P-7811FX still locking up with 177.92 drivers

Question... my computer lock up every now and then after 1 or 2 hrs of playing Gears. Now I'm interested on this new model with serial number P2888 since I have P2887. Now I don't want to install all the stuff I copy from my old computer and stuff, so I want to know if I can just swap the HDD of this laptop to the new one with no problem? I don't want to lose anything and install everything again, but I want to make sure if swapping HDD will work properly, IIRC it shouldn't be any problem... but I'm not 100% sure.

 

Best bet would to ghost the hard drive onto an external drive (try Acronis).

 

Or just download the new 9c.08.00 BIOS.. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=303626

and by locking up, is it just slowing down..or blue screening.. or what? Have you ran HWMonitor in the background to check your high temps and such? There's a lot of reasons this could be happening..but before wasting all your time, try the updated BIOS.

 

Well the temperature doesn't go higher than 70C, usually the Laptop Lockups when I start seen a lot of screen tearing in the screen, I know that is the time when the laptop will lockup soon. Sometimes I try to get to a checkpoint before it crashes but sometimes I manage to do so and other I can't.

Still I can play for 1 hr or 2 hrs depending. Also I have my laptop on top of a shoe box in which it lets the 3 bottom air scape with around 3 inches to breath below them.

Still I have the 3 year warranty of Best Buy, so changing the Laptop shouldn't be a problem, I just don't want to have to install everything again, including drivers.

 

I went to Best Buy today and explained to them about how the P-7811FX is known to have problems with overheating the GPU, and that reportedly there is a newer version (the 2888-serial) that repositions the air vents to alleviate this problem. I asked if there was any way I could exchange it for this newer model, and they told me the only thing they could do was to send it to their service department. Then they would first attempt to "fix" the problem(not sure how they'd go about doing that, since it's a redesign of the bottom..), but may replace my laptop with the newer model. Has anyone else tried this approach? Are there any Best Buy employees here that have dealt with this problem, and have some insight for me? I personally would like to give it a shot, but I'm not sure how I feel about sending my laptop away for 2-4 weeks and not having a guarantee that anything will come of it.

 

Unless you have the warranty from Best Buy you won't get it exchanged for the new one, unless Gateway is feeling extremely generous. But Best Buy will not exchange it outside of the 14 day return policy without our warranty. If anyone is going to give you a new laptop it will be Gateway, but I think you will end up stuck with the 7811.

 

I have the 3 year extended accidental warranty, but I don't want a different laptop. I want the newer make of the same laptop.

 

The 7811 has been discontinued... meaning neither Best Buy nor Gateway has it. The best option you would have would be the 7805. If you want it I'd just drop the 7811 and get the store credit for what you paid. Use this store credit for the 7805 and whatever Black Tie Protection you would like (two or three year with accidental protection).

 

Well that just sucks.. So if I drop this 7811 and bring it in for store credit, will I get the $1400 I paid for it, or the lowest sale price that they listed the 7811 for? I appreciate all the info, and this whole ordeal is making me nervous. I don't like the prospect of having dumped so much money on a flawed machine.

 

I got mine refurb from a TigerDirect deal. Unfortunately it is a 2887 model and is suffering from the same problems as described in this thread. Every 20 minutes it locks up when playing a game. I'm scared if I exchange it or send it in for repair I'll just get another flawed system with a long turnaround.

I've tried the new bios and it doesn't help.

Any advice guys?

 

this is interesting. i hav the 2888 model and im having an issue with crysis at high(not even he max) settings, installed the newest bios (9c.10.00) or something like that, and the newest nvidia driver 178.29 and now my computer is slowing down just as the video starts. i can play cs for a while w/o any lockups but as soon as video or gameplay starts on crysis my pc lags overall, anyone got the same problem?

 

it's fine when i turned most of the video settings to medium, around 25fps, still a little laggy however, high is around 10-15fps, and no matter what setting I get 0-1fps when I turn on Anti Aliasing (only tried 8x), and I am now reading that the new crysis performs better and looks better confirm?

 

Is the back of the notebook propped up?

