The official P-7811FX lounge

Vista's wonderful sound properties.

Dont have my 7811 anymore, otherwise Id throw you a screen shot up of the sound properties. But, if I recall.. SPDIF is your speakers, HDMI output is just that..the HDMI link for external video/audio. Could be wrong. You may want to look towards updating those drivers man..

Here's the 1.0.0.23 version: http://www.download.com/NVIDIA-HDMI-Audio/3000-2110_4-194756.html?tag=rtcol;reldl&cdlPid=524688

And the 1.0.0.6 version: http://www.download.com/NVIDIA-HDMI...0_4-180010.html?tag=rtcol;reldl&cdlPid=486618

I know that the 2nd is the larger #, but their naming scheme may be screwy..so not sure which is the newer of the 2.

 

If I recall, the .inf in the HDMI driver folders have dates in them. Last I checked the higher the last register the newer the file.

 

Thanks, I downloaded the 1.0.0.6 version.

The 4 sound output choices are:
Built in speakers (was default)
Headphones jack (now my default)
The next one must be for the audio input from the DVD/CD player
HDMI

Hey, eWrecked should I download the bios from the link on your site? Is it easy in vista or should I start looking for a floppy drive to enable and put in the boot order?

Love my HP XW8200 workstation. Auto run bios flash. 2 clicks required and a reboot afterwards. No booting from anything....

Raymond

 

Where on line do you find a reputable source for the Intel X9100 dual core extreme mobile processor or the QX9300 quad core extreme mobile processor? My usual sources such as tiger and new egg don't have them. Still will try fry's but where else do you get one - cheap?

These are the processors the updated Bios allow on the P7811FX, right?

Raymond

 

Anyone remember where on this site those pictures are from the guy who took apart his new p7811fx and photographed each step?

As you can see from the post above I'm thinking upgrading to quad or dual core extreme and want to see what dissassembly will be like to reach the cpu and remove the cooling apparatus.

I'm also curious what is so hot right underneath the smooth plastic to the right of the scroll pad. I've installed 2 drives so I know they are under there at the very bottom but the hot spot seems much smaller.......

Raymond

 

Flashing is simple... just download and click the correct OS and it does the rest... if you choose the vista way...

no one has confirmed the 7811Fx is compatible with a quad core. you can be the first if you got cash to blow

 

How much cash?

I saw the X9100 dual core extreme linked to tiger for 279.00 USD but they no longer have it. Where can I get one from a reputable source besides eBay?

And I couldn't find anything but an intel introductory suggested retail price on the QX9300 quad core extreme of $1200.00 USD. Who sells 'em now?

Raymond

 

Hmm.. you can find an ES(engineering sample) of the QX9300 on ebay for $888 - And an x9100 for about $700. Retail expect closer to $1000 and $1250. Your best bet may be to go with the x9100, it is guaranteed to work. The quad-core support is supposed to be in the 9c.12.00 BIOS, but there's no guarantees. No one has a quad to test with. :/ And if you download any of the BIOSes, just go with the Vista version..and follow the simple instructions in the BIOS thread. Install, and do not touch the power button..ever. Just let it take its course. 9c.10.00 has had good feedback, 9c.12.00 has had mostly good feedback(and this is a DOS only verison I believe). You can use a bootable USB Flash stick, no floppy needed. The 9c.08 thread should be self-explanatory, and also has links to the other BIOSes. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=303626 - sorry to cross advertise my thread ;P

 

Naw........Those prices are too high for me , but I will watch for the X9100 to come down.

Any ideas how to find those P7811FX exploded view pics. Got mine around labor day so it would of been posted after that......

 

I dont know what you paid, but if you want to cancel your order I will sell you a NEW one to you that was optimized/bloatware removed by Best Buy. my price is currently $1335+35 ship. I have two of them. I will be putting them on ebay later for 1395+35 ship.

 

Hmm.. I know someone posted pics..maybe it was a 6860FX? Either way, the 6831, 6860, or 7811 should have the same basic procedure. It's the same chassis. Why exactly were you wanting to disassemble?

 

Thanks again e wrecked,
Updated to 9C.10.00 and it was easy.

How do I find those photos of a dissassembled P7811FX on this forum somewhere?

Raymond

 

scroll up to the top right corner of your screen, and type it in the search bar. Kinda like google, but for NBR

I'll donate this time ;P
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=299321 - 7811FX disassembly guide

 

Switch my P8400 for a X9100. CPU should be easy based on mobo but as I recall looking at the posted photos heatpipes from CPU and GPU ran like snakes all over and between everything. Want to see it again prior to commiting to finding a deal on a X9100.

