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

nope the chipset in the laptop does not support 800mhz ram, so it will downclock.

will lower ram timings though, IMO not worth the money

 

i second this..bought it, tried it, didn't really do anything but give me one number lower on my timings. 667=5-4-4-12 - 800=4-4-4-12. so i took the ram back.

 

How loud do your laptops get when using basic office apps like word? Would you feel comfortable taking them into a classroom? Is there a way to customize fan speed?

 

cant hear it really.

I would not have a problem taking it to a class but the problem is the battery life is so bad it wouldnt make it through most classes.

theres nhc to change the fans but you are playing with fire messing with that. I hate nhc its dangerous

 

I'd buy a 2nd battery if I went with this notebook but is it really so bad? On a review I saw 1 hours and 55 minutes while running a DVD, and running notepad or something surely uses less power than DVD. Also the Vista power saver mode... Is the battery rating in the review really that far off?

Link: Here is the link to the review in which battery life is mentioned. It's underneath the 2nd spec chart on the page.

 

I get less than 1 1/2 hours surfing the internet. If you can get to 2 hours using notepad its certainly possible

but that is significantly worse than most notebooks.
I do not believe you can get 2 hours watching a dvd.

 

yep!

keyword: laptop


now a notebook will get you like 2.5 to 11 hours.

 

I chatted with a gateway sales rep today and he said by adjusting some kind of "screen power" or "on screen power" he can squeeze 3 hours out of it. Is that possible or was he baiting me?

 

putting the screen on it's lowest setting will give you about 30 minutes more on battery

 

I managed to watch a movie for about 2 <strike>mins</strike> hours and about 80% screen brightness. I was impressed. Less impressed after the Vista implosion, but still impressed.

 

2 mins? Wow, it really DOES have terrible battery life!

 

Makes you wonder what our priorities are with an 8 pound, 17" gaming DTR in a class room It has a stripe; if you glue a skeg on on end you could pass it off as a body board

I have not found any utility to adjust fan speeds so a spare $120 battery may be an option as previously mentioned. If budget allows find a $400 cheapo 14" for class room use.

 

So true. This always gets me.

 

Really? I didn't think it would be so surprising. I mean, it's convenient; rather than having a gaming rig in the dorm and a note taking laptop, why not just a laptop that will play games when connected to the power outlet and take notes when independent? No file transfer hassle, only 1 computer to take care of, less risk of something getting stolen, portable gaming when needed... I didn't think it was that rare.

Definitely no gaming in class for me though . I have a scholarship that I need to keep that's the only reason I can pay for a notebook like that in the first place.

 

i think they are talking more about the "loud" fan noise while in class part.....(speculation of course) danja

 

I think a gaming laptop isn't the best choice for in classroom use. They are louder,heavier and don't have good battery life. I think that's 3 strikes against it.
But ,you get to be the envy of non-gaming notebooks owners in class. Well, atleast till your neighbors complain they can't hear because of the typhoo next to them or it runs out of power and then your just lugging a 8lb brick around.
Just my 2 cents.

 

battery life aint that bad, if you use power saving correctly, the battery gouge shows more than 3 hrs for 100% and while i haven't set a timer to test it. more than 2 hours is for sure, if you plan on watching dvd while in class, just skip class altogether.

it is not a loud laptop, well as long as you do not play crysis, or mass effect.

 

^ yea i agree its not that bad for such a large laptop, and it is not loud ,UNLESS, your playing a game, the only game that seems to max out my system completely so far is max effect, maxing out the CPU and GPU

 

This may be heresy for a gaming laptop, but I installed a second 160GB WDC hard drive on my P-6831FX and installed Kubuntu Linux 8.04 "Hardy Heron" as a dual boot and it works perfectly "out of the box" (even the sound which is touchy with this laptop on other Linux distros) other than the need to install the graphics driver, which is an automated process anyway.

The kicker is that the Wine Windows API has matured to the point to allow playing of DirectX 9.0c games nearly flawlessly. (Generally what keeps a game from running is more likely to be the copy protection than anything technical.) So even for gaming I haven't had to reboot in weeks, though admittedly my gaming is largely limited to Lord of the Rings Online, Oblivion and Second Life, the last one being a native Linux app.

