Unofficial Gateway P series 6831/171S/171X/171XL Lounge

Has anyone been getting a high pitched whining noise when the fan that is in the top right corner of the laptop (if you're facing it) comes on? I've noticed it on mine since I first turned it on. It comes and goes as that fan turns on and off. I just got this on Monday after a very long wait and do not really want to deal with taking it back to Best Buy or RMA'ing it to Gateway. I have not seen any threads from anyone else mentioning it either, which leads me to believe maybe I should.

 

I haven't gotten it you may need to RMA it.

 

is anyone else having good overclocking expereinces? on 174.20, I can overclock to 600/950m with no temp raise...is this normal, i think I need a new temp monitor..

 

What are you using to overclock your laptop? I really want to get RivaTuner to work, for the FPS and temperature display in-game, but I need signed drivers. So what are you using to show this?

 

What are using to monitor the temps? I'm using Ntune. Try Rivatuner yet? or Everest should work.

 

got my 68 on Fri before best buy sold out and jacked the price up to 1349 (now the sale has ended), picked it up for 1199 which imo is an AWESOME deal. ive never bought a laptop for personal use before always goin for SFF gamer rigs. I have to say im very impressed with the gateway out of the box (without the bloatware) and i ran all of the games below with NO PROBS:

Company of heroes & opposing fronts, Sins of a solar empire, fifa manager 08 (ok ok not the most taskin but still cool game), WORLD IN CONFLICT - which looked absolutely AWESOME in DX10 and ran superbly, lastly i ran Crysis at about 80-90% qaulity and it ran awesome.

In summary, to me its ALMOST silly to suggest playing games on a laptop since i've always thought it to be impossible; with this gateway i was proved wrong.

Just imagine taking a laptop such as the m17x with 1GB of VRAM and a T9300 !! i mean it would be a powerhouse !!

For anyone unsure about the gateway @ Best Buy - GET IT, you wont be sorry; and its a fraction of the price of a m15x or m17x (if ever released).

Now on to adding another WD scorpio 250 for RAID 0 goodness

 

I am also using Ntune...

the temps were sitting at 50C idle, then I ran an hour stabilty test through the Nvidia Control panel..it went to 56C HIGHEST at 650/1000....couldnt beleive it

 

Narsnail, what is your ambient room temp?

 

its quite a cool room, about 15-16C, I have a ceiling fan right above my desk so im guessing that it why the temps are not rising so much.

UpDATE, ran a 3DMARK loop at 1440x900, @ 650/1000, didnt finish the test, but temp went at the highest to 67C. Very good cooling system in this laptop.

 

Hey Lights, I didn't see an answer, and it's been so long that you've probably found out, but the reader DOES support SDHC cards. I'm using one as we speak. Sorry I didn't see this question sooner

 

Anyone running Vista x64? My friend has a heaphone/SPDIF jack problem (no sound on headphones). He also still have an unknown device.

 

All good thanks for the update though

 

It may be that unknown device or it could be the sound output option, check control panel IDT audio control panel. Make sure he has that software installed.

 

Ok, got some ???..concerns with my temps here.
Got T9300 installed..7200HD drive..have setting set to power...

After playing Two Worlds for several hours..these are my temps:

CPU Cores - top out at 44c
HD - 49c
ACPI (not sure what this is) - TZS0 - 57c
TZS1 - 67c (never changes)
GPU - tops out at 75c.

Worried about the GPU temp. Seems way too high and fan is always on.
When you pull off the cooler on the CPU, does it also come off the GPU?
Is so, can this be why it gets hot?

Scott

 

All I have to say is Wow!!!

I just installed my new T7500 CPU in this laptop, and it really allows the 8800 to breath and strech out its legs!

My 3DMarks went from 7000 to 8150 with no OC, and if I OCed the vid card to 600/900, my 3Dmarks jumped and additional 1150 points to 9300! So yea. This GPU is very much bottlenecked by the CPU when you take overclocking the GPU into account.

Oh and Scott, that GPU temp is not too high after intense 2hrs of workout. If it gets closer to 90C then you can start to worry.

 

Hey has anyone noticed that gateway took off the pre-order sales on their website. Could this mean that they will start shipping soon? I hope so but my order still is sitting in processing not porduction anyone in production yet? I ordered a P171X in early feb.