When I search this forum for pictures of P7811FX earlier posts on this very thread come up with all those screen shots and exterior shots of the first ones.......

 

Thank you, again

 

changing the cpu is 5 minutes job, a walk in the park.

 

Can anyone help me in hooking up a brand new eSATA HD to my eSATA port?

I can't seem to get an eSATA hookup to see the drive. Nothing happens.

Works fine using USB 2.0. What is the proper eSATA external installation procedure?

Seagate OEM drive and I have Seagates Disk Wizard installed but it still can't find it...............Help.

 

with the drive connected, right click on 'computer' in vista, then click on manage, go to disk management and if the drive shows up there, right click it and mark partition as active.

 

OK thanks.

Got it going. Boy is it faster loading picture thumbnails using SATA vs USB 2.0. Think I can get a 64 bit vista compatible express card with 2 eSATA ports add it to the P7811FX and run 3 external eSATA drives at once? Or will it interfere with the 3 built in SATA channels?

 

I just bought a refurb 7811-FX from Tiger Direct for $675 after live.com cashback, and I was really stoked to have such an awesome gaming PC at that price. Unfortunately.. the thing is freezing left and right even after I just updated to the new drivers. When I pull out the AC Adapter, forcing it to clock everything on the GPU at 50%, my GPU temps stayed under 50C and ran without crashing. Plug in the AC Adapter, and the game freezes within 2 minutes, with the GPU at only 56C. It even freezes randomly just doing things in the Vista OS environment, nothing hardcore. This is probably a faulty GPU or CPU I assume, no? Any ideas?

I'm about to install XP to see if that solves the problem..

 

Bummer doode. I have had no issues at all with my 7811s like that. I do have some slight monitor "ghosting" on one of them but otherwise they have been STABLE running 24x7 100% load since I bought them. That is why I am leary to exchange it for a different one as I may get one that has worse issues. It's easy to replace an LCD.

 

Okay I reinstalled Vista with a Forceware driver and things seem to be more stable, but when I run a benchmark my GPU temps get up to about 81C and the computer freezes at that point. What program(s) can I use to tweak fan settings, as well as the CPU and GPU clocks? I tried Rivatuner but when I set the memory/clock speeds the changes don't take affect. Is there any way to get to the GPU unit inside the laptop? I might try to reseat it with new thermal paste to see if I can't improve upon what they've done..

Any help is much appreciated!

 

Yes you can get to the GPU but you have to take the bottom shell apart. Basically disassemble your lappy. Shouldn't take more than an hour if you're careful and take your time. Bout the same to reassemble. I had one apart already to see what makes it tick. AS5d all the good stuffs. I did not measure temps before cuz I didn't have any probs so I cant tell you what, if any diff it made. Pretty neat looking inside iffin ya ask me. The "vid card" memory chips even get cooled.

 

I, too, picked up one of the TigerDirect $675 specials. Mine is almost perfect, here's the list of quirks:

1. White haze on screen from left angle, only on black. After some research I'm not too concerned about this; I will try to push that air bubble out and see how it goes. I've applied a little pressure and it does move/spread, I've just not tried to work it totally out yet. I'd rather not send it back and risk getting a crummier replacement

That's the only hardware issue! Everything else appears to be Vista related...

2. Vista will not go into sleep mode about half the time. I triple-checked my power settings and it is set to sleep when I close the lid. Well, it does that only about half the time. The other half it simply keeps running until the battery dies, unbeknown to me. Really annoying

3. Vista network speeds are horrific. Yes, I've done all the "fixes" (disable auto-tuning, RDC, etc) to no avail. I get 2MB on my LAN if I'm lucky. Streaming videos from my local NAS doesn't work - choppy as heck. Note that everything works flawlessly on my Dell Vostro XP laptop.

4. Umm... that's it?


Honestly the laptop itself is tremendous - I just really dislike Vista. I'd love to take this back to XP but I don't want to lose the 64-bit goodness (Adobe CS4 64 bit = teh awesome!), plus the driver problems for this lappy. I suppose I'll stick it out with Vista. I'll probably reinstall it using LastV, the Vista version of LastXP, a nicely tweaked OS flavor that ran absolutely amazingly on my Vostro.

On the plus side, this laptop smokes every game I've installed (I'm not a big gamer but stuff like HL2 and Combat Arms looks gorgeous and runs flawlessly at 1920x1200... My HL2 framerate was around 297fps!!!).

It's heavy, yeah, but it's worth it for this luscious screen and the numpad. Wish the speakers had more fidelity but they're decently loud so I won't complain. All in all, I'm happy - as long as the screen issue doesn't come back to bite me!!