I will say, I had trouble playing Bioshock under Vista due to a massive slowdown at some points that basically got me killed so many times I deemed it unplayable.

 

that's very interesting

how about running 3dmark06 ?

holly crap how come i never heard of this ?
they run anything on it :

http://appdb.winehq.org/

ok after doing more reading, performance is still weak comparing to windows.
but hell anything that make's microsoft uneasy is welcome.
competition is good for consumers.

as too your bioshock comment, well, since you cant run it on wine, i would say blaming vista has no basis.
upgrade your cpu - its a 15 minute work.

 

and $250+ work, which some people do not have money for, which is also a pretty useless upgrade unless you want your 3dmark score higher or encode movies on a regular basis.

it wouldnt suprise me if it was vista either, but they are much closer to equal now with service pack 1

 

you sure you wern't playing bioshock in power save mode?

 

^ thats what it would somewhat sound like, i could max that game on vista just fine

 

yeah, me too...was having a war with a 7950 gtx card, remember....lol

we we're running it at 70 plus frames.

 

so all the people that upgraded their 5450/5550 just wasted their money in order to get better 3dmarks, or all are 24/7 movie encoders?


hmmmm...

every one is entitled for their own opinion.
i beg to differ, the 280$ i spend on my cpu make me happy every time i fire up my laptop, but i guess some people prefer to save it until they have 700$.

a good day to you sir.

 

I agree, as soon as I get a extra $500.00 I'm getting a x9000, I love fast cars, fast computers and fast women, what is wrong with fast?

 

hahahahahaha

cpu upgrade for a 3dmark score...now that was hella funny there. im with royk50. everytime i turn this my gateway on... i know and feel that i made the right decision in upgrading. i guess he would be a bit upset with me and my car then....lol
12 screens and a mounted laptop.

 

Guys I have P6831FX. I've been looking for the max I can push this system. I've just done some tweaking with MemSet and have been able to squeeze a bit more out of the RAM transfer speeds. Vista performance rating, Ram is now up .1 to 5.1

I've seen an improvement of around 200Mb/s RAM read/copy and write speeds.
Latency also improved to 81.7 ns

It worth a shot those looking to squeeze out the max speeds possible.

 

12 screens where u put them ?
upload a picture will u?

 

off topic
6 flip downs/2 visor/2 headrest/deck/mirror

http://www.cardomain.com/member_pag...images/4/web/556000-556999/556988_54_full.jpg

 

Damn Johnkss, where is the power plant located to run that setup

 

300 amp alt that idles at 120 amps 1k rpm

 

Sweet, party in Johnksss's car!!!

 

i really do need to send it to paint and interior. and let them finish it off, but think i will next year.

 

here flynnaz, the whole car.

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/556988

 

Very nice, looks like alot of work, well done.

 

yea, tis is true, but it really needs to be finished, but i went on a laptop craze, so now she sits...lol

 

lol

impressive.

can you run crysis on all screens ?

 

sure i can. and i can show 7 different things on them at the same time.

 

how about running a server for a lan party in that car ?
now i got you.

 

nope. rotflmao!

laptop has dual wireless. so internet connection sharing can be enabled on the other to share out for other computers....lmao

nice try though

 

i would like to see your signature including that car.... lmao

 

Yeah, as per the NR rules, lol

 

rules? what nr rules? ok...now you got me there....lol

 

DOH! I just realized this.

 

yep, getting old in your young age...

 

Hey Flynazz,
From reading previous posts it looks like you were/are pretty interested in playing eq2 on your lappy. Did you ever try it or get feed back on how well it plays? What quality level and what resolution? Also what OS? I have a 172x fx coming and would like to be able to play this and other MMO's. Specfically, do you think I should bother swapping out the pre-loaded 32bit Vista for XP, or maybe vista 64?
Thanks!

 

i just have one question....has anyone gotten xp to 100 percent work?? that includes sound and all chipset drivers. this inclues the mic and the speakers playing out of both sides equally and not 80/20. im just curious....

 

EQ2 runs great on High Quaity, on all my P fx's smooth as silk. 1920x1200

 

I just bought the P-6831FX on ebay! I mean it was a customer return, because the customer I guess didn't like it... Though it's up at the house that was a Verified PayPal address! So I have to wait until tomorrow night before I get to actually see it! Uhh... I just want to leave now and play with it!