Thanks guys! Upgraded FX 7811 completed!

Thanks so much to everyone who has helped figure out how to upgrade and repair these Gateway laptops as well as their sister systems and sharing that information on this website. I'm loving the performance of this machine and while the GPU is showing its age, I can run just about any program like a champ.

From researching posts on here and on other sites as well as my own curiosities, I have now upgraded to the following components:

E0 Step Xtreme 9100 3.06 CPU - Getting 3.6ghz no crashes, very stable 24/7.**
BluRay DVD Player
8GB Ram
New Keyboard
1 512mb SSD, 1 320gb HDD
Intel 6300 Ultimate mini Wifi pcie
Internal bluetooth

Honestly, this machine is a beast. With all of those components+hdmi+full res 1920x1080, there isn't anything out there that is better overall, save the GPU performances. Because of the SSD, it boots into windows damn fast now. The 8gb of ram and upgraded CPU give me all of the power I need to do whatever I need. While the GPU cannot run todays mega pixel pushers, it still runs just about everything fine in medium setting and I can push it to the max on high settings with most games up to 2011-2012, with a few exceptions like Crysis and stuff. I hope to have this thing for another 4 years.

Currently working on:

EGPU
Internal GPU soldering upgrade.

**update.** Have been able to run stable the last 29 hours with 14.5 muliplier, giving me 3.857ghz. Non gaming use on that multiplier, no OC'ing on ram, mobo or gpu.

 

Well congratulations on the upgrade. I sure wish I had your talent.

 

It didn't take much talent. Just patience. Actually, all of these upgrades were quite easy.

The hardest thing I ever did was completely break down (I mean completely) the machine to clean it. That took several hours. Bagged all of the screws, grouped and labeled and took pictures so I wouldn't get stuck.

Everything else was super easy, just plug in play, basically. Even the keyboard isn't that hard.

 

Congratulations!

Maybe you could post a 3Dmark06 benchmark screenshot?

I'd love to compare my score (10,427) to yours.

 

Your score is well ahead of mine. I just ran it and scored a 10113 using a 14x multiplier @3.72ghz

I'll give it another whirl later. Maybe I'll crank it up to 3.8-4.ghz and see what I get. I don't imagine much change though. Probably will go down the hotter it gets.

 

My clock settings were 700/900/1700, which are not stable while gaming.

I am planning on finding more stable clocks that will allow for a boost in performance without locking my laptop.

 

Not that the WEI is much, but if nothing else its a quick way to see a comparison

 

Right on, well if you do find that perfect medium let me know. I haven't done much with OCing yet. I can get stable at a 14.5 multiplier which gives me a 3.85ghz; so far doesn't seem to matter what I set the VID too. Ive tried a variety of settings there.

I'm assuming 700/900/1700 would be OC's for bus and gpu and something else? I suppose I'll need to poke around these forums to fig. out how to OC the bus and gpu.

with only 512mb of GPU ram, I don't even bother playing new games on it. Just older stuff (2006-2010). I will probably do an external gpu upgrade though if I can find something that won't have a bunch of unorganized wires and such. Basically, you take a desktop GPU/power supply and you plug it into the laptop via some form or another. Obviously, the main limitation would be the bus on the mobo, but I'm curious what a setup would produce.

 

How much did it cost you to upgrade? I still have my stock 7811. I have that old problem where itll freeze up during video game play and Im thinking I should invest some money into upgrading its hardware.

 

Lg 8x BluRay 107.44
Crucial 8GB PC3-8500 DDR3 37.37
IC Diamond 7 Carat Thermal Paste 7.99
Belkin Anti Static Wristband 5.95
Intel X9100 E0 Step 3.06ghz OC Chip 180.31
Gateway OEM keyboard 36

Total: 375.1, with 287 of that coming from the CPU and the BluRay.

For me its worth it, because there is no reason why I won't be able to keep this laptop another 3 years; especially if I decide to hook up an external vid card.

The most notable change was going up to 8GB of ram. The CPU, being such a large increase from the stock P8400 (2.26ghz?) to my OC of 3.6-3.8 was a big difference too.

I should mention though, that if you go with a non OC chip up to something like the 2.8ghz or whatever, you won't hardly tell the difference in performance and I would say its probably not worth it. Mind as well go all the way up to the X9100 if you are going to spend the money. I imagine some would argue against that logic, but hey, we can't all agree on everything.

I am not sure any of these upgrades are going to relieve the issue you are facing, either. Your problems probably stem from the GPU being over taxed. But that's just a guess as I don't know what you are playing game wise.

Again, the WEI isn't all that great for benchmarking, and I don't have much desire to test my P8400 chip in things like 3dMark06 to compare to my X9100 as that would require me to tear it out and what not but I would venture to guess your game improvement would be marginal.

I've got a huge improvement in everything you'd expect from 2x as much RAM and 1.5more ghz...burning CD's, dvd's, reading huge files, numbers stuff..

 

Just use nVidia System Tools to overclock your GPU.

I recommend incrementing each clock (core, memory, shader) by 5 and test with a video game to see if it's stable. Example: Increment core by 5 and test. Stable? Increment again. Rinse and repeat until you see something wrong or the laptop locks up/shuts down. With this, I would take whichever clock it failed at and reduce it by 10. Then you repeat all these steps for the following 2 clocks, memory and shader.

