Gateway 7422 - hardrive and screen flicker

For the screen problem go to:
http://emachines.fizi.ca/guides.php?ID=4 and
http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=58403

The first link is a guide written by Compman, a user on this forum, and hosted on Fizi's, another user, website. The second link is loacate in the support forum, about people fixing their flicker and some Q and A. I am thinking that it is the same flicker that you are having.

As for upgrading the hdd, it is very simple and straight forward. Find any 2.5 in IDE hdd and but it. There is a single screw on the bottom, center of the laptop ("under" the touch pad). Unscrew it and slide out the hdd and sled. The hdd is screwed on to the sled, replace the hdd, slide back and screw it back in. My hdd died a few months ago, and I bought an 80 gig 5400 rpm, for about $120 locally and noticed a huge jump in the load time of Windows.

If you are going to change the laptop hdd, make sure you have the restore cd/dvd, or an OEM cd of the OS that you are using. Make sure that you back up all of your information. Also so your existing hdd does not go to waste, you can purchase a 2.5 in enclosure for $20-40 that will allow you to use it as a usb or firewire drive.

The calvary has arrived!


LCD screen flicker repair:

Here's how it works: there are two cables that you need to worry about. One cable is between the motherboard and the inverter (the inverter is an electronics board for the LCD). The other cable is between the inverter and the LCD. The inverter is located in the lid underneath the LCD panel (it's just a green strip; you'll see it in the pictures below). There are is a plug going into the inverter from each wire. Two plugs, two wires, one inverter - with me so far? Over time, those connectors get loose (due to poor design) and thus give you flicker. Occasionally the inverter is bad, but from what you described, it sounds like your problem is that the plugs are loose.

The way to solve the loose plugs issue is to secure the plugs to the lid chassis so that they don't move. My solution for that is hot glue. I actually stole the idea from Compman55, but modified it slightly. To begin, you will need to disassemble your LCD monitor. This sounds scary, but it isn't that hard. Note that this will probably toast your warranty, so you're on your own if anything goes wrong. Here is a guide that shows you how to disassemble the LCD:

http://emachines.fizi.ca/guides.php?ID=2

Next, cover the LCD with a piece of paper and warm up your hot glue gun (you can buy mini hot glue guns from Radio Shack for a few dollars). The paper is to protect the LCD just in case you mess up and spill the hot glue. Here's the procedure:

1. First, push both connectors into the inverter securely.
2. Second, position the wires such that there is enough slack for them when you open and close the monitor. You can test this out by putting your finger against the wire and the lid chassis and moving the LCD back and forth. If it's too taut, the wire will slip out from under your finger.
3. Once you have it where you want it, cover the connector (the one going into the inverter) and the wire near the connector with hot glue. You may have to hold it with a toothpick or something until it dries. Do the same to the other connector; both connectors going into that middle inverter should be hot glued. When it's dry, test it out to ensure that it works well - it should hold the wires in place and allow enough slack to fully open and close the monitor without any strain. Here are some photos of the hot glue on the wiring in my thread about my flicker fix:

http://www.notebookforums.com/showth...hlight=flicker

You can take a look at a short video of the hot glue technique in action here:

http://www.wiredbynature.org/gateway/flicker/hinges.wmv

I have been flicker-free ever since I completed this procedure. The monitor looks and works great. From the sound of it, this should do the trick for you, too.


Hard drive upgrade:

Hard drives come in three speed flavors: 4200rpm, 5400rpm, and 7200rpm. The fastest available are 7200rpm hard drives; they only cause you to lose about 4 minutes of battery life compared to 4200rpm drives according to tests. Hitachi and Seagate currently make 7200rpm laptop hard drives. Hitachi offers a better value because (1) their drives are second generation, (2) their drives are cheaper, and (3) their drives are available in a wider variety of capacities. You can get a 7200rpm Hitachi hard drive in 60gb, 80gb, and 100gb varieties. The model number to look up is "7k100", the Hitachi TravelStar drive.

I actually just purchased a 100gb 7200rpm Hitachi hard drive. It dramatically improved boot time and also makes programs open faster. I got the drive for under $200 shipped. Good online sources to buy from include Newegg.com, ZipZoomFly.com, and Buy.com. I wrote an article on how to upgrade the hard drive, available here:

http://www.wiredby.com/comp/gateway/hdd.php

The hard drive is much easier to upgrade than fixing LCD flicker. It takes about five minutes and you only need a screw driver. You can read my post about the drive and the upgrade procedure here:

http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=141374

You can also put your old hard drive in a USB/Firewire case to use for backing up your system and storing files. See the link above for a link and more information.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Good luck!

Ah, beat me to it before I could finish my post Yeah, even a 5400rpm hard drive will give you a performance boost over a 4200rpm drive. If you need capacity, the 120gb 5400rpm Seagate drive is definately the way to go. I believe they have a 160gb laptop drive out now as well, but it's really expensive (over $300 I think) and I don't know if our laptops support over 120gb drives.

At any rate, like mestizo122 said, you will want to have a backup on hand. The absolute easiest way to transfer is to buy an external enclosure and use Norton Ghost to clone the old drive to the new drive. Here's the procedure:

1. Buy a 2.5" enclosure and the new laptop hard drive
2. Install the new laptop hard drive in the 2.5" enclosure and format in Windows
3. Install Norton Ghost and select Clone drive (clone your C:\ to the external drive; don't forget to add USB or Firewire drivers in Ghost; just ask if you need help doing this)
4. Let the computer work on cloning the internal drive to the external drive for an hour or two or however long it takes
5. When it's done, remove the new drive from the enclosure, remove the old drive from the laptop, and swap drives.
6. Ensure that the copy went successfully buy booting your laptop with the new hard drive installed. If all went well, you can reformat the old drive in the enclosure and use it for backup and storage.

Pretty easy, all you have to do is use a screwdriver and a mouse Optionally, you can do a fresh install of the operating system and your programs, but that takes a lot more work.

No problem, good luck I had a friend whose Acrobat reader screwed up on her computer; she tried reinstalling it and all the usual stuff, to no available...she finally called Geek Squad, who said they could fix it...for $160! I sent her an email with instructions and she was good from there. DIY > Geek Squad!

Geek Squad...HAHA

They installed Norton on a computer i bought without telling me, i told them to take it off and it took them 4 hours and a reformat.

Rofl...I can have my system completely set up from scratch with a Ghost restore disk in 4 hours lol. I don't even do computer work anymore...I just back up people's files, wipe the disk, install XP & Adaware/etc., make a Ghost disc, and copy their files back over. Piece of cake, no more hassles