Gateway 7405GX: The new Emachine 6805 - Page 10

Wow, I remember the beginnings of this thread! Now look at it, up to 12 pages

Well, I've been checking my Gateway daily for cracked hinges. Yesterday it was fine. Today, well, it's not fine.

My serial number is N3049. I will be taking it back to Best Buy tomorrow for my second trade in. I just hope that they will switch out the hard drives. <<<cross my fingers on that one>>>

<<<sigh>>>

even though it is nice to get a new laptop, I just don't like giving this one up again. Before I took my last one in, I was ready to give it up. I had it for close to a year, and it did have some wear on it. This one is only about a month and a half old (see page one of this thread, I made that post the day after I got this one). I have spent many hours getting it all set up the way I want, have it tweeked to my liking. Looks like I'll have to start again!

Anyone know what Best Buy's lemon policy is when you have the extended waranty? I know there's something about the three returns, or repairs. It would be kinda cool if you got your money back and got to keep the lemon! Be nice to walk out with my old laptop and a new desktop at the same time.

On the fourth repair, you get a new unit of the same model, or a new unit that's comparable in price and/or specification to the original model if the same model is no longer available within the store. I'm not sure what the policy is on keeping the same hard drive. Speak with them and see if they'll let you, otherwise just use Norton Ghost to backup your drive and then copy over to the new hard drive.

Amen to that! When I first traded my 6805 in for my Gateway, I thought the new screen was the sh#$.... Now I find it annoying, espicially when I'm sitting here at work trying to watch a movie and I see the overhead lights in the middle of everything.

I know that they don't have to do that, with the hard drive. I'm just hoping they will. The Best Buy here in town (Waterloo, IA) seems to be really customer orientated, and they do go the extra mile to be sure people leave happy. I have went to school with several of the 'geek squad' and that also helps. When I read some of the problems people were having with some of the BB stores, I was expecting the worse when I returned my 6805, and did not expect at all to walk out with the Gateway (didn't even know it existed, got it the first day it was on BB's shelves, good day for a return).

it's sad, but with the close to 500 gigs of hard drive space on my home computer, I will struggle to find enough space to ghost my 20 gig xp partition from my laptop.

I did bring a portable usb hard drive to work tonight (just a 20 gig drive) and I will be copying my important files over to it tonight. Oh well, I do a fresh install of windows regularly, so it may just be that time to do it again.

I just have this nagging thought.... I left my laptop at work yesterday so one of the other front desk girls could use it on her shift. If I would have just taken it home.... I never leave this thing anywhere....

But if the hinge was going to crack, it was going to crack. I'm just happy I got the extended warantee at Best Buy, no questions ask, they just replace it!

Well, went back to best buy. They said i could leave it there and they would send it in for repair, 4-6 weeks wait. I called the 605 # on my laptop box, and they are sending me a postage label, said it should be under two weeks total time for the repair and return. I was hoping best buy would just exchange it out, but they said that there hasn't been much of a problem with the gateways (in fact, said my gateway was the first they have heard of when I took it in) having cracked hinges. They guy who answered the phone for gateway started to say emachines.... I got a laugh out of that. He was very freindly, and I was really satisfied with the call. He said that the cracked hinge is more of a cosmetic issue, not really detrimental to the unit. He also, along the way of the conversation, said that when gateway purchased emachines, the CEO of emachines became the CEO of gateway. He also said the way it seems, instead of emachines becomming gateway, it is going the opposite way, gateway is becomming more like emachines. Any thoughts on this???

The way I understood was just like that - eMachines technically bought Gateway. I don't remember the why's and why nots of the keeping the Gateway name, but that is essentially what I read quite some time ago. It is not completely unheard of. A company I have worked for, Honeywell, was "bought" by Allied Signal. They kept the Honeywell name due to Honeywell's more prominent global recognition.

So what's the advantage to this glossy screen? Is actually brighter than the old lcds. Does it make the black look darker and richer? Is it actually on of those so called x-brite screens or whatever?

I hope it has some advantage if your stuck with a light reflecting in the screen. Looked like 50% or more had these type of glossy screens. There must be something about them.

It is like the x-brite. I think Gateway's official name is Ultrbrite. I am like you in that I prefer the matte finish. The reflections on the new screens are very irritating.

Yeah, aren'tthey suppose to design screens that reduce glare, not make it 10 times worse?

Reminds of some of the show rooms at Good Guys. They'd always have this huge projector tv in one and the screen is so glossy you could hardly see anything. I'd ask who would want to buy that.

XBRITE Screen

The Glossy surface is actually a smooth surface.It allows light from the LCD
to pass directly instead of diffusing or scatering. This gives a much better clearer image.

viceversa for normal screen which diffuses some of the image

what's the best way to clean this glossy screen? seems so fragile and scratch prone.

I overclocked my 7405's ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 (64MB) to 419/220 (gpu clock/mem clock) from stock with ATITool and its runnin smooth. Also hacked it up to add the extra 512 stick under the keyboard to make it a gig and its still runnin despite the fact that i left 4 screws out in the end (???). The point is its still running, Im impressed.


7405gx

Probably not for long... At least not as a portable.

Just got my 7405GX that replaced my 6805.

First things I noticed:

1. The battery feels more secure in this machