The official P-7811FX lounge

My local Best Buy says they don't have the 7811fx yet. They did, however, point me to the 6860fx and the poor laptop looked like it needed to be put out of it's misery. Keys were missing, the display was scratched, the power button was popped out (the unit could not be turned on). I tried typing just to get a feel for the keyboard and two more letters popped off. :lol: I'm a bit nervous about build quality now since, I believe, the 7811fx has the same build. I'm trying to convince myself that it was just rough handling by BB customers...it probably was, right?

 

Those display units are often HEAVILY scratched up just from the security devices in the store. Regarding keys, they are also highly suspect to a thief from popping it off to replace their own. I've owned the 6860FX for a few months of heavy travel with NO build issues. In fact my only complaint was the minor misshaped chassis above the keyboard, but what do you expect for a 17" plastic laptop I just got a 7811FX today and it isn't warped above the keys, but it is the same build.

In terms of them having it, I can almost promise they do, it just isn't on their display planogram yet. Check on Bestbuy.com for the 7811FX listing and then click the Check Local Availability or Store Pickup Availability (something like that underneath the price tag).

 

I did before I left and it said it was available in that store. The guy behind the counter looked at me like I had just told him my dog was king of Ireland or something.

In terms of the build, thank you for assuring me. I also read back on other reviews and feel better. That display clearly doesn't represent the model as a whole.

 

another thing to point out, if u have a problem with any component of the laptop, just go on live chat in the GW website (and yes it's still up) and they will replace it free of charge. everything is fine on my 6831 and I managed to get a free 2nd power supply and battery... 1 for home and 1 for the office LOL

 

So you lied to them to get extra parts ... and are bragging about it? And this makes it easier for those of us who have real problems ... how exactly?

Perhaps I misunderstood your witty reply.

 

perhaps u did, u see if u search these forums you'll notice the threads about the power supply issues with the 6831. so I questioned GW about it and asked them if there was an upcomming recall on that issue. in relation to the power supply, battery performance may be affect as well and GW said if it was an issue, they would replace it free of charge.

btw, there is no recall on those issues.

 

So can anyone link me to a version of this special 3.5mm optical audio cable?? And can anyone confirm that this laptop does support 5.1? Will I be able to get this cable at Best Buy?

 

Oh, I see now ????????

 

love my 7811FX. Only 2 minor quibbles with it. My screen has a little bleeding on the bottom, it's only apparent on a totally black screen. Also, when I'm not gaming and just doing mundane tasks, the GPU fan will turn on for like 1 second. It's like the machine detects dust and needs to blow it out or something. NBD to me, just quirky really.

 

I have the same problems, it's good to know it's not just me though. I just finished playing CoD4 on max settings at max resolution with a great FPS. I truely love this machine!

 

I've got the light bleed at the bottom as well at most viewing angles. Fortunately its just a tad under a cm in size and invisible outside blacks.

I haven't had the primary heat sink fan kick up other than on BIOS initialization. The CPU and GPU are on the same fan so it could be related to your power savings settings.

Moreover, this laptop is running significantly quieter than the 6860FX. I really wish I would have done an acoustics test before I exchanged my 6860 I couldn't hear the 7811 over my Air Conditioning while heavily pushing the unit to initially drain the battery this afternoon, which also impresses me... it took 60 minutes of this attachment to drain and it from 75% battery:

 

LOL RTHDL(sp) is a great stress tester. I have yet to really drain the battery on this puppy. The fan issue does this on mine as well...a little odd but no big deal. overall I am very happy!

what are your guy's hard disk temps?

 

Temps on the HD are in my screenshot (showing as critical mid 50's ) By the end of the test, the Seagate drive was maxing at 59-60 degrees.

 

I'm impressed with the core temps while running all 3 or is that 4 programs at once. My Everex would have burst into flames for sure. HWMonitor would have been nice to see the video temp. as well. What was your ambient?

 

Its a bummer they couldnt figure out a way to get more air to the Harddrives , these things get toasty very easily .

