcam
Audio
Modem
LAN NIC
Media Reader
Fingerprint Reader

I'm going to update my guide with the latest driver versions for the 7811.

 

http://img244.imageshack.us/img244/4699/driversoi9.jpg

Theres no fingerprint reader. Also, before the conexant drivers are installed after a fresh reformat, there will be a second HDMI Audio Driver in its place in device manager.

 

Finally! Jak, you got your +rep and iaTa, enjoy the freebee

 

ah hell....first i have to spread the love, and then i rep 5 different people before trying to rep you again Jak but now it says that i've given to much reputation in the last 24 hours....will try again soon jak.

 

Cheers both

 

finally i was able to rep you Jak....3 days and rep spread out over multiple users on random posts later.

 

I've been following the guide but I have never seen the "Load Driver" option before the Windows Setup and I've never seen the drive selection screen. I went on with the installation anyways, but I can't even access the BIOS by pressing F2 anymore. BTW: I set up a RAID 1 (Mirror) and installed the OS in a 50GB volume but the rest of the space I don't see it. I wanted to restart the formatting to simply keep the RAID 1 as the whole HDD space and then partition it. Can I load the Intel Drivers after the installation?

Thanks.

 

Great guide.
Now I need to find myself a P-7811 first so I can try.

 

The 'Load Driver' option is on the drive selection screen of Windows Setup. I don't think it's possible to install the drivers post-install.

 

This thread is spectacular. I've been slowly filling up my HDD and decided I need a new one. I'm sure I could have figured this out on my own when I switch to raid 0, but having a walk through is always less painful.

+rep man and thanks.

 

very good guide, this is great.

 

You have to press the boot menu button to get to the bios when you're in a raid array. Pressing F10 (I think) repeatedly from when you start your computer to right after the bios screen flashes will do it. It will keep booting up like normal, but then after it lists the laptop hardware (after the raid info) it will give you a menu on which you can choose to go to the bios.

 

Nice thread bro.. Major props. It's beautiful

 

Thank you jakamo5 !!!

 

Press "Ctrl I" to get into Raid Configuration menu.
F10 is the Boot Configuration menu.
F2 is Bios

You may already know this but here it is anyways

 

Thanks.

Updated thread title as it applies to new models.

 

When you download iTunes use the 64 bit IE and you will get the iTunes64Setup.exe (64 bit iTunes). Otherwise if you use Firefox (like I originally did) you will get the 32 bit version.

-Callahan-

 

Just a clarification, that is actually the 6860 bios, and Gateway messed up on that on their support site. When I bought my 7811, the Geek Squad guy promised to update my 7811 bios to the latest version (which was 9.08c). He failed because of this - he got the 94.28 bios from the support site and reported that he just couldn't get it to flash, because it kept saying "wrong chipset" or something, so he had to give up. I have a 6860 too (soon to be on Ebay), so when I went to get the 7811 bios off of the support site, I recognized it instantly lol.

So I came here and got the 9.08c, then later upgraded to 9.12 which works fine, and even keeps my CPU at like 15c because of the bug where the CPU fan stays on after coming out of sleep mode. They should call that a feature, not a bug

 

Thanks I'll put this in.

Right, that "wrong chipset" is what I was referring to when I said it isn't compatible with the Montevina chipset. It is compatible with the older Santa Rosa chipset, which is in your 6860.

As to the CPU fan thing, it's nice when it's plugged in, but that will drain your battery quicker when it's not, I guess that's why it's a bug.

 

I'm currently on a 2888 model, 9c.12.00 BIOS and did a clean install of Vista 64 Home Premium. I tried re-installing all the drivers from the recovery discs but the Conexant Audio driver and the Intel VGA UMA drivers wouldn't work.

For Conexant it said it couldn't find the MEDIA device for the driver. When I look under Device Manager I had only the normal High Def Audio showing, and only one of them. I've read of some people having two show up but I only see one. I tried the work around of downloading the latest Conexant Driver from Gateway Support, but it seems to only install the 4.57.0.50 driver rather than what I downloaded which is Conexant 8.7.0.1007. Are they actually one and the same?

I just noticed that under recording devices too that my microphone won't be recognized now as well.

As for the Intel VGA UMA, it says that the computer does not meet the minimium requirements for installing the software, Setup will Exit. Is this normal? Is this something I even need?

If anyone can help me with these "problems" it'd be appreciated. Also, what order should I be re-installing drivers in the end, or does it matter? Also, one at a time and rebooting after each one, or can I do a bunch at once?

I don't have a problem re-clean installing Vista again if I did something wrong, but I just wanna clear this up first, in case I have to.

Let me know,
Thanks.

 

Conexant audio requires (on my sytem) 2 drivers, the one you installed + the Nvidia HDMI audio driver.

I never installed the intel driver for video.

 

I installed the Nvidia HDMI driver fine, it's just the normal Conexant HD audio that's giving me problems.

 

So which one of the Intel raid driver d/l's is for vista 64? I would think all i need is STOR_allOS_8.7.0.1007_PV.exe. But this is my first time messing around with Raid. So i have 2 320gb drives and set the 1st to 50gb and the rest on 2nd . After install of vista it has drive C at 49.9 GB and drive D at 546gb. Is that right i kinda figured that if i had 49.9 i should have somewhere around 250gb on D. If i set Raid 0 up right.

 

Intel Matrix Storage Driver 64bit 8.7

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/fil...ndows+Vista*+64&lang=eng&strOSs=150&submit=Go!

 

After windows install i never could find this.

-If you setup a Raid Array, you'll want to go into Start > All Programs > Intel Matrix Storage Manager. Under "Volumes", right click both volumes and click "Enable Write-Back Cache." This will improve your bursts, if you know what that means.

Any help?

 

ah, I can't remember if it was there right away or if I had to download the storage manager. Anyway, flynazz posted the link right above your post, so just download the storage manager from there and then follow the directions, I'll update the guide.

 

Well isnt that link to the driver i installed before installing windows?

 

No, look at the links in the guide, the one in iaTa's suggestion for the driver download is different from the one that links to the storage manager download.

 

What up jak? Hey..threw that Gway phone # up in the ??? Gateway Problems thread... Go get your face in there and get your +rep In the meantime, I'm out.. Night!
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=344702