Oh, and one last thing: Why oh why can't anyone learn from Dell on how to design a proper AC adapter! (note: probably patents/copyrights ) But seriously, I HATE Gateway (and everyone else's) power bricks. Dell's rock: The actual adapter is shaped with slight indents on the ends that allow you to neatly wrap the cords around the adapter itself. Plus, the shape and connector on the cords is such that it lays flat and uniform to the brick and not all loose and tangled. Then there is the AWESOME flat rubber strap that wraps around the whole kit - just pull it tight and notch the belt-loop holes onto the little plastic peg. It takes maybe 5 seconds to wrap and secure it, and even less to let it loose. There's no good way to manage the cables with the Gateway brick, I HATE that

 

After a few 24 hour runs my P7811FX screen pops to black and then immediately returns with an error message in the lower right task bar:

Display driver has stopped responding and has recovered.
Display driver NVIDDMKM stopped responding and has succesfully recovered.

I'm assuming that the GPU is overheating since a fan blowing across the keyboard seems to have stopped it. Tried doing an auto update on my NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS's drivers and vista advised I was current. Went to gateway support and found same. Are there updated drivers for me?

Running Vista Ultimate 64 bit......................

Current Driver:
nviddmkm 7.15.11.7615 (Forceware 176.15) / Vista 64

***Not gaming. Either formating or defraging or transfering data to or from 3 eSATA TB external drives and 2 smaller USB 2.0 externals. No CPU load - Barely any RAM used - and a couple of times an hour on the second day I'd get the error.......................Raymond

 

try the new mobile drivers from nvidia
look at geforce_notebook_winvista64_179.28_beta

 

Thanks. So far the new drivers have worked. Sorry it took so long to respond, but I backed all up first as soon as I read "beta" in the drivers description.

e-wrecked advised a BIOS update to 9C.10.0 a month ago since .12.0 was still beta. Currently I'm still at 10.0, should I update my bios too?

Raymond

 

I am at the current, and I would assume LAST bios. I have two HDDs in RAID-0 and am happy as a clam. All is working well and no issues have cropped up. I would say yes to updating and just be done with it. Then you are at the latest BIOS and probably won't have to worry about it again.

 

Hello All,

New member here and I just bagged a P-7811-FX for $1049 at Best Buy. This one had the 1920x1200 screen, 1GB 9800m GTS GPU, and a 320GB 7200 RPM drive - what a steal these things are!

Thus far no issues at all (using Vista Home Premium 64) and I'll likely install Supcom, Fallout, Far Cry 2 and a few other games. I'll be sure to read through the recent postings, but if anyone can point me to a quick list of 'things to optimize, fix, etc' on this model, I'd be grateful.

Thanks,


-S

 

Honestly, just give it a try "as is". You may very well be surprised. I was. And in a week or so if you feel that you HAVE to upgrade video drivers or what not, then do so. But for now, ENJOY! And welcome to the club.

 

goodspeed do you have hissing sound coming from your power brick? I am getting a new unit from gateway, but I am just wondering if it's normal

 

Well, I feel silly now... I think I may have the 7805 instead (the specs I mentioned above are still correct though). Thing is, I cant figure how the 7805 and 7811 are any different, cept for maybe the 1GB video card

Is there a difference or one a simple refresh of the other?

 

No hissing on any of the THREE 7811s I have here. It is quite common though.

 

Computer Properties will tell you which version you have. Right click "My Computer" Left click "Properties".

 

that means I'll have an extra unit from gateway I should have asked for another 9 cell battery.... he told me to keep the extra hissing power brick LOL

 

Well, now you have two then. Kewlzers. Who exactly did you call? Some people might want/need that info. Might as well share with the rest of the class.

 

I used the gateway online technical chat support... they are good for solving trivial matters. may not be as good in solving hardware issues.... so far they issued me an extra OS disc ( mine was corrupted), recovery disc (didnt ask for one but they issued it to me anyway) and the extra power brick due to the hissing issue

 

I had this same issue from my Compusa 7811 too. My left side was ghosty. From the left angle it was VERY white. I even started to notice it more while looking directly at it. On the right side and from a right angle view, the screen was as black as it should be. After finally getting my warranty stuff squared away, I FedExed the 7811 to Gateway. Hopefully I'll get a sparkling new screen. Luckily, I didn't run into any other hardware issues either. I can't wait to get it back and throw 2 500gig drives in it. I'll probably end up using it as a video playback machine. Love that HDMI out.

