Unofficial Gateway M-152/3XL

You know, after reading posts about people with the 8600M GT card, im starting to appreciate that our card idles at ~50-53. Most people said their 8600M GT idles at about 60-63! Including the ones in the XPS!

 

Anyone popped theirs open to the point of seeing the BT card?
Curious as to what it is, and if it can be had separately. the 6850FX and M-6851 do not come with BT from factory I think...

T

 

I dont even know what BT card is -_-' lol

I dont think anyone has opened up their M series.

 

Bluetooth - M-152/153 come with BlueTooth, '50FX and M-6851 do not.

Curious, since all 4 use the same mainboard (according to GW), what card they are using, and where it goes.

T

 

Ah, well the 152XL has a WIDCOMM card, as far as I can tell from the drivers. Im not sure if that means anything, because tbh i dont know if widcomm is a company or what but this is exactly what gateway's website says:
"Gateway(r) WidComm Bluetooth Drivers"

Im sure you can put the same card into the other ones, because as you said, same motherboard =)

 

Thanks for that.

Gonna have to see if I can order that from GW - they show a few.
I wonder if it has a built-in antenna, or chassis-based, and if chassis-based, if the '50FX and 6851 actually have the antennas onboard.

I need that dang '51 to arrive, already...

T

 

amidond, great thread, not sure if it has already been mentioned, but the hdmi port does indeed support multichannel audio. I've played back my bluray movies with dolby and dts tracks with arcsoft totalmedia theatre to my onkyo receiver no problem.

 

how come gateway.com dosen't seem to sell the 153XL on there website anymore, they only have it at retailers. can anybody help me??

 

Niiiiice - I was wondering about that.
There was a thread on here, where someone mentioned they had a laptop, and it HDMI out, but no audio! I thought that was kinda stupid, as HDMI is meant for video+audio! What's the point of putting in an HDMI port, and not pass the audio through it???

T

 

they don't sell directly to the customer anymore, now they work like their parent company Acer. No biggie though, I guess having multiple retailers might help drive prices down, competition is always welcome

 

actually prices probably wont go down on their ex-direct lines because there arent multiple retailers - just one for each specific one.

for example, the M-153XL so was for 1099 on their website - you could probably get 100-150 off by talking to a sales rep. On tigersdirect.com its for ~1070 but no sales rep to lower the price!

 

Anyone besides amid try undervolting on the M-152XL?

 

I already undervolted my m-152xl, I got it July 5, undervolted it July 7, and I've been running rock solid for almost a month now.

here are my voltages, they have each been tested thoroughly, but I'm not responsible for anything

 

how much did they lower your temps by?

and thx for the voltages. ill test em out soon as i get the time

 

i lost the screenshot of the temp difference, but right now I'm in my room with the windows open and no a/c, and my processor is running at 600mhz using speedstep and the temp is 10.7C. During the day if I have the windows open i'll hit 13-19C at idle. With the a/c on, I've hit 5C. At 2.4ghz, with 100% load i'll hit around 35-40C. Before undervolting i'd would idle approximately 3-5C higher, and at 2.4ghz, i hit 45-52C. I highly suggest undervolting the t8300 to keep the temps down. The only thing that runs warm is the graphics card, other than that everything else runs fine.

 

Thanks, huh when I hooked up my lappy through HDMI to my LCD and played a movie using DIVX I get no audio so I just figured it wasn't set up that way. I will try some other things to figure it out.

 

Nice. On both cores after running the stress test for 10 mins, both before and after, it seems the max temp dropped by 10 C!

Thx for your voltages man, I really appreciate it.

anyone try the M-152XL w/ a zalman nc1000/2000? if so, how effective is it?

 

Well, I have been on vacation the past four days an haven't spent much time on the PC but I have some more updates available soon.

I finally finished installing Ubuntu again.

 

Okay when i run rmclock at startup with those voltages it seem my "MMLoadDRV.exe" keeps crashing. A quick google search means that not enough power is going to my graphics card on load! Damn.

 

I haven't had any problems with my graphics card, but if it keeps crashing, I suggest raising the voltages one step to be on the safe side.

 

it doesnt crash, thats just the error i get on the load up o_o

 

I thought I read somewhere else, that someone with a similar problem had to go into the audio app and remap the audio output.

keep in mind, this is not Gateway specific I'm thinking of, but maybe the solution is the same - turning on the HDMI-out in some sort of audio app.

