Questions for the Gateway MX7515 owners

I am planning to purchase the MX7515 but I have some questions.

1) How's the heat and loudness of the laptop?
2) How long can I use it before it overheat?
3) How well can it run new games?
4) Is the integrated wireless card any good?
5) What are other pros and cons of this laptop?

 

1) Heat for me has not been an issue. This is my first laptop and I don't find the heat too uncomfortable when its sitting on my lap on the couch. The fans are noticeable but not too loud, and eventually drown out into background noise for me.

2) overheat as in the computer locking up due to over heating? If this ever happened I would return the laptop and get a new one or my money back!!!!!

3) I've ran War Hammer 40K: winter assult; Shogun Total war: warlord edition; and City of Heros with no problems.

4) Yup, I get strong signal at 54mb per second at home. I've operated it at my parents house and observed all their neighbors open wireless access points.. hehe..

5)Pros: price for performance; amd 64 (will be getting fedora core 4-64 installed this week); hardware appears to be solid; number or USB ports and card reader slots.
Cons: weight; I'm still not liking the FN key's location; no serial port;

 

I've had mine for a few weeks and I'm liking it. The heat and fans were an issue, but i don't really notice anymore. You can always put on some Arctic Silver heatsink compound. your questions:

1) How's the heat and loudness of the laptop?
I think the fans are not whisper quiet. It's not an iBook or my brother's Vaio. I don't notice it really, unless someone mentions it. One thing is for sure its not shy about spinning 'em up. About the heat, I don't like to put the thing on my lap because I don't want all the dust and crap getting in the thing - so I just a lap writing board or breakfast tray - works like a charm!

2) How long can I use it before it overheat? It's not gonna overheat. I had an infamous eMachines 5310 and know about overheating. The 7515 is built on the same updated chasis as the 5310 so I figure it has been addressed. There are 4 fan ports on the thing. And I agree with Ginzero, take it back and get it fixed. Or replaced - BestBuy replaced the overheating 5310 with this 7515 - only had to pay 200 bucks extra.

3) How well can it run new games?
Don't run games - but it handles photoshop and flash like a champ!

4) Is the integrated wireless card any good?
No problems with the wireless card.

5) What are other pros and cons of this laptop?
Pros: I wanted that 64 bit chip and something about having the fastest mobile AMD is cool. I like the form factor - it's tough and mean, not sleek and sexy - think truck, not compact. I like the DVD burner and the layout of the ports - Mic / speakers in the back. 2 sets of two usb ports. Cons: The fan and the heat thing are a con. It's heavy and bulky.

hope this helps - Whatever you do, get the service plan. Peace of mind alone is worth it to me.

cheers,
nsl

 

forgot to mention, I am a heavy bittorrent user, will downloading often hurt the laptop? Does it have the broken hinge problem found on most gateway? Also, will changing the HD void my warranty? My local future shop has it on sales for $1399.99, is it worth it?

 

Ryvius- you must be in Canada somewhere, I'm also looking at the MX7515 from Futureshop. I understand Canadian prices are usually ~150-200 more than American without converting or comparing markets etc. but the supposed original price of 1,799.99 seems rather high- anyone seen it at that price elsewhere?.

Anyway I have nothing of substance to add, but I'm also considering buying this laptop so thought I'd bump the thread. Good day.

 

I am planning to get one tommorow, could someone anwser those questions for me?

 

With all my computers, I've found wireless sucks for using bittorrent. My MX7515 has been no exception to that.

However, I have left it on, on my bed, for 8 hours (while at work) and it's fine--heat has not been an issue.

Changing the hard drive will most likely void the warranty. If you're thinking that putting a 7200rpm hard drive is going to give you a framerate boost, think again. All it will do for gaming is speed up the load times a bit. As a developer, I can tell you that I would be dragged out on the street and shot if I started pulling textures from the hard drive in the middle of gameplay.

I havent had my MX7515 for that long, so I don't know about the hinge problem, but I hear Futureshop covers it, so no big deal. $1399 is a killer price. Slap on the 3 year warranty and the thing comes to $2000 after tax. Try to find another awesome computer for that price!

 

This is the worst laptop I have used - and I was able to return it. First, try to transfer using the SD Card reader - took close to 30 minutes to trasfer 800Meg from a SD card, took less than 1 minute using my other laptop.

This lap top does not come with recovery disks - had to make one. Once made, I just wanted to make sure I can recover - so I tried to recover using the CD's made - and they failed recovery. Tried 3 times and recovery failed all 3 times. Imagine if this failed, when I really had problems. Spoke to Gateway, and they were clueless about this model!!!

The money you think you are saving in the beginning - will be lost in the support needs. Seems like Gateway has done a very lousy job designing this peice - even though they had put AMD 4000 + 1 Gig Ram etc.

Very poor design!!!

 

I've heard several people saying their recovery disks worked just fine. People who formatted the HD first thing and then restored with the disks, they were even saying that the recovery disks lacked the stupid trial/AOL type stuff, which was a nice bonus.

I'd suggest to anyone making important disks like this that you burn your CDs at a much lower speed than max. Generally the slower you burn the higher the quality and longer your disk will last, and the least chance of errors.

 

The recovery disk was useless as it did not load in all ov the drivers. Now Gateway want me to send $35.00 ($15.00 for shipping and $20.00 for handling) for a "free" new recovery disk and a driver disk. They insisted that the M520 uses the same drivers. I could go on, but you get the jist of what I'm saying.

Pro's - the hardware - I just love this laptop
Con's - the software (loaded with crippleware and no driver disk)

 

I guess the new MX7515 is different, I got a driver disk plus a 5400RPM HD.

 

Did you also get a restoral disk?

 

Are you sure about this?

Gateway's support website shows the MX7515 as being delivered with a 100 GB HDD (4200 RPM). See MX7515 Specifications. I also remember reading elsewhere that OS and Driver backup disks were included with this model, but I can't confirm that. Finally, for what it's worth, Gateway's support website offers detailed instructions on how to change out and/or replace the noteboook's hard drive. No mention of whether or not it voids the warranty. See How do I replace the hard drive on this notebook?

:amd64:

 

Arima (the maker of the Gateway and eMachines amd64 laptops) sometimes substitutes the faster drive, depending on what they have in stock. I too got a 5400 RPM in my m6805, that should be a 4200 RPM. And unless Gateway's policy is radically different than eMachine's, you are allowed to change the HD and the accessible stick of RAM.

 

My MX7515 came with a 4200rpm 100GB drive and the OS recovery CD. You have to burn the DRIVER recovery DVD (or 3 CDs).

 

I have a Hitachi 5400 rpm HD in my MX7515

 

Is this machine any better/more durable than the emachines M68xx series from last year?

I have a M6809 that I bought from Best Buy last year, and after having the hinges, screen, motherboard and, just this week, hard drive, replaced (service plan == great) I'm up to the three part replacements necessary to get a new machine if I send it back because the CD drive door sticks... Anyway, I've looked at BB's current catalog, and the 7515 looks like the only model thay have that's any good. Everything else has some combination of Intel GMA/Intel Extreme/ATI Integrated graphics, slow CPU, small screen or small memory. The two things that make me nervous are, compared to the emachines, much of the important hardware is different (different chipset, PCI-E instead of AGP, different NIC) which could translate into weeks/months of HELL locating/configuring drivers for linux, and that it uses the same chassis (I think they fixed the hinge problem, but could there be other things?).
So, should I get the 7515 (and risk bringing it back for service after a year feeling like a total idiot) or go with a less powerful model to avoid the GateMachines brand?
Also, has anyone tried running linux on it? ATI's drivers were never quite stable enough on my AGP Radeon 9600 (and I didn't even try 64bit mode), I assume the X600 will be much worse...

 

Hi all,
I've got a problem, I bought the MX7515 about a month ago and it seems to have trouble running even old 3D shooter type games. On the orignal splinter cell it runs fine for about 10 minutes then the game locks up, i can ctrl-alt-del out but that gets tiresome. I bought HL2, which it runs fine for about a minute then the same thing happens, now HL2 might be expecting to much, but splinter cell?
Any ideas? suggestions?

 

No matter what you play it shouldn't lock up....get it checked. Mine is working OK with hours of continous CStrike play.
Also check your X600 core and mem clock settings...should be 400/260 by default when plugged.
Did you get the service plan? That helps getting things solved faster...