T-1616 User Group

Wait, the T6816 does not have HDMI? The pic from the bestbuy.ca site looks like it does.


Can someone with the T6816 take picks of the sides/back/front and tell me if it still has an open mini PCI port?

I'm seriously considering this over the inspiron 1420(slower CPU/GPU, but i'm getting the same price as americans... not like the dell ones where for some moronic reason i pay 200-$300 simply cause i'm in canada) but if it does not have anything OVER the 1420, i might as well hold off a bit longer.

 

Cam_86, The T6816 does not have HDMI. The picture you posted shows the higher-end T6821 model. That model pictured is Intel core2duo based BUT has a seperate dedicated ATI HD2400 graphics chip so it includes HDMI also.

The Intel x3100 graphics do not support HDMI so laptops with this integrated graphics solution do not have it.

The inspiron 1420 is a much bulkier laptop. These gateways are much thinner and compact.

 

Oh I wanted to add that on the t-1616 increasing the color saturation alittle in the ATI settings made color much better looking. It def improved image quality.

Lokster, Im glad to see that the update helped. Are you not seeing the past high CPU usage anymore at all and all you did was Windows update?

 

hdmi output is great and the digital output for the sound is the headphones jack. tried it at my friends house. lol

tested what u said onion about the color sat. thanks for the tip.

@ onion yes the update actually helped! wish i took a screenshot before and after the update =/ didnt expect the update tho. the cpu usage isnt as high anymore

using firefox and stuff and on an average not more than 20% usage. weird what update was that! il take a screenshot later.

 

i have the t-1620 version.

im getting a clicking noise on the hard drive i think when the laptop is idle. anyone else get that?

also i want to install an internal bluetooth. does the t-1620 support it? where can i get an internal bluetooth card?

 

Hard drive noise is normal.

 

i dunno about the clicking sound. whenever i start up the laptop the first thing i hear is the cd drive buzzing for a second the t-1616 is of the same build as the t-1620 yes u can install a bluetooth internally.

 

The 1620 uses a 250gb drive. Probably western digital. The T-1616 use 160gb Hitachi drives.

 

Onion, any luck finding the audio drivers for the T-6816/1616 under XP? Also, did you install XP on your C2D system (6816 I'm assuming) without having the brightness issues?

 

do u know where i can purchase an internal blue tooth card? seems like they dont manufacture them yet

also i emailed tech support and they replied with this regarding bluetooth

"I have checked your system specification and found out that it has a preinstalled Bluetooth 2.0: Broadcom device. I also have checked your motherboard and found out that it doesnt have any PCI slot available."

i kind of dont trust gateway because it took forever for them realize the problem i was having with the multimedia keys (audio/dvd key still dont work after installing hot start utility from the link they gave me)

 

I got the 1620 from black friday. They changed the price from $629 to $599.

The 1620 does not have the slot loading dvd drive

I was really expecting it, the sticker on the box says it does as well. It's not a big deal, but I wanted the coolness factor. Oh well.

 

1. There is NO bluetooth.
2. There are TWO mini-PCI slots and they are clearly pictured in the review I posted. Gateway tech support has idiots working for min wage. They dont know anything. Dont waste your time with them.

 

The slot loading DVD drive def does have a cool factor to it but its gets old fast. Its not a big deal trust me.

 

I will be installing XP on it later this week.

 

mini pci cards, i think gateway sells the bluetooth mini pci card. around 100usd? im not sure really u can check their shop.

their tech support isnt the best we can help u out better for free. ^^

the slot loading is cool makes the whole thing look sleeker hehe.

XP has the issues of brightness adjustment, my bro tried what u did onion, but i dunno if the intel 3100 that u guys hav will fix that

 

Ok Im going to stop kidding myself. The slot loading drive was awsome. Im just trying to make myself feel better as my T-6815 does not have one

 

ty for the help. i knew i couldnt trust gateway tech lol.

i looked through the site for internal mini pci express bluetooth and found only these http://www.gateway.com/accessories/category/381960.php?seg=hm

also, i did a fresh install of vista and my audio/dvd multimedia button dont work anymore but the play/pause/volume etc. work. i deleted the partition and tried installing the hot start utility driver but no kudos in getting them to work.

 

You have to install the applications.

 

thats the thing i dont think it comes with a software like hp's quick play. it just suppose to open media player or media center.

 

Ok I'm trying this out, I don't have an HDMI receiver so I can't test the audio passthrough on that. But the display looks wonderful using hdmi to dvi.

Now the audio is the problem. I cannot get digital sound output through the headphone jack. I'm starting to be a bit skeptical. I saw older gateway models that had both a separate headphone jack and spdif jack.

Are you positive you are outputting DIGITAL sound through the headphone jack? And your denon amp is seeing the signal as dolby digital or dts (please multi channel digital track) I'm assuming you are using a mini plug to single rca into the coaxial digital input on your amp.

Just for the record and those who are not familiar--using a mini plug to rca stereo (red/white) is not outputting analog stereo.

Has anyone else successfully output digital sound through the headphone jack to their receiver. What cable are you using, and are you sure its discret 5.1 digital sound. I looked at the specs of both the t-1616 and t-1620 on gateways site and SPDIF is not labeled as an output, nor they say anything about it in the guide, just the sticker on the box.

 

Well I answered my own questions. I was experimenting and using standard miniplug to single rca. I plugged it into the coaxial digital input on my receiver, and switched the audio to the SPDIF in this menu:



However I had nothing. My test file was playing 300 with 1.5mbps bitrate discrete multichannel DTS track. My receiver was not auto sensing the signal so I knew it was not working.

After doing some reading, and seeing what cables were available. I saw the mini toslink. I looked through my stash and I found this:



Low and behold it fits into the headphone jack, and bam, redlight is visible from the adapter. I plug in my optical cable to it, play the movie and it WORKS! Very nice.

 

T-1620
About the Hot Start Keys:

When you format the windows VISTA and you want to make the Hot Start Keys work, you need to download the software in Gateway web site, descompact and run hotstart, cyber and media.

It's all that you need to do in order to make the Hotstart Keys work !!


Anybody know something about the bluetooth device ? Because in this page :
http://support.gateway.com/s/Mobile/2007/Tempest/4006210R/4006210Rsp2.shtml
You can access information that the mainboard has a Bluetooth 2.0: Broadcom device.

Thank you for all responses !!

 

i think thats the type and primary company support of bluetooth.

 

Lokster, give us your thoughts on the speakers...

I personally find them ok for watching Youtube videos or general audio broadcasts but for music and movies they're useless...dont you think?

I think Gateway should be ashamed of themselves for including such abismal speakers in an "entertainment" notebook.

 

Onion, any luck with XP on the 6816? I have yet to find the audio drivers and the ability to adjust the LCD brightness (yes, I have the video drivers installed, along with the latest chipset drivers and etc..)

 

Rest at ease. I will have full XP info on the 68xx series on thursday or friday. I was putting christmas lights up all day

 

I will agree the speakers on these laptops are useless, but one would think people who buy these are interested in outputting to an hdtv and using optical out to a receiver. But thats not an everyday instance, on regular use, the speakers are laughable.

You can also change what program the hot key buttons bring up, just find the registry entry and change the path to your program of choice.

 

Just curious, do the registry entries include the function keys as well? Also, where in the registry can it be found?

 

I'm having trouble with the graphics driver with vista. Everytime I switch the settings, it gives me an error message saying the driver was for a previous version of windows and resorts to the windows driver. I've downloaded the driver from Gateway's website and I still get the message. Anyone know a solution?

 

Try these: http://game.amd.com/us-en/drivers_catalyst.aspx?p=vista32/integrated-vista32

 

@ onion. yeah the speakers sound like broken class not too clear when loud. i bought altec lansing portable speakers just because it was that bad

im curious about the registry to change the hotkeys also

 

To change the hot key buttons--only the 3 right of the power button.

Open regedit and navigate to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\MobilePC\HotStartButtons\1

There will be 2 and 3.

The first being the button all the way to the left (the arrow pointing to the right)

2 being the notes button for music

3 being dvd

The current entry path you see will be for media center, just change it to your program of choice. Might have to log off then log back in.

Only tested in vista.

 

has anyone figured out what's up with bluetooth yet? there is a power setting in the bios but i haven't got anything to work yet. or is an internal bluetooth card absolutely necessary to get it to work? maybe bluetooth is there but no drivers/software to support it yet.

 

can you get your laptop to look as good as an hd channel on tv? when i hook mine up to my tv it isn't very sharp but it looks about as good as s video quality

 

^^ Yea I've used the HDMI output it looks AMAZING! Played some 1080p bluray rips on there and its beautiful, reason I bought this laptop.