T

 

under control panel>sound, the hdmi sound device should be shown, if you're having problems with no sound, set it as the default, and make sure to click the audio formats supported by you're tv or receiver. I have the realtek ati hdmi audio device driver installed on my m-152xl. What I like about it, is that hdmi audio is only enabled when i plug my laptop to my receiver, the rest of the time its off. You can find it here http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PFid=24&Level=4&Conn=3&DownTypeID=3#1. I've used media player classic-home cinema, wmp, and arcsoft tmt with no problems.

P.S. Make sure you have the codecs needed to ensure proper playback for audio formats such as ac3 (Dolby Digital), DTS, and for hd-audio dolby truehd and dts-hd ma.

 

hey, when you guys right click on ati catalyst control icon at the bottom right, does it show two "ATI Radeon HD 2600"s?



iv been having some problem in wc3, very choppy, im thinking its related to this.

 

yea, i got the same box as you.

 

Are the C2E X9000/X7800/X7900 supported in the 152/153XL, 6850FX/M-6861?

T

 

I dont see why not, unless its a heat issue

 

Educate me, though, because I don;t know much about the C2E's...

Is there something in our BIOS to allow the overclock on the C2E's?
Or can it be done with some 3rd party util?

If we can't OC on our platform, then it really wouldn;t make much sense to pay the premium for the C2E's, and be better off getting the faster T8xxx or T9xxx i could afford, correct?

T

 

the bios should auto detect a C2E and unlock the options for overclocking it once its installed.

 

Ahhhh.....anyone know if our BIOS has that capability?
Or is it a given?

T

 

its a given on the 6860/6831 fx bios. 94.29.00 is the bios version...maybe you could check what version bios you have?

 

Mine arrives tomorrow

The version they have for download on the gw.com site is listed as 89.91.24
per Linkage

There's nothing in the files in the download, like a history, or changes section that I can find.


T

 

i will check the next time i restart, but im pretty sure my bios is not 89.91.24 o_o if i remember correctly its 92.something. then again, maybe im hallucinating

 

lol dood i dont know anything more then you.

 

Heh - guess we'll be learning, huh?

From the GW download site, there is a LONG list of machines that use the same BIOS as the M-6851, including the new M-6864FX, M-6850FX, the entire M-15x series, and like TONS more!

T

 

The x9000 is a beast, but I don't know, it costs way too much money for just a processor. I'd rather take that money and buy a bigger 7200rpm hard drive, a t9300, and see if I could install a blu-ray drive. I definitely think a 320gb 7200rpm drive, or the 500gb ones that are rolling out, a t9300, and possibly a blu-ray drive would be much more better than just a x9000.

 

I waiting for those 64GB SSD to drop a little more and then I will likely get one with some Birthday/Christmas money, but then what will warm up my left palm while browsing the net??

 

noob question but...
will heat be an issue w/ a 320gb or a 500gb HDD?

 

where the heck are you shopping? damn...x9000's can be had for around 400 from ebay. good luck trying to find one retail.

 

LOL. Indeed.

 

I never mentioned the retail price, and yes for a med student, 400 for a processor is too much for me. I paid 1008 for my notebook, I'm not gonna burn 400 on just a processor. That's like buying a 20k civic and spending 10k on just rims. I'll save 400 more, and 2-3 years from now buy a pc that puts a x9000 to shame.

 

I don't think that a 320gb or the 500gb drives that will hopefully sooner rather than later roll out will have any problem in terms of heat, they might even produce less. Besides it can't be hotter than the graphics card.

 

But then in 2-3 years, todays X9000, say it's an X9800, will be alot then!

Now, if you're referring to being done with school, and having the money to buy the best THEN, well, good - I HOPE you are thinking that way!

Right now I'm on BOTH of my son's backs to finish well in high school, because it ain't getting any easier!

T

 

Definitely, once I'm done with school, I'd love to have an intel extreme processor, but right now, I need to stretch every dollar.

 

does this laptop have a media direct button like for dell and hp

 

media direct button? like a button that opens up media center, dvds, etc? yes it does. look at the review.

 

Very dependable! This is my second one. The first one I had was a Gateway Mx6121 and it was awesome. I mean it didn't have a graphics card or anything special it just wouldn't die. I beat the hell outa that thing for two years and it is still working. My dad has it. The one I have now is a P172s FX and I am in love with it. Plays Crysis very well and everything else.

 

Gateways with 8800M GTS card threads ----> way
This is the HD 2600 thread =P

 

Where did everyone go?

Well I just bought a NC2000...I will review it and let you guys know how effective it is on the 152XL!

 

the zalman cooler? If that's what you got I'd liked to see if it drops the temps a little. Btw did the error you got with your graphics card go away?