 

I got a 7805 from BB almost two weeks ago, and after carefully removing it from the BOTTOM of the box to inspect which display I have (LG), I put it back in the box, waiting for my 7811 refurb to show up from Tiger Direct.

Today was the day. With much anticipation and hope, I opened and inspected my 7811 and I am very lucky to get an almost MINT 7811. There is a couple of hardly noticable "cleaning scratches" at the top of the bezel, but otherwise, it's flawless. Even the palm rests and trackpad are MINT. My LCD is an AUO (not so keen on the narrow viewing angles, and the brightness is OK, but not great).

I've loaded it up with my software apps, installed HWMONITOR and PRIME95 and let it run. Temps seem good (CPU cores around 50C while at 100%, 28-30C while idle).

Given the only real differences between the 7811 and the 7805 are the extra video memory, which I will never use, and the 200GB vs 320GB hard drive difference, I'm thinking for the $350 price difference, the 7811 refurb might be a keeper, and I return the "unopened" 7805 to BestBuy???

Decisions, decisions....

 

Yes, yes, yes. Do it I says.

 

back from the dead.... so i'm buying a 7811 this week. I've gone through the faq and things and seen alot about lock up and bsod. Anyone have a list of things I should look for or do when I first get it?

 

Update bios and have fun.......

 

Thanks Jere I'm thinking Bios update and possibly GPU drivers, but i'll only do that if I run into problems.

 

Look at the screen and look for ghosty images on black backgrounds. Mine had one on the left side, sent it to Gateway, they said there was no problem and sent it back. F*CK GW.. If it really bugs me, I'll just replace it myself for less than $200.

I'm running the .12 BIOS and latest NVIDIA Drivers with no problems. It was a little bit of messing around to get the Audio over HDMI, but it's working now.

**Just remembered a funky thing I ran into with the BIOS. After updating to .12 I can't use the regular "F2" or whatever it is to go right into the BIOS, I have to use "F10" that changes boot options and get into the BIOS that way.**

The strangest thing I've seen is with the audio ports. If I run VLC the audio comes from the onboard speakers like they are supposed to. If I plug in my headphones, I have to stop and restart the app for it to use the headphones. I don't mind it, but I've never run into such a strange way that audio ports are handled that way.

I'm running Vista Ultimate and have not had any issues or crashes. I've installed Ubuntu x64 version once and it worked just fine too.

I also have the new Seagate 500gig 7200RPM drives X 2 in there. I LOVE IT!!! Having just less than a TB with fast drives is nice. This works great since I stagger VM's on each drive. Eventually, I might just have one drive run Vista and the other run Ubuntu, then switch which drive boots using F10.

I don't use mine for gaming, but more for video/audio editing and VMware. Love this beast of a laptop.

jp

 

I've heard about the ghosting. Not too worried about it. If I have too much trouble i'll just hook up the 22" samsung thanks for the info btw! +rep

 

Hey xsekurity,

Audio issue solution:

Right click on speaker icon in lower right task bar

Choose output options

Right click where you want the sound output sent (headphones, built in speakers, HDMI port etc) and choose to make it default

Now you don't have to reboot or close open program. Drove me crazy till this forum helped me..............Raymond

 

That audio thing is a windows vista ultimate issue. It's new and improved. You just didn't know it................

Vista Ultimate and especially 64 bit are still driving me crazy but I like it. Vista and 64 bit are much faster, especially on a 1066FSB with 4 GB of DDR3 and 4 GB of ready boost.

 

I have a question in return.

Where does best buy sell those re-certified P7811 FX's? I've never seen anything but new items in my BB store. Is it on the website?

Love my P7811 FX for photoshop and other photographers in my area want one too. I bought mine new at BB during last years back to school sale and then they sold out and I've never seen them advertised again........

Raymond

 

I would look out for GPU issues. I got a refurb from tiger direct (latest model, P2888, updated bios, updated gfx drivers) and I am still having a horrible time with it. I can play Warhammer online at 1920x1200 at max settings and maybe lock up one a week or so. However, try any other game (Civ 4, Medieval 2, even flipping MLB Front office manager, which isn't gfx intensive at ALL) and I lock up almost like clockwork every 15-20 min.

It drives me crazy that no non-mmo type games seem to run. i even bought a Zalman ZM-NC2000 notebook cooler and that doesn't help either. It's a great system, super stable for normal apps, video and picture editing, etc. But for gaming, which is what this notebook is supposedly designed for, It is seriously lacking. My old Dell inspiron with a weak 7900GS never had these issues. Not sure what my FX's problem is but it drives me nuts

 

Where on tiger direct do they sell the P7811FX?
Can't find it on the website. Best buy either...........

Raymond