 

yeah a little under and inch and i also did that paper trick so the hot air could not go back in, it seems anti aliasing kills my pc completely and the game can run pretty decent when i turn everything to medium with 1280x1024(full screen) resolution so im pretty stumped

 

I tried propping up the back of mine 1 inch with a book, but it didn't help. 3dmak06 freezes the computer after 2 minutes. I called seneca data, the company that handles the warranty, and got an answering machine that told me to leave a message and they will call be back in 24 to 48 hours...

 

Does your serial number start with a P2887 or P2888?

I would like to pursue this line of thinking that DuVader and Luscious brought up earlier.

For those of you who are not experiencing lockups, please provide the first 5 digits of your serial number.

For those of you who ARE experiencing lockups, please provide the first 5 digits of your serial number.

Please do not provide your whole serial number.

 

p2888 it only locksup when I turn on Anti Aliasing (only tried 8x) on Crysis

 

Yes, it is a 2887 as I said previously. Seneca data has not yet responded to my message.

 

My TD refurbished p2887 is experiencing the lockups as well. The fan will suddenly stop working and then the system just lockups itself. Anyways, gateway have setup a RMA for me and the shipping label and box are on their way.

 

Try using the nVidia beta drivers, if you haven't fixed this already, seeing this thread is 4 months old

 

I don't think it's the driver's problem tho. The pre-installed driver causes lockups in about 5 minutes or right after 3dmarks06 loaded the first test. The official beta 179.28 driver causes lockups within 5~30. I tho it was either 3dmarks06 or furMark causing locksup, so i tried it with COD5 as well. It didn't lockup when i left it running aside for 2 hours, however, the lockup suddenly came back right after I moved around in game for about 15 second. This is just weird.

 

You called gateway? I thought they weren't handling the warranty any more! If they do, that would be great! Please confirm this is what you did.

I downloaded the beta drivers too, but they didn't help. I think I will revert to the old drivers and bios before I return because they are not officially supported.

 

I find it odd that while using the laptop for about 20-30mins it locks up when it's on battery. I tried gaming on it with battery, it locks up about 5-10mins into a game.

I can't remember it crashing much when connected to the power adapter.

Luckily I don't ever game on battery.

 

All I did was using this link to contact with the technical support. After the message was received (around 2 days),the technical support issued me a RMA right away. By the way, the confirmation email indicates that the warranty will be expired on 07/12/2009. I guess the warranty is 7 months (counting from the day of purchase) instead of limited 90 days warranty.

 

3 things to try:

In Power Management, turn off adaptive display and PCI Express Link State Power Management.

Do you keep an SD card in the reader? If you do, remove it.

The computer is either not shelling out enough power to the Graphics card, the adaptive display is trying to turn the display off while it's needed causing a conflict, or the computer is trying to enter a sleep state with the SD card still mounted resulting in a crash.

After I did these things, crashes, blue screens, and freezing in games was a thing of the past.

Comment if this helps!

 

Thanks f10167! That is very helpful. I am going to send them an email.

EDIT: I have already done everything in shotgunner62 post, it still freezes. Anyway, I shot gateway a message. Thanks again f10167!
EDIT2: Unfortunately, Gateway wants me to pay to ship it to them at my own expense. I think I will just take my chances exchanging at TigerDirect...

 

I got a P-7811FX from Tiger Direct as well. It is the newer 2888 line. Bios and chipset are up to date. I went thought the driver update on the sticky forum but it still shows 7.15.11.8100 as my GPU Driver. Even plugged in batter settings are set to high which turns off the power management issues mentioned above.

My problem is similar to everyone else: Random lockups.

When I first got this a month or two ago, Warhammer Online would lock up within 5 minutes each time I tried to play (maxed out settings @ 1920x1200). I propped it up on an old text book and that reduced the lockups to about once every week or two. I have since bought a Zalman ZM-NC2000 notebook cooler and that doesn't really help the GPU but keeps everything else cool. Still locks up playing WAR about once a week.

