*Official*P-7811 FX Info Thread

I was also looking into another cooling solution.. I researched the fans inside the 7811 and both fans are .5A and spin @ 1500RPM.. there's not many coolers out there that can even compete with that.


However, the Ninja spins up to 2000 RPM and the fans seem to be positioned properly; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834997307

This one looks decent, spinning at 2200 RPM, but the "customer reviews" look like someone faked them all. Too cheesy to be real reveiws. All 83 of them!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834998492

The last one I looked at was the fastest spinning fans, and most airflow, but I'm thinking the ninja may be the way to go; this one spins 1800-2500 RMP tho:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834997168

 

Thanks, E-Wrecked, that's a sensical explanation I can understand. So what is meant by "locked" is that it is not able to be edited by the end user (you or me), NOT that the BIOS can never be updated or replaced by Phoenix or Gateway, correct? Because I haven't heard of a non-reprogrammable BIOS since the early 1980s, and it just made no sense.

 

The size of that usb dongle isnt bad but I dont want to cough up the usb port if there is an internal solution.

 

There certainly are minipci bluetooth cards as well as an extra slot, but I don't believe anybody's put the two together as of yet. Wanna be the test dummy?

 

Good question tallan. I'm not sure what they are saying either.

 

Locked can mean many things..depending on the person using the term. But to my knowledge, there isn't a BIOS that can't be flashed. I consider mine locked because it doesn't offer me full access to OC'ing, RAM timings, voltage editing, RAID, etc. The BIOS is motherboard specific, setting up hardware protocols. However, I'm sure this same MOBO is used in another laptop..and the problem I'm having is finding the real mobo manufacturer. Windows says gateway, who we know doesnt make mobos. They don't want us to unlock anything, due to money and warranty issues I suppose. I did a tear down the 2nd day I had it to apply new AS5 to the GPU, and I didn't take any pics or even think to look at markings on the motherboard. I'm tempted to disassemble again to find out who it is. Then check their site for BIOS info. Nevertheless, I did manage to make a backup of my BIOS.. and I'll be happy to share it if anyone is interested in it. If there's a guru out there who knows how to edit/code and unlock hidden features..be my guest! Gimme a minute and I'll try and upload it somewhere for public download.

Edit: We can flash the BIOS without the help of gateway, or phoenix.. just need to take the copy I'm uploading, edit it, and flash it.

Here's a backup I made of the 7811FX BIOS, was saved as bios.bak, but renamed it to bios.rom, cause it's all the same thing anyhow..i think

http://www.4shared.com/file/60326197/ceb13d/BIOS.html

Feel free to download, check out some bios editors an stuff.. Maybe someone will figure it out. Just don't go flashing your BIOS til you know it works. And Acer/Gateway uses Winphlash for all of their BIOSes recently. I downloaded a copy of winphlash64 1.0.3.5 - 6860fx users should be able to make a backup of their BIOS using same program. Unless it's a 32BIT os, in which case you shouldn't use the 64bit

 

You da man, man! Seriously, thanks, this is what I suspected. It's all in aid of RAID, BTW: hope springs eternal in this breast that enabling RAID support will be possible on the 7811, and it's driving me crazy knowing everything needed is already on board except a BIOS which supports it.

 

I added my BIOS backup to previous post.. incase anyone overlooks the editing.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...k=&VideoOnlyMark=False&Keywords=gateway&Page=

It has 4 USB ports and if you get a DC adapter, you can then power hard drives to bluetooth dongles. It's worth $70 since the competition are part plastic and not full aluminum.

 

narsnail you should edit first post to say TRUE 5.1 can also be achieved with HDMI out -> receiver. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

I just picked up the 7811 today and I got to quick questions.

First is the fan throttling frequently (like a burst of air for one second) normal? and second is there a CD activity light next to the HDD activity light? The manual says there is one, but there is none on mine.

Thanks in Advance!

 

Can I just use any old 4.5-5V dc adapter that I have lying around? Do I need a 9V DC adapter and/or will it run better with a 9V DC adapter?

It will often do the fan burst thing for 30 seconds right when windows loads, just something to get used to. If it does it more than this, you might want to look into it further. As to your second question: Just bought my mom a T-series from gateway and I noticed that hers has the CD indicator. I tried to figure out if my 7811 has one to no avail. I'll look into it further and let you know.