 

what do you have for settings in CCC? I have a projection tv so maybe that is why

 

About the Bluetooth:

We don't have the device in the T-1620, I entered in contact with Gateway suport and the guy told me that this CMOS option is only usuable when you buy the laptop directly from Gateway and not from a retail store, like best buy !

The motherboard really has some traces os bluetooth, but the hardware is missing. You can buy a USB adapter for less than 10 US$ on E-bay ! This gonna be my option !!

 

Hey everyone, i'm new to the notebook review forums. I just picked up this laptop for my wife for her birthday (shh! don't tell her!). It seems like a nice laptop... these are my plusses and minuses for it to date:
Plus:
for the price range, the processor power is equivalent with c2d processors
thin and sleek
nice build quality/sharp looking

Minus:
BLOATWARE (reinstalled Vista from DVD already)
256MB dedicated to graphics automatically (went into BIOS and gave it 128)
Poor speakers
battery life is so so (not a big deal for us as it will mostly be used plugged in)
2 512MB dimms instead of a single 1GB dimm (however this is standard for consumer laptops)

The Gateway site states this thing can take up to 4GB of ram... Anyone try to put in a single 2GB SODIMM yet? I have one on order from newegg so i'll let you all know if that works out or not. This is what I ordered:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16820211187

 

Dont put just one dimm in. You will lose dual channel function. Put in 2 x 1gb sticks and you'll be set.

 

I just bought the T1620 on the day after Thanksgiving

I see that you don't need 256 MB dedicated to the graphics, can anyone tell me where in BIOS the option is? I looked and I could not find it for the life of me.

Thanks!

 

i too bought the 2gb stick ram. would have bought 2 if vista 32 supports 4gb but instead ill put in the 2gb stick and 1 gb stick.

 

In regards to ram, according to Gateway site it takes up to 4 GB of ram, but unfortunately Vista will make use of 3.5 GB due to OS limitation, it may see the 4 GB but it wont know how to used it.

BTW can anyone post some info regarding the running Temp on the T-1616.

 

zeon this laptop runs much cooler than my friends toshiba. the most quiet fan and harddrive and cd slot drive ever.

i dunno but it just runs warm thats it, its very useable and try to leave some space for the fan so it can breathe.



32bit supports 3gb ram? il buy a 2gb stick if ever.

 

vista 32-bit supports 2.75gb to 3.25gb ram. some users see 3.25gb. on my desktop i could only see 2.75.

vista 64-bit supports up to 16gb of ram i think? i upgraded my desktop a few months ago to 64 bit and it sees all 4gb of ram.

 

il stick to 2gb its doing everything i need to do so far. il save for an mp3 player thanks for the heads up on the compatibility of the RAM

 

I did this for my desktop (gaming pc) since i'm running XP Pro/Vista Ultimate 32 bit. Well, I actually put in two 1gb sticks and two 512MB sticks and kept the dual channel functionality. It sees all 3.0GB of ram in both OS's. I know people that have 4GB installed and their computer sees less than 3GB...stupid 32bit...

Whoever said to put in two chips of the same size instead of a single 2GB chip due to dual channel functionality makes a good point. I'm not even sure if the computer tells you it's doing dual channel or not tho. Does anyone know if the chipset in this laptop does dual-channel for sure?

 

Just a quick update on my DVD drive replacement in case anyone is wondering about Gateway's customer service:

You may recall the felt strip on my slot loading DVD drive came off, making the opening huge and more importantly, making DVDs projectiles upon ejection (I know, it *is* cool!). I called and got a real person in the US on the first ring who didn't hesitate to send a new drive.

It showed up yesterday (very quickly!) and changing it required one screw and about 5 minutes of my time. In the box was a return label (prepaid) and instructions on how to change the drive and return the old one. No cost to me for any shipping, no effort required and a fast response. Gateway's customer service rocks. I hate (!!!) dealing with customer service most times. I am very impressed and it just makes me appreciate my choice even more!

 

congrats nerdninja

 

nerdninja -

I hope you took a video of your disk shooter!

 

Noise level is the best i seen so far, no doubt. In regards to temp i'm using a cooling pad and it runs at about 65-70 C just surfing the net. Check AMD site regarding CPU Temp and it should be between 35-43 C.