 

All I had to take the surface temps was a temp sensor and tape, but it was reading out over the HD bay at 38, a more accurate guess would probably be 40-42 degrees. Warm enough to cause a heated wrist if your gaming is HD intensive.

The keyboard was hardly over room temp, which was all I really cared about. Reminds me of how efficient the old Thinkpad T4x's used to be with cooling. But the thing that really amazed me was the sound... its not silent, but that fan does well at keeping it cool with low RPMS.

 

The reason for the fan speed kicking up and down at given times is due to the GPU hitting a thermal threshold. mine kicks up at 43C and then right back down LOL

Oh cool setup I am running for monitoring everything.

Vista sidebar for the desktop monitoring with Everest ultimate running...have it showing all the critical temps HDD CPU and GPU as well as load and clock speed.

Then for in game I run rivatuner's OSD which will pull some of the settings from everest. I have CPU HDD GPU and FPS displayed on any 3D games.

so far its working like a champ and everything is seemless! this laptop is quick once you get it stripped down to the way it should be

 

I will wait 1 week from its release to see what problems people find on this laptop, I really want to buy it right now, but I want to make a sure bet. BTW, which OS do you guys recommend for this Laptop? XP Pro, Vista 64, or Vista Ultimate? I prefer XP, but I don't know what you guys think or if any has install XP Pro on this laptop to know if it's worth/possible.

 

Vista64 will be what you want to use DarkoZ and it will ship with that installed. you can format and reinstall windows with the choice of 32/64bit OS if you so chose . the 64bit OS will take advantage of 4gigs of ram you have installed and considering i have both vista64 and windows xp 32 installed on my machine i can so without a doubt installing XP is pretty much a waste of energy Unless you have certain games or apps that wont run in vista . Performance wise in gaming is almost identical .

 

I'm considering getting Ultimate only because of the $70 sale that's going on at Best Buy for the upgrade version-but even still I don't think it would be worth $70 when the Premium version would probably suite my needs alright-it seems that all that Ultimate has is a few extra bells and whistles and some sort of exclusive downloadable content that according to my research hasn't really been all that impressive so far.

Anyway, at this point I'm thinking I should save wherever I can-so I'll probably skip the upgrade.

Anyway, I'm also waiting until about one week after the release, although primarily because my financial aid won't be coming in until then.

Anyone figure out yet about whether or not the GPU is upgradable or make visual confirmation of the second HDD caddy?

Also, would a second Hard Drive require additional cooling measures?

 

the second hard drive caddy is in the double wide bay on the underside of the laptop, just lacks the hard drive. the 7811 is built in the same chassis as the 6860. also, though i use a laptop cooler, i really dont think adding a second hard drive would require getting a cooler.

 

I'll be buying mine online in the next 2 days...can't wait!

 

Hey, they will ship this baby free. Breaking down my resistance but still holding out.

 

OoOooo... Now the price has to be reduced by $50 and I'll buy it.

 

I am still confused between this and X305 I have read about overheating and loud cooling fan issues where X305 doesnt have neither.I would like to know which one is of better build and better support

 

I would say head down to your local bestbuy and have a first hand look .Component wise the 7811 has better stuff as far as GPU and screen, i believe the CPU is faster as well in the 7811 . Support is better for everyone usually on a case to case basis simply because who ends up on the other end of the phone when you call is really what matters when calling in for support, but i cant say i have read great things about toshiba's support up to this point and gateways so far for us atleast has been decent i suppose.

 

The free shipping is only for today and tomorrow (Monday) due to Back to School savings...at least that is what I saw. I purchased mine about 2 hours ago, cant wait! I was waiting for it to drop to $1399 but I dont know when that'll be, so I took advantage of the free shipping...especially since I need it for university which starts on September 1st.

 

I think I'll get it from Delaware since it's sales tax free!

 

Just picked one up today!

Very sweet laptop and there really is not much bloatware.