 

i power my cooler (NZXT Cryo Lx) off of a 4 port usb hub plugged into my iPod wall charger. works great.

 

One of the posts (either this or the other giant 7811 thread) indicated that the second pci looked different and mentioned something about micro pci vice mini. Are the ports indeed different?

I'm willing and planning on trying it out. Got any recommendations on which card to go with? I havent found any yet but I havent spent much time either.

BIOS

I could make a backup of the 6831s bios, maybe that would aid in determining what is needed to enable RAID on the 7811.

 

Is there good XP driver support for this laptop? I am considering a dual-boot for compatability.

 

Well, there's no official XP driver support from Gateway but we've got almost all of them down. Missing one or two but DragonRider confirmed what we have to be working for his dual boot:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=287180

 

Sry don't quite understand how this works... you go from ipod wall power brick (which has female firewire out) to a 4 usb port to a usb male/male connector to nzxt? I must be way off because that seems like way too much, can't I just use a 5v dc plug?

 

iPod power bricks have been USB for several years now. They are just like any other USB power brick (execpt a bit more expensive ;-)

Ira

 

erm....last i knew the offered the ipod wall charger in two flavors. usb and firewire (for the older generation ipods)

and yes, you should be able to use a 5V dc to usb plug. the reason why i have mine plugged into a hub, is because the fan speed is noticeably higher with BOTH of the included usb cables plugged in to usb.

 

Ah. I'll have to look into getting a newer ipod charger, thanks. Last question: do the fans run slower when other things are plugged into the usb ports (such as an ipod for instance).

 

plugged in to the cooler? wouldnt know, i used to use the hell out of my usb ports, but came to realize readyboost was pretty much worthless, so all i have plugged in to my laptop usb ports is my mouse.

 

Speaking of ReadyBoost has anybody got it working on the 7811? If so how, and does it seem to do any good?

 

plug in a usb thumb drive, go to its properties, click on the readyboost tab and from there you should be able to specify the size of the 'readyboost cache' that you want vista to use.

 

Readyboost isn't worth the price.

 

you sure you arent thinking of 'Turbo memory'? that, definitely ain't worth the price (not ver. 1.0 found on the santa rosa chipsets at least) but from what i've been hearing lately, Intel really turned turbo memory around with ver. 2.0 on the montevina chipset.

 

LOL. Yea, ole Readyboost sure does cost a fortune.

 

Been there, done that; no joy. With a Kingston SDHC 4GB formatted FAT32, or a Transcend SDHC 8GB formatted NTFS, neither shows any ReadyBoost tab in Properties or anywhere else.

So you DO have it available on your 7811? What may I be doing wrong?

EDIT: Okay, it HAS to be USB "thumbdrive" - on my previous Vista box (Toshiba Core Duo laptop) the SD slot supported ReadyBoost, but not here, apparently. Thanks for the comeback...

So the consensus is the song isn't worth the candle?

 

psst...i've got a 6860. something you could try is to type services.msc into your search bar (if you kept your start menu that way) or go to run type it in, and look for Readyboost. i have mine disabled as its a useless services that i dont use.

edit: thats weird because i have a 2gb sd card, and it supports readyboost.

 

We do have a new chipset here, and that may be the difference; perhaps SD support will be enabled via an update. I have never been able to tell if it does much good in any case.

 

Vista won't suggest or allow readyboost with flash devices it tests and determines to be too slow. If you have a computer that accepts your SD cards for readyboost and the 7811 won't accept these same cards, perhaps the 7811 has a slower card reader and requires yet faster flash or won't support readyboost at all.

We need someone with a fast SD card to test this.

Ira

 

Version 2.0 requires either a 2 GB or 4 GB flash card in the mini-pci slot. So far, I have only seen version 1.0 1 GB cards for sale.

Ira

 

On a side note.. BIOSMAN's company replied about editing/creating a new BIOS.

We do not have the ability to alter the bios code beyond what Gateway provides in regards to features. This would require access to the binary source code, which Gateway does not provide.



Sorry, but we’ll not be able to assist with this request.



Howard

Biosman, Inc.

I think they're full of it, honestly. If I were to have placed an order for a new BIOS chip, they'd ablige me..right? I shot an email back telling I'd provide the binary, and offered a lump some of $1,000,000. Paid all in $1 bills of course. Ok..maybe not so much a million bucks, but I did let him know I'm looking to do business.