Very basic and rough guide, but it should do the job. Best of luck!

 

Right on man, thanks!

 

i just came across your post seeing that I am too am looking forward to upgrading my fx7811. you said that you were considering getting an external video card, but you were unsure how much the motherboards bus would limit you. What do you mean by that and what card would you recommend pairing with this laptop?

 

I have a 7811fx also. I wonder how the OP has overclocked the X9100 CPU? Is it possible to overclock the T9600 CPU also?

 

To OC the x9100 in our systems you must us Throttle Stop software. The CPU itself is an Xtreme version so it alows for clock changes. The T9600 is a standard CPU so does not have unlocked multipliers.

You can get slight overclock by using the moded bios to alow 0.5 increase of the multiplier. Not too much of a boost, but it does work. The other option, as listed in another thread, is tohard mod the main board to alow the FSB to be changed by software as well.................

 

The motherboard bus speeds are limited. That is, they are pretty much set in stone as far as I understand, or their OC'ing is very limited. You can over clock a lot of stuff, but there does not appear to be much room when it comes to the motherboard bus speeds. That said, it looks like TANware knows a bit more about it than me.

This is a limiting factor for any computer. If I go and grab an upgrade, such as a video card, no matter how fast that card it, its going to throttle down and bottleneck at the systems lowest speed channel. So basically, the motherboard bus speeds would not allow us for the optimum performance if you were to use an upgraded external video card. The performance would still be better than the stock video card, but just not optimal.

If I made a mistake in that explanation, anyone that is able to is free to correct it.

That said, I am running a desktop nvidia card right now with my laptop. The setup is not compact and easy to move around, so I would not be hauling this stuff when I travel - I'll just stick with the laptop itself. But its perfect for work and is still much less to carry around vs a desktop system.

 

Would it make sense to upgrade from T9600 to X9100? Is the performance boost worth it?

Do you have also an 7811 laptop? How did you hook up the external gpu? (eGPU?)

 

The bus speed stock is limited. You have to get ut the soldering iron to unlock these boards. Not for the faint of heart nor the uninformed.............

 

Hey Jon,
I am trying to reach you. You do not have pm turned on.
I sent you a pm over at xda (same account you have here)
Can you contact me pm me or post how I can email you.
Thanks.

just looking to see if you have old items left over from your upgrade

 

sorry to pop up here,but im not sure how to ask a question here.
i have a similar laptop,a packard bell i-power gx-m-900,was quite snazzy a few years ago.
i also used an x9100 and anj ssd as an upgrade.
i wanted to ask about ram really,i had it running with 8gb no problems,and has some spare dough,so figured on 16gb of "vengeance" ram from corsair.
the thing is,once in the machine just will not start,lights on the front and thats it.
works fine now,with the 8gb back in,im at a loss here.
apologies once more for popping up here ,can any of you guys help?

 

From what I have read the Intel P654 chipset will ONLY do 8gb of DDR2 800mhz speed ram.

So your board can not read more than that.
Is your RAM DDR2 or 3?

I am looking for an upgraded CPU 2.5+ghz and 8gb of ddr2 ram.
Do you have any of that laying around?

 

its ddr3,and i think its 1333mhz.
the vengeance ram is 1600,but purportedly backward compatible,but i got it,thinking to keep it for future new laptop.
it works ok in a lenovo s205 ,a friend let me try it in theirs,shows up and works no worries.
and i have a [email protected] core duo,any good to you?

 

ok it seems your system is ddr3 based. I thought you were using a different machine.
You might be bale to use the new ram BUT have you updated the BIOS first.
Try that, see if they have an unlocked bios for your unit.

that cpu could work for me

can you email me at speeder2 AT hotmail DOT com

btw- this is a cool and free app to speed up your pc
start at post 286 for his settings
Post your windows 7 restart time!! - Page 29

Windows 7 ultimate tweaker.

@thenumpty
I am new just like you. You need to have 5 posts in order to get the pm option.
So reply here a few times.
Waiting for you to contact me via pm or email.
That old cpu you have can help me out.


btw this may be of relevance to you
http://forum.notebookreview.com/gateway-emachines/661425-packard-bell-board-bios.html

 

Since you were able to upgrade did you just use curcial ram I am finding my P7811FX-T9600 is picky on the ram if I try to go to 8Gig. But also did you upgrade by adding the bluetooth that the P78 didn't come with and if you did where did you find your internal bluetooth and how did you get it working? If you did do that update as well.

 

Plain and simple: The ram you put in is not the correct ram for the mobo. MOBO/Bios won't boot up.

 

Throttle Stop software. You have to have the xtreme CPU, which is unlocked. If it is not that version, you pretty much cannot OC the CPU.

 

There are kits that you buy for the external GPU. Just an FYI, but its quite a bit extra stuff to cart around if you are mobile. It is basically a PC GPU placed in an external box with a power supply and accompanying cables. So you can imagine what you have to cart around. I don't take any of it when I am traveling, but if I'm stationary, its a charm.