 

That would be sweet

 

Umm technical issue i gotta ask about. when i got ma laptop i formatted the harddrive to free up some of the bloat ware then went and downloaded back the drivers and other stuff. but since then i have not been able to get ma webcam working. i installed the drivers and thats about it. do i need anything else to make the webcam work?

 

I dont think you need to do something else.

On the gateway drivers page, it said :

This file contains the Windows Vista Webcam application/driver for the computers listed in the Applicable Part Numbers section of this document.

so.... the driver is with the application.

Try to reinstall your driver.

 

I have a question about the fingerprint reader...how much system resources is this thing going to suck up? Is it even worth it to have it enabled and use it or are these things seen as pretty much useless?

 

you have 3gb of ram dont worry about it....

it doesnt take up resources? like its not really a program, barely anything to be noticed.

 

ok i have another issue i wanna know if its just me or if this has happened to

during a Lan party 1 of ma friends was copying something while i was copying something off of his computer then out of no-where i got the blue screen of death

umm comments anyone?

 

Hey guys, just discovered these forums a few days ago, some great info here!

Anyway, I'm about ready to commit to buying a P-171XFX. I was going to splurge an XLFX, but a couple of things about it turn me away: I definitely do not want to pay for an HD DVD drive that is now obsolete, and I want a Penryn processor. One thing I definitely want from the XL though is the 7200rpm raided HDDs, as the XFX only comes with the single 5400rpm drive. If I get the XFX, is it possible to install and configure a 7200rpm RAID configuration in it? And retain the factory install? (i suppose if it came with a recovery disc that part would be easy). Is a Blu-ray drive upgrade possible?

And I noticed it doesn't have an S-video or a DVI-out. Kind of disappointing, it would suck to use analog to connect to my Dell 2007FPW (it doesn't have HDMI), and I'd like S-video out to connect to standard-def TVs. Are there any kind of adapters that make this possible?

Also, I read discounts are possible by directly talking to gateway sales representatives, have any of you guys had success with that recently?

Man, my life would be so much easier if Gateway would just let you configure their laptops to your liking like every other manufacturer. At first I was thinking about an m15x, but they seem overpriced, and for every Alienware fanboy there's somebody else dogging their horrible customer service and overheating issues. It's almost enough to make me want to wait for the Clevo M570TU to come out, but I don't think I can wait that long!

Any insight from current owners would be great, and I welcome any other opinions on my decision.

Thanks guys!

 

I just recently ordered the P-171S FX and had no luck getting the guy down on the price, I think they've changed their tactics over the past couple of months (I think someone else mentioned that already) and I'm a buyer so I really hit my sales rep from all angles but with no luck.

That's been my experience anyway.

 

I have another stupid question about just deleting the bloatware vs a clean install of the OS. I've searched and it's been touched on just a little but nobody has really given a good technical explanation as to why doing a clean install is preferred over just uninstalling the bloatware manually and cleaning up the leftovers with things like the decrapifier and ccleaner. Can anyone say with some kind of certainty that it is better for the computer to do a clean install? Is there a specific reason or benefit that can be pointed out?

Edit: This is not a request for how to do it, just wondering why one method vs the other.

 

I have done both options on many computers, and have seen no diffrence. I would rather send my free time gameing, not reinstalling the OS. Now when Vista SP1 comes out, it would e a go time to do a fresh install of vista and update it.

 

looks like we will be doing a fresh install once we get our laptops...by the time we get our laptops SP1 should be out...no? lol

 

lol, yep, i ought my 2 7200rpm drives too, so a fresh install is for me

 

Yes I have Vista SP1 installed on my system already.But I did a clean install back in January right when I took it out the box. I just did it then to get it out the way so that I can install my games and other software.

 

Here's my dilemna:

P-6831FX from BB= $1450 after taxes
P-171S FX Edition (G/w)=$1550 shipped after taxes (thru CSR named Kyle)

Is the G/W version worth the extra $100 over the BB one? The only thing plus on the GW is the little faster CPU plus fingerprint scanner which Im not sure sure if I need it or not.

BTW, wont be using for heavy gaming as I have my 360+PS3 for hardcore gaming ...getting the 8800 to make sure the latter games can be handled, making the laptop a little futureproof.