 

Both the SDHC cards I tried were Class 6, which (I may well be wrong) I understood to be about as fast as is available today. I also tried a SanDisk Ultra 2 card and it wouldn't work either. All these cards were recognized and "ReadyBoost ready" in the Toshiba. You may well be right, however, and the problem may be the SD reader is not up to the job, or it could just be either Gateway or Intel has not yet implemented support at the BIOS/chipset level.

In any event if anyone finds an SD card that the slot in the 7811 will accept for ReadyBoost please post.

 

I don't think it's a 7811 question as much as a simple vista question.

 

here on a p-6831fx 8GB SDHC Ultra 2 accept ready boost, completely useless though.

 

On my desktop (Vista x64 Ultimate), when I stick an SD card into the reader, I get a popup window that offers me lots of choices for what to do with the newly discovered SD card. One of the choices is readyboost. When I pick that choice, the system tests the memory card. If the card is fast enough, the system lets me pick the amount of space to dedicate to readyboost. If the card isn't fast enough, the system reports the card is too slow and offers to re-test it.

I just did the same operation on my 7811 and the popup window did not include a readyboost option. I also plugged in a USB memory stick and the popup on the 7811 did offer readyboost.

Based on the above behavior, I would guess that the card reader driver on the 7811 does not support readyboost. It is hard to believe that the physical hardware itself would be incompatible with readyboost. Perhaps a future driver will fix this problem.

Ira

 

Would it be at all worthwhile to use readyboost on the 6860? I'm just assuming the 4GB of RAM in it is sufficient and that adding more through readyboost wouldn't really be worthwhile, but maybe I'm wrong?

 

you're very far from being wrong

 

Anyone know the max capacity of the dimm slots (on the 7811)? I play Age of Conan on my 6831 and the memory leak brings me down about every 3 hours. Figured 8gb of memory would keep me going a while.

 

facepalm.....
my sarcasm bag is empty....that would be one of the most ridicules reason in the world to buy a new notebook, cant you just wait for a game patch to fix that ?

 

LOL! 8GB?! Maybe you should get a 9800m GTX and a 2.5Ghz Core 2 Duo before you can think of upgrading to 8GB!

How in the world did you come to the conclusion that Age of Conan needed 8 GB?!

 

no no you missed the point, aoc has a memory leak that slowly cripples the game, so the guy need to shut it down and restart every 3 hours.
which he thinks is a good excuse to buy 8gb ram and new notebook to host it, so it will extend his gaming sessions.

where is dook ?

 

I think the new chipset in theory does support 8GB, but 1. it hasn't been confirmed for the 7811 and 2. as far as I know, 4gb laptop DDR3 sticks aren't available yet, and once they are they'll be very very expensive.

 

Thanks, Ira, that's the exact behavior I've experienced on my 7811. The list, like the beat, goes on; we need (and, Gateway, we're waiting for):

RAID support
ReadyBoost support
Max 8GB RAM support (uncertain)

 

does the 7811 bios support hardware virtualization ?
its (a bit) more useful than readyboost

 

The PM45 chipset does support 8gb: http://ark.intel.com/chipset.aspx?familyID=35515&code=pm45

but there is no sodimm 4gb ddr3 sticks yet.

 

This is the direction I was going. Thanks for the info royk50.

I all ready purchased the laptop, which will have zero affect on the programming issues related to AoC. I bought the new laptop because I could.

I'd like an internal bluetooth solution as well, perhaps the new cpu and gpu will fix that as well...

On serious note, I did find a PCMCIA card made by AKE that has a USB port and bluetooth. The unit sits flush with the edge of the laptop when installed (has an extendable antenna that tucks away inside the card itself). Hopefully it works decent; if not, back to square one.

 

You may want to verify it's PCMCIA (PC-Card) as the 6860 (and by assumption the 7811) have ExpressCard 54/34 slots.

Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExpressCard

 

I have a 6831fx and would like to upgrade to the screen used in the 7811. Does anyone know the make and model number for the screen in the 7811? Thanks

 

upgarde to what? you cant get a higher res? it should be a samsung screen, so its one of the best out there. Also make sure you have digital vibrance turned on, makes a huge difference.