T-1616 User Group

its been six months already and the laptop has surived 1 semester with me, although no one sells the exact laptop t-1616 there are still laptops with the same build just bigger hard drives and processors. now known as t-1625s still sells for the same price.

i havent used the mini pci slots at all i havent found a cool bluetooth card for it.

hopefully this laptop will last at least 2 years.

btw world in conflict runs pretty smooth on this, medium and low settings of course

 

can we upgrade our Wi-Fi to Wi-Fi N??
I think this will be a good upgrade if we can do it through the mini PCI slot...
I hear the speeds are reallly good with Wi-Fi N adapters...

 

i wouldnt know about WiFi N since G does pretty good for me, signal is strong in the house and i get 100kbps speeds on downloads. then again it all depends on you provider and yes you can upgrade by buying a mini pci card.

 

I know this is WAY late, but I figured I would post it anyway in case anyone else stumbles upon this thread while searching for info on this fun little laptop.

I have found that as long as you have a usb drive that has a BOOTABLE image loaded, it will show up in the boot menu (either in bios or just in the boot menu - press F10 when you get to the black screen with the gateway logo), then you just select the boot device you want. Or go into the bios and set the usb as the first boot device (only works if a bootable usb is in place when you start the system and enter bios). I boot linux off a usb thumbdrive and also a small portable harddrive on mine all the time.

Hope that helps someone.

Oh, and if anyone is still reading this, do any of you know how to fix the built in webcam AFTER doing a fresh install? I used the recovery disc software that was built in to make a backup of drivers, etc., before I reinstalled vista, but after restoring the webcam drivers/soft it still doesn't work. The software for the webcam loads up, but you can't click the buttons to actually start the camera. Not a huge deal since I don't really use it, but why have it if I can't use it ever?

Thanks.

 

Did anyone get the T1625??
Why do they sell these laptops for such a short time?? Best buy doesn't have it any more...
Is there any similar laptop again from gateway?

 

How can I add bluetooth to this laptop? I want to so badly but dont know what cards or how I'd hafta go about installing it. Has anyone done it or could link me to a product for a blue-tooth card NOT utilizing a usb port? The entire point of this is so i dont hafta use up a usb port for my wireless mouse n just get a bluetooth mouse, so I'd like to use the expresscard slot or mini-expresscard slot or whatever i can cram into this thing. Help!

 

I think T1616 already has bluetooth in it..

 

No it doesn't unfortunatley lol

 

has anyone who still has Vista installed noticed a performance difference with SP1?

 

in all honosty i havent noticed a difference. perhaps a slight speed increase. i don't see the "thinking" circle icon as much when i right click my desktop to swap wallpapers, or open up media center. etc. Very minimal though. Boot times seem the same roughly IMO

 

anyone have a problem with their T-1616 shutting off without warning if you have it sitting on an angle? I sometimes surf while having the laptop in my lap and the keyboard ends up sitting at a 30-45 degree angle and several times it just shuts off. Doesn't seem to be hotter than normal, and it's never shut off when sitting flat. Just curious if anyone else has had the same problem. Thanks!

 

there was that problem before. DONT set it at a 45degree angle. its too high the heat is totally concentrated on the processor.

 

haha yea i was first one to notice that. like lokster said it overheats at a 45+ angle, i know some T-series people dont have it happen but some do. i have the t-1620

to the SP1 question:

ive uninstalled it twice, its installed again now. its tolerable, but for me it refuses to renew ip after 24 hours. so i had to make a .bat file to renew it. seems a little faster after it relearns you. I prefered vista with all but SP1 but dont feel like going through the uninstall again.

 

so is that a common problem with laptops in general? or is it this laptop in particular? I'm careful not to do it anymore, but I wondering if I needed to send it back for repair or replacement. Thanks for any suggestions.

 

I hope someone is still checking this forum. If so, PLEASE HELP! After buying the T-1616, I performed a Vista reformat (to get rid of the bloatware and what not). Everything seems to be functional (after the media keys registry edit) with the exclusion of my Realtek Media Card Reader. I've uninstalled and reinstalled with both the Gateway Drivers (outdated) and the Realtek manuf. driver (newest) yet the card reader doesn't seem to work. Please help in any way possible!

 

Anyone know if the HDMI port have audio out? I looked thru the manual but couldn't fine the answer. I called Gateway tech support and they didn't know the answer either

 

HDMI has only video output, sound comes from the headphone jack with SPDIF.