Thanks
Frag

 

for the $100 i would jump on it, but isn't there a long waiting period to get the laptop from Gateway.

 

Depends if you want to save 100 or not. For the faster CPU I wouldn't mind paying 100 more.

 

Thanks...might thru GW then...also found the non-retail version features a slot-type dvd burner and the 2.0G CPU over 1.66 will hold me off without the need to upgrade any component till I see the need.

Frag

 

Hey Guys,

I just ordered the P-171X FX today and got a good deal on it for $2078.95 including shipping and a free upgrade to overnight shipping. The reason I got a break on the price is because I voiced my concern on the wait time to get one. They are not scheduled to ship until 4/18/08 thats a whole month from now. When I discussed this with the sales rep he hooked me up with a good price. I bought a Seagate 200GB 7,200rpm 16MB cache Hard drive and 4GB G.Skill 4-4-4-12 RAM to upgrade this baby. Ill use the stock Hard Drive for storage and the Seagate for the OS and Apps. I will be doing a fresh install of Vista w/ SP1 and I will bench the s**t out of this thing once I get my hands on it. I also am not a fan of the matte 1920x1200 LCD that comes with this thing so instead of replacing it I bought a Glossy LCD protector from nushield.com. That should take care of the screen for me. Not bad for $2330 for the lappy and upgrades ehh. Can't find anything comparable in this price range from any other manufacturer. Gateway is really stepping their game up.

 

Does anyone else's 6831 have a T5550 in it? I bought mine today and was pleasantly surprised to see that my processor is a 5550. Not a huge difference, but every bit counts I guess.

I'll post a screenshot when I get done with my clean install.

 

Yes. I got a Female HDMI/Male DVI adaptor. Hook that to your monitor and a HDMI cable from your laptop to the adaptor. Voila--- Digital input! HDMI is awesome to hook up to a large screen TV's as well. Provides more options than DVI would have.

 

If I was to hook up the laptop to an external monitor that was capable of a higher resolution than the 1400x? resolution, would the laptop be able to output at those resolutions?

 

The 8800M GTS should be able to display resolutions over 2500x1000 like many high end graphics cards.

 

It works for me but I've only tried up to 1080p

 

Hey guys. I got a score of 7350 on 3dmark06. Thats with the new 174.60 drivers. Is this a good score?

 

I got over 7500 when I did it....

but it could be that for some reason I have a t5550 instead of a 5450. Don't ask how.... it just came that way.

 

Has anyone played Everquest 2 on a 6831? How well does it run, and has anyone run Everquest 2 on a P-171x fx?

 

im positively sure it would max it

 

By the way, isn't it time that you guys set up separate lounges for the 6831FX, 171S, 171X since the deliveries are starting to come in?

 

Woot! Bought a P-6831FX from Best Buy last night. Love it so far, my first real laptop.

I am downloading games from Steam right now, can't wait to see how this thing performs. I might actually have this replace my desktop since it recently exploded on me when trying to install Vista SP1, but that's another story

I installed the latest [XF]nVIDIA ForceWare 174.74 drivers as well. I am also going to upgrade the CPU soon, and the hard drivers.

Can you upgrade the LCD screens?

 

You can upgrade the screen here is a guide with a guide on the LCD swap and lots of other useful guides http://www.notebookforums.com/thread212385.html

 

Just got mine today (p-6831fx) and is has a T5550 CPU (1.83 GHz) installed and not the T5450 (1.66 GHz). I also just checked it using CPU-Z and it identifies it as a T5600 (1.83 GHz).

Any ideas? I did order mine off ebay, but it was still sealed and new in the box as stated in the auction. Anyhow, i'm not complaining, lol.

 

awesome link, thanks!

But where do I get the replacement LCDs that are compatible from? The link you gave only tells me how to install everything.

 

Sorry if this is off topic, does anyone know if the 6831fx will fit in a 17" zeroshock III sleeve? i look at the measurements and the 6831fx is "1.3 to 1.7-inches (H) × 15.75-inches (W) × 11.75-inches (D)" and the sleeve is
"W15.9 x H11.6 inch x D1.6 (W405×D40×H295mm)". I understand the 6831fx is a little off but is there anyone who has and uses this sleeve for the 6831fx?

 

hey guys, I was wondering does the 800mhz notebook ram help with performance??