I just un-installed most of it and Vista runs fine.

 

Uh oh I spoke to soon...my screen looks like it is melting at the bottom.

But when it goes to the logon screen it goes away....

Also when I boot up the windows logo and scrolling bar are messed up too.

Looks like I got a defective unit.













Here is what the desktop background should look like.

 

I would take that back to BestBuy with your receipt asap. They should exchange it without any problems.

 

Yea I am going to head over there tomorrow after work.

It is so odd...I was on it for 2 hours before. Stopped using it for while then booted it back up...then 30 mins in the screen started to do the melting effect.

I have rebooted a few times and it does not go away.

 

I think (but I'm not positive) that this is one of the symptoms of the defective Nvidia GPUs that we have all been reading about. Definitely exchange and with luck the problem should be solved.

Ira

 

man, if mine decides to crap out, it better do it asap and not later.

 

The Crystal Ball Says: Yours is more than likely going to wait until the return period and/or warranty period has passed by a day and explode while on your lap causing 3rd degree burns on your crotcherial region. (Yes, I made that word up)

 

It can happen!! If you have it in your lap the hard drive is right above the "crotch" region!! And it does get toasty when it gets cranking!

 

Based on my research Ultimate consists of (over premium) many more business related security elements, plus a video wall paper capability - basically lots of unnecessary bloat unless you are cross training your 7811 as a business lappy.

Somebody tell me if Im wrong. I'll go get the upgrade.

 

Basically correct. About the only substantive capability of Ultimate over Home is the ability to join domain based networks.

Ira

 

That and it makes you wallet lighter.

 

theres lots of good tutorials out about how to give home premium all the features of vista ultimate using third party free programs that can perform each corresponding feature, many of which actually outperform the vista ultimate features

 

The only thing that ever interested me about ultimate was the Ghost feature it has built in . i used to use ghost all the time with xp after i did a fresh install had everything perfect i would ghost it ,but when i first got vista at launch ghost didnt work and i read about acronis so i looked into that but they were having problems at that point so i said to hell with it and havent used a ghosting program since .

 

Home Premium is recommended for earth bound mortals. Ultimate is fine if free.

For "ghost" type image find Drive Snapshot and use that.

 

I have had amazing success with Casper for ghosting my hard drives. It seems to work equally well on Vista and XP. I have moved complete disk images to new larger or faster drives and they have always booted up and worked perfectly. It is also much faster than Acronis and does not require multiple (or any) reboots to do its work.

You can get Casper from www.cnet.com. You get a 30 day free trial after which it asks for registration and payment.

I also like the name since the program is indeed a very friendly version of "ghost." ;-)

Ira

 

Does the memory card reader work with Secure Digitial High Capacity cards?

I'm planning on getting a new Nikon Coolpix camera and while I'm a bit worried about whether or not it'll have 64-bit drivers, if the laptop can read HC cards it probably wouldn't matter either way.

 

I currently own a HP dv7t with dual disks & a T9600 CPU and am considering exchanging it for the P-7811FX. My concerns are the heat & noise issues associated with the P-7811FX. If I upgrade the P8400 CPU with a T9600 CPU, would the extra 10 watts from the CPU and two disks cause the P-7811FX any heat related problems?

 

You shouldn't have any heat problems because of the CPU. I ran a similar T9300 in my old 6860 and temps were relatively cool. Not sure about the hard disks though.

 

yes i have a an 8gb sdhc inserted 24/7

 

the t9600 shouldnt be a problem as some of the forum members use x7800 which is much hotter with zero issues. having two hdd is on more source of heat, however many p68xx users have set up a raid0 or just added a hdd no issues reported.

get a notebook cooler if you are concerned.

 

had this puppy for 3 days now...love every penny I have put into it!


COD4 runs pegged everything maxed out just fine at 50+ FPS

 

can anyone show me a bench of a 9800 gts vs a 8800 gts plz? or atleast a specs comparison, since at the nvidia site they only give different specs, nothing i can compare