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M680XL mini-review - Page 2

post #21 of 37
8/28/05 at 3:15pm
I would rather have the smaller fan continue to spin but at a much lower speed so that you cannot hear it. Like you said, a little airflow is a good thing.
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post #22 of 37
8/28/05 at 3:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Falcon474
thanks for the heads-up, that's dissapointing. All the smaller fan really does is blow a small amount of air over the graphics card area, which is cooled by the heatpipe/heatsink assembly anyway. Has to be something I could do...i'll work on it and let you guys know. Should have that pictorial up tommorow evening.
The best I could recommend is removing the fan blade and just let the motor spin. I doubt if the BIOS would be able to tell if there was no blade. With out the blade moving air it should be almost silent as the motor doesn't really make an audible noise.

I could be mistaken but I beleive you void the warranty just by opening the unit up. I don't know how they would monitor something like that as I don't see a any stickers the say "Void if seal broken" or any such thing. If I were you I would double check with the information that came with the system. Or I dare say give them a call. But just do it anonymously. Just ask if I.....would you? Or what are the limitiations if any? Definitely don't give them any of your info (including service tag number or s/n. You wouldn't want them making a note on your account.

Good luck.....
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post #23 of 37
8/28/05 at 4:37pm
^ I don't think they void your warranty by just opening the unit up. There are instructions on their own website teaching you how to replace certain parts. (But then again I'm not a 100% sure)
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post #24 of 37
8/28/05 at 4:51pm
But if you cut the blades, you essentially have voided your warranty. You have to find a spare fan that looks exactly like the original.

I wonder if you can order spare parts from Gateway.
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post #25 of 37
8/28/05 at 5:48pm
Thread Starter 
Well...I got all the pics, I'll have to get them edited, resized and hosted. I remembered back when I undervolted a few fans in my desktop case, by switching the ground and +5V wires. So I tried that on the little fan, but unfortunately, that made it not work at at all. So i just reversed them back again, but the fan still doesn't work...HOWEVER, the bios lets me just bypass the message by hitting F1, so who knows what i did, but the annoying loud fan is gone now. I'll just hope you can order spare parts from Gateway. Maybe Otto will stop in here with an answer. I definitely need a new second fan now if I have to send it in. Mine has obvious splicing and electrical taping, and doesn't work.
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post #26 of 37
8/29/05 at 1:03am
Thread Starter 
ok, its done. check the support section for the tutorial. If a moderator would like to sticky it, that'd be great. Also, the computer is a lot quieter without that second fan, but obviously it does something, because it cost me 50Mhz on my GPU ram clock. It is only stable at 751 now, which is definitely not as good. So hopefully i can get another fan somewhere. If you don't game too much and you want a noise cut, you can just snip the red and black wires on the small fan, and it will turn off and the bios won't report it broken either. But personally I'd like mine back for the extra OC it gives.
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post #27 of 37
8/29/05 at 10:54am
Falcon474,

You are like McGuyver
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post #28 of 37
8/29/05 at 2:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Falcon474
ok, its done. check the support section for the tutorial. If a moderator would like to sticky it, that'd be great. Also, the computer is a lot quieter without that second fan, but obviously it does something, because it cost me 50Mhz on my GPU ram clock. It is only stable at 751 now, which is definitely not as good. So hopefully i can get another fan somewhere. If you don't game too much and you want a noise cut, you can just snip the red and black wires on the small fan, and it will turn off and the bios won't report it broken either. But personally I'd like mine back for the extra OC it gives.
OMG OMG OMG ARE U KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!! I WANED TO DO THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE OMG OMG OMG NO I WISH I DINDT SELL MY GATEWAY M680.....dam i wish i did that in the first place.
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post #29 of 37
8/29/05 at 3:46pm
Laptop<3,

Now that you know what can be done with the m680, why don't you return your Dell m70 and get the Gateway with Nvidia 6800 graphic card and get a laptop that can be made quiet, has a thin profile, good battery life, light 17 inch laptop, and a fantastic display....and overclock the graphic card to reach almost 5000 score on 3Dmark05.
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post #30 of 37
8/29/05 at 4:43pm
Thread Starter 
Well..lets remember here that you can't have your cake and eat it too. Deactivating the second fan cuts airflow to the graphics system, which will hurt your overclock. But still has plenty of performance. I'm going to try to rig up a mcguyver solution for it though. Maybe a fan replacement with a quieter unit, or perhaps some sort of on/off switch i could mount on the bottom. We shall see.
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post #31 of 37
8/29/05 at 7:47pm
Falcon474,

Wow, you really have guts. Like you, I also have the 3 year ACP on my m680. With all of those modifications, I don't think they will still honor your 3 year warranty. But if you play your cards right, perhaps near the 3 year mark, you can just run your car over the laptop and there will be no trace of the modification (if you throw out the pieces that have traces of the modifications).
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post #32 of 37
8/29/05 at 8:02pm
Thread Starter 
You got it man...if anything goes seriously wrong, i plan to do just that. But of course that's all a hypothetical situation, i would never REALLY try to get around warranty terms
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post #33 of 37
8/29/05 at 8:43pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Falcon474
You got it man...if anything goes seriously wrong, i plan to do just that. But of course that's all a hypothetical situation, i would never REALLY try to get around warranty terms

Gotcha!
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post #34 of 37
8/31/05 at 1:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vancomycin
Laptop<3,

Now that you know what can be done with the m680, why don't you return your Dell m70 and get the Gateway with Nvidia 6800 graphic card and get a laptop that can be made quiet, has a thin profile, good battery life, light 17 inch laptop, and a fantastic display....and overclock the graphic card to reach almost 5000 score on 3Dmark05.
the m680 still kinda sucks for me the case flexing and the whole thing thats it is a gateway botheres me.
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post #35 of 37
9/10/05 at 9:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Falcon474
3dmark05 score of 4790 with the clocks I mentioned above (426/807). Like i said, the card will go higher, i had 445/820 stable but i just don't want to push it.
I'll probably be getting this laptop in the near future; I cant believe you got that high of a 3dmark05. I was about set on getting the x700 since I didnt think the 6800 non ultra could give it that much of a higher score; but you have almost gotten 2x the score of the x700 cards.

I'm really not a NVDA fan; but that 3dmark score makes me want to go with that card.

One question (you seem to know alot about laptops); if I choose not to include the wireless network card; could I use one I get from somewhere else such as this
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...PcY_BIN_Stores
heard some good things about this wireless card.

great review!
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post #36 of 37
9/11/05 at 10:16pm
Thread Starter 
dj,
you can get this card, its a standard mini-PCI card...but i'd call and make sure they still wire the laptop with the wireless antenna (its wired through the border of the screen, not something you'd want to do yourself) if you don't order the card. You may have to just deal with the added price in order to get the antenna pre-wired for you. I don't know for sure on this though, so i'd call and ask. It's a great laptop, and the nvidia card is completely worth it. I used to be very against nvidia cards, but truth be told, everything is pretty even right now, the only thing ATI has to compete in the mobile sector is the x800, and its not easy to find. Get the 6800, and you won't regret it, as games get more advanced in the next few years, the performance difference between the x700 and the 6800 will just get greater.
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post #37 of 37
9/25/05 at 11:29pm
what do you think scores of 3dmark05 would be if it was stock like 3700? 3800?
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