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Hey All! I've been reading this forum for well over a month now, ever since I decided I wanted a laptop. I am a Marine currently serving in Iraq, and just couldn't stand not having a computer here anymore. I chose the P-171 XL FX for many reasons, including Price/Performance ratio and design. I was tempted to go with the m15x, but I'm definitely glad I didn't.
Buying and shipping experience:
The actual purchasing process was rather pleasant. I ordered through a sales representative by the name of Rico Baeza, who was very polite and helpful throughout the ordering process. I even got a 10% discount on my entire order, but I did buy a lot of extras, including the 3-year standard warranty, the 3-year accidental damage warranty (I felt like this was necessary - I'm in Iraq for chrissakes!), and the Targus backpack bundle. Your mileage may vary when it comes to discounts, but ordering extras definitely helps. I basically ended up getting the warranties for free!
On another positive note, the notebook shipped out in only 2 days, and got to my Mom's house in 5. The shipping problems I've read about in this forum seem to have been solved, at least for the XL model. A major negative for me though is that Gateway does NOT ship to FPO/APO addresses (i.e. overseas military addresses), which is why it was shipped to my Mom's house, whom then shipped it to me. I was pretty disappointed in that, and it probably added a week to it getting to me, during which time the anticipation was killing me. Obviously this won't affect the majority of you, but it's something to keep in mind.
Something else I wish they'd offer is configuration options. I would've loved to have had an 8800GTX instead of a GTS, and a Blu-Ray drive instead of an HD-DVD, but those aren't compromises that bother me too much. I can always swap out the optical drive later, anyway.
Unboxing & First Impressions:
(There's plenty of pics you can find elsewhere, I won't bother here)
When the day finally came that it arrived in the mail, I was excited as hell. Even after many years of building my own desktop gaming rigs this is the first laptop I've ever owned, you see. I tore into that box and had it running in half a heartbeat. I was impressed by the slickness of the design, and loved the color choices. It definitley looks like a gaming machine, but I'm glad it doesn't have any tacky LED strobes or alienheads on it. The screen doesn't have any dead pixels and looks great, though there is some backlight leakage at the bottom. The hinges keep it solidly at the angle you put it, and any "flexing" didn't seem nearly as bad as reported. I also like having the full size keyboard with numberpad. Really the only build quality issue that bugs me is the left mouse button doesn't always register a click when you feel it click, you have to press it pretty hard sometimes.
After setting up the OS and deleting some of the crapware, I installed Gears of War to see what this baby could do. It ran flawlessly at high settings, and definitely looked impressive.
Where the problems begin:
After installing Sins of a Solar Empire, I noticed something funny. The scrollbar on the side of the touchpad didn't scroll, basically making that game unplayable. I went to control panel and sure enough, they didn't bother installing the touchpad drivers at the factory, in fact it was recognized as a standard two-button mouse. No biggie, I thought, I can fix that myself. In the process of doing this, I came across something else that was unusual: both of my harddrives were listed separately under Computer. I knew this thing was supposed to ship with RAID, but I had never set up RAID before, and didn't think too much of it. But then I went into the BIOS, and sure enough, RAID was disabled!
At this point I really couldn't believe they could've been this lazy or inept at the factory. However, being a fairly experienced geek I kept my cool, as I was confident I could set it up myself. I rebooted, went into the BIOS, and enabled RAID. After another reboot, I CTRL+I'd into the RAID manager and created the RAID array. It warned me that it would erase all data on the drives, and I continued. I was a little chagrined about that, as it hadn't said anything about data being erased during the RAID setup process in the Reference Guide, and once again, the is my first time doing RAID. I figured whatever, there's a recovery partition, I'll just use that to restore the factory settings. What else I didn't know, and again what it didn't tell me in the Reference Guide, is that setting up the RAID would erase the recovery partition. Damn, I thought. There's a feature I won't have anymore. But still, I have the recovery DVD that came with it. That'll get me back to factory settings! So I pop it in a reinstall Windows, only to find that it's not really a recovery disc, it's just Windows! So here I am now, with a base copy of Windows installed, no drivers, no software that it had come with, and no way to get it all back. Thanks Gateway!
I know a lot of you do clean installs on your machines as soon as you get them anyway, and I know I can get drivers from Gateway's site, so some of you might be laughing. But the point is, RAID should've been enabled from the factory, which would have saved me from all this headache. I want the recovery partition and Gateway recovery software, I want the fingerprint reader security software, I want the FX themes, I could've used the Norton, and I'm sucker for small touches like the custom Gateway system identifier under system properties and stuff like that. Now it's all gone, and I have a nagging feeling like my system is somehow incomplete.
If any of you can tell me how to recover a factory install after having done what I just did, I'd be happy to hear it. I don't suppose disabling the RAID array would do it, especially after reinstalling Windows, huh? If it's not possible, any other tips on getting some of the software would be appreciated as well.
Thanks!
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Welcome to Gateway, we're number two and we intend to stay that way!
Of course, I knew this from a previous experience.. and it did not stop me
Odd that if you ordered it in Raid format, it should have come in Raid format. Have you called Gateway to discuss this? They may still be sorting their back orders. I agree, not acceptable for a $3K notebook. -
The P-171xl fx does say it comes 2 200gb raid 0, call Gateway (Rico) and tell him. I have the same rep, Rico is cool, he told me the reps do get to have input at meetings, so fire away!
And thank you for your service to our country.
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Good review - Thanks - I'm really starting to look at this system and your provided info is great. +rep
PS - Greetings from Speicher...
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I tried to do the above by email, and four emails later Gateway told me basicly I was out of luck. Maybe I'd have better luck calling and talking to a real person, I kept getting the same response, "use the gateway system recovery option" dahhh, If I did a fresh install of Vista, I have no "System recovery" on my hard drive. Oh well, I did not expect more than that anyways
My P-171 XL FX: Short Review + Need Help
Discussion in 'Gateway and eMachines' started by spaceoddity, Apr 13, 2008.