@ ruski have u tried the installation CD that came with it? there are some drivers there

 

Actually the HDMI port does do audio out. I know cuz I've used the HDMI on my hdtvs quite a bit.

Go to your lil speaker icon in your task bar and right click it and go to "playback devices"

There will be an option of HDMI, and set that as default.

Then turn off or reboot the laptop, and connect the HDMI. Once the computer reboots w/ HDMI set as default audio, and HDMI connected, all sounds will then come through your HDTV.

IF YOU JUST SET HDMI AS YOUR DEFAULT W/O RESTARTING, THE SOUND WILL CONTINUE TO JUST COME OUT OF YOUR LAPTOP SPEAKERS! YOU MUST RESET/REBOOT AFTER SETTING HDMI AS DEFAULT

Once you're done though, just go back into playback devices, and set the headphones/speakers options back to default, and sound will go back to that w/o a reboot.

 

awesome! i just need to reboot. crap all this time T_T i feel like a dunce xD il try that when i get home

 

Ahhhhh I remember this laptop. It was cool and all but I returned it long ago due to the useless speakers. This is one of the few laptops where the speakers are SO bad that you cant even watch and enjoy a movie or listen to music. It was a joke that they call it an "entertainment" laptop. If only the speakers were good it would be a nice unit. Shame....and as the review said it lacks the memory chips for IGP video which is one reason why the CPU runs so much hotter than Intel based unit.

 

hey guys... I have a Gateway T-6816, installed XP on dual boot with Vista (pre-installed)...
everything is cool... except, after installing the video card drivers, the screen brightness went from the highest setting to the lowest. Problem is, the FN keys are not functioning in Windows XP for the screen brightness, but the light key, wireless key, display keys are all working... any ideas, suggestions... what to do??? a way around this issue?!?!??!?!

 

Gateway does not offer XP drivers for the brightness control for your unit and many others.

 

Therefore, if there are no drivers offered by Gateway (which I was aware of and that is why I am here), there must be a work-around of some sort... the FN key seems something that is more hardware coded rather than software...

 

No, The Fn keys are 100% software controlled. There is NO xp driver for the T-68xx series laptops for adjusting the lamp. Other than the workaround making the lamp full power with power management profile in the graphics driver there is nothing you or anyone can do short from coding a driver yourself.

 

hey Grimster,
the only way for the screen to get brighter (in my case, at the max setting) is to uninstall the Intel drivers for the integrated graphics card...

 

No, I had the same model laptop. You need to create a profile in the intel graphics utility. Dont uninstall the driver. Video driver is one of the most important drivers in your PC.

 

I will confirm that the HDMI port does audio and video, I mean that was it was designed for.

Also before it was only said it outputs 2ch audio.. I can also confirm that it passes through the DIGITAL Dolby Digital or DTS track for your receiver to decode. I know because I just did it. So you don't have to use the optical out and run 2 wires, if you're home theatre hardware has hdmi.

This is a big plus for people who have 720p/1080p mkv bluray/hd-dvd movies. You will need to install the ATI Hdmi audio from realtek's website. And select HDMI audio in the sound settings in control panel. Now you can have a small htpc with full digital video and audio from this laptop.

Remember to update your video card drivers, ATI drivers FINALLY support the x1270 card thats in our laptops. I noticed it did since 3/08.

I am running SP1 on vista, so far so good, I don't mind vista, but wish I could XP on here without any problems or missing device drivers, I tried once but there were a few things missing.

Had this laptop since Nov 07, only problem is that 1 battery clip that holds the battery in place broke, don't know how, but not too major.

 

hey Grimster... thanx for the info regarding the profile.
Except, modifying the settings in there cause the screen to look really bad and not clear. Therefore, it's not really a solution which helps that much...

 

I need a favor.

Can someone PM me who is willing to make a copy of the Restore discs for the t-1616 or me? PLEASE!!!

 

Anyone make T1616's multimedia keys working on Windows XP? Plz help
Tks

 

Having trouble with 4 gig of Crucial mem and the t1616 - wont boot even with the red video changed to 256 or Auto. If I use one 2 gig stick it works in slot 1 only (top slot). If I put the other stick in slot 2 or just use one stick in slot 2 the bios and summary screen does see the mem but I refuse to boot to the HDD or a boot cd.

Now i have the 2 gig in slot 1 and the original sammy 512 in slot 2. but I would like to get dual channel working again and all 4 gigs (vista x64 install and Ubuntu x64)

thanks..

OH anyone see a place to DL the bios for this Gateway does not show any - hoping there is a bios update around that may help