Is it just me or is our forum dead?

It's because Gateway got rid of AMD.

Uhhh...there still seem to be AMD based machines. What's the new MX7525?

Yeah, I know that when I first go on the boards, it was fairly active, now you can leave for a week, and not miss too much.

uhhhh... no they didnt

lessee, just looking at the best buy site we have the:
MX6450 <--Turion
MX6421 <--Turion
MX7525 <--AMD64
MX7118 <-- AMD64
and that new eMachines brand wal-mart one the W4620, and costco canada (and here as well?)'s MX6424... all available this quarter

IMO theres simply not much to talk about right now (which yes is a good thing)... ive tried starting some conversations

regarding the MX7525, looks like it'll just be refreshed for this quarter, not anything updated

Thanks 'conda. I don't see AMD?? http://www.gateway.com/home/products...shtml?clv=LNav

IIRC, Gateway sells both direct and through retailers, and sells different products through both. I see AMD Gateways everywhere from Staples to Best Buy; those are their retail partners. If you buy direct, you'll get Pentiums like you see on their website.

Either the build quality went up or the interest went down. Or any other number of reasons. The Gateway AMD laptops have become ubiqitous; they're cheap and powerful and anyone can buy one from Best Buy. People who aren't computer enthusiasts like us are probably buying them and never bothering to look for a community to share their interest in them with. Also, compared to many other laptops out there, the Athlon 64 Gateways are boat anchors. At 1.6" thick and 7.5 pounds (and made of soft plastic with a sub-2 hour battery life), it probably wouldn't be my first choice if I were sending my kid to college with it. Except that I'm a college student and I happen to enjoy massive amounts of power that can be tucked away in my backpack

But you're right, it has seemed a lot more dead lately. Maybe it's because we've solved so many issues in the past, especially with your help: we can fix LCD flicker, we know how to install 2 gigs of ram and hard drives, we can swap optical drives, do fresh operating system installs with the latest drivers, connect to wireless networks, and loads of other stuff. We have plenty of photos available and tons of reviews. And, most importantly, the forums have a nice search feature ^_^

I still love my 7405gx, even though it's given me some problems. I've been posting more on here recently because I'm interested in resurrecting my Gateway for it's last haul before I move on to a 4000+ machine or whatever's next. Hey, the people who count are still here, right?

Direct=Intel Only

I think alot of us maybe moved on to another brand after a while. Oddly I sit here with finally a perfect flickerfree, non cracked, no power problem, no dead pixel, no usb, card reader, or dvd problem plagued 7405 gx. I am also almost afraid to use it and think of ebaying it before something does happen to it.

What else is there to say about them? All the problems are basically solved. I suppose getting a Turion to work in our machines would be the next best thing right now. :P The ATI 9600 or the X600 is just not enough for a person that roams these forums (and wants to buy a new laptop). When this machines came out (M68** series) not many laptops had a good video card in them. Now... even HP went up to an X700.

I know there are X700 Gateways, but they are intel based and... pretty expensive. You can find many other good laptops in that price range. This leaves Gateway/Emachines a bit in the dust.

I am sure they still make plenty of sales to regular Joe's, but I think they lost a part of their market segment. People like us, who roam the forums looking for ways to get the best out of our machines... and our money of course. Personally, for me Gateway doesn't cut it any more. For myself, hte video card is an extremely important issue. Even though I do not play a lot, when I do play, I want to know that my laptop can take what I throw at it without problems... medium resolution at least.

My 2 cents.

Everything I wrote is based absolutely on nothing except being an M6805 owner and roaming these forums. That can mean a lot, or nothing . If I am wrong, please flame me

it will really pick up with the new models coming in april

19 inchers

My 7515 has been problem-free. I still have a debate occasionally with some people; my stance is that you cannot get a better laptop than the 75xx at its price point from anyone, and if your local Best Buy store is any good, then their new warranty is better than Dell's CompleteCare. Most of those debates occur outside these forums though, it rarely dawns on many people to ask those who already have one what they think of it and if they'd buy another one. I try to direct those people here with the tag line, "don't just take my word for it, ask others who have it what they think", but I don't think any of them have ever done it.

I sold my 6805 to my dad. But I still come here. LOL you should see what I've done to that machine to reduce the flicker.

There are a lot of other AMD-based laptops being offered by other manufacturer's now. A lot of the older Gateway purchasers were early adopters and thus were more likely to go tampering with their machines. Sadly, without any Gateway software support (aka BIOS upgrades) to go along with hardware mods, these people ran right into a brick wall, after fixing the plethora of manufacturer's defects, of course. Upgrading from a 3200 or 3400 to another power hungry 3700 is just not worth the dough. Its a shame they can't pony up some software support as these forums are for them a free enthusiast marketing platform they are completely failing to exploit (I say this as there just are not many popular English language notebook forums out there).

Its a shame. I think its just most things that can occure with these machines has occured. And we've posted everything we can on how to resolve problems.

I have an emachines m6805, and thanks to this forum, have had my minor problems (cracked hinge cover which I thought would not be covered under warranty) fixed. I have been very happy with this unit, though I occasionally think about getting a more up to date laptop. But this laptop works rings around my husband's Toshiba 3.2 Ghz P4. Comparable priced rigs (from the same year) didn't have near the features of this laptop. Maybe a Twinhead Durabook N14RA, (military ruggedness, but it has no card readers). My only complaint with this laptop (the m6805, not the Durabook) is a really easy to scar finish. Just touching it has worn the silver finish til it no longer looks new. (I guess that is why some have re-painted theirs.) This forum has given me ideas about that too.

Anyway, my guess as to the reason for inactivity in this forum, is all my questions have been answered here!!!

Isn't this amazing how these laptops eat Pentiums for breakfast? Eventually I will sell my 7405gx, get the newer 4000+ model, and call it quits with PCs (Mac stuff has been growing on me recently). When I do that, I will probably get a custom order from ShieldZone Corp, makers of the invisibleSHIELD. The invisibleSHIELD is basically heavy-duty Saran Wrap for electronics. I just ordered one for the iPod Nano based on the excellent reviews I read about them; they're supposed to prevent scratches and fingerprints without marring the finish too much or significantly adding to the thickness like most cases. You can see some videos of it in action here and here. Since the company does custom work and since the Gateway is so scratch-prone, I figured this would be a good thing to do. The existing 17" Apple laptop invisibleSHIELD runs about $40, so I'd imagine the custom work won't cost much more than that for the Gateway. A little pricey, but if it keeps my laptop looking beautifuly for years on end, then it will be worth it. Also, if I ever decide to paint my laptop, this will probably be a good thing to get so as to protect the finish. Another thought I had was if I got a cool sticker Shattered Web, this wrap would prevent it from falling off when you put the laptop in a case or backpack.