The lock ups started again with other programs I recently installed. Oddly though, its with games that are NOT graphic intensive. While playing Rome Total War on the map screen, Civ 4, MLB Front Office Manager, and even Rosetta Stone. Now the first two were games made for XP, so it could just be a vista thing, but MLB FOM just came out this week and it locks up like clockwork after about 15 min of play and its not GPU intensive. Also I've noticed Warhammer starting to stutter a bit more than normal like my pc wants to lock up but at the last minute comes out of it.

Is this just Vista being flawed and horrible or is this probably a PC issue?

 

if you want to try which i would recommend (it will basicly test your theory completely) go d/l and try out windows7 (free d/l still i believe) because everything about it seems faster then vista and xp, just a lil buggy cause its not complete (cant be as bad as vista regardless)

 

I'm getting my replacement laptop from TigerDirect today. I will let you guys know if it works properly. I'm pretty angry microsoft canceled my $75 cashback on an EXCHANGE and I had to wait a month to get a replacement, so if this doesn't work it's being returned for good. :|

UPDATE: I got the laptop. It suffers from the same GPU problem I had before AND the screen has a bubble AND weird noises come from the PSU. Tiger Direct has got to be one of the worst E-tailers ever. They seem happy to pass off crap on to their customers. I'm returning it for good and never buying from Tiger again. WORST. COMPANY. EVER.

 

I'm thinking this isn't a Vista issue since my PC never locks up on anything else besides games. i haven't even had a BSOD yet.

However, I've run out of ideas. Every game beyond Warhammer online (run at 1920-1200 max settings) seems to lock up my whole system after 15-20 and i've got to do a hard restart to bring it back up. My bios looks up to date, I've got recent drivers fpr everything else and a cooling pad.

Does anyone have any solutions? Tiger direct will just send me another refurn which won't help and gateway will probably claim they have no knowledge of any issues. Please! looking for guidance here.

 

Was this lockup/blackout issue ever solved? Mine still does it on Aion...

-RC

 

Here seems to be a solution, worth a try for me at least.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5404773&postcount=36

Best of luck

 

I have been having the same problem as many people here since the day I bought this computer. Lock up and sound loop, only way to restart computer is to force restart by holding power button. I put AS5 on GPU and CPU and cleaned a huge dust elephant out of my case. With my laptop running 15 degrees cooler I was still encountering the lock ups with about the same frequency. Tried every driver known to man. I had read a post about underclocking the GPU with NTune but I kept getting the BSOD. I tried to get RivaTuner to work but it would not keep my settings. Someone posted this link on a different blog and this is a confirmed fix for the lockup issue, I am reposting this on every 7811FX board that I have bookmarked over the past year trying to fix this stupid problem

Confirmed fix for Gateway 7811FX freeze screen lock up and sound loop:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/5404773-post36.html

PS, if you need to crack your laptop open and thoroughly clean the dust from the GPU (highly recommended) this was an EXCELLENT guide:

Gateway FX Disassembly Guide (Covers all 17in FX Notebooks).pdf

Once you get the laptop cleaned out, blow both the CPU and the GPU vents at least once a week with compressed air. Once a dust clog builds up in the GPU area, you have to tear the whole thing down just to get the GPU properly cleaned and it's about an hour process even knowing what you are doing.

 

ive gotten sick of having my gpu to be undervolted and underclocked with rivatuner in order for it to work properly so i opened a case with gateway and am sending it in. they said that they will fix it for 199 and i was told parts and labor was included. what does everyone think?

 

Hi!

I think I've got the real reason of locking up ours f****n p-7811fx. Once a day I broke LCD (speakers have fallen directly on matrix).After that I connected my laptop to an external monitor (by VGA connection). Strange...but there was no locking ups again. I played many of games and laptop worked perfectly. I tested also HDMI connection on games - works the same!
What I think:

- maby there is a problem with LCD display...? LCD is the cheapest version of taiwan called AU Optronics. Its posibly there is short-circuit between motherboars and display.

- maby the power supply is to weak. Try to put game and measure temperature on feeder...its very hot.

2 weaks ago I bought new LCD the same mark AUO and problem with locking up came back

sorry for my english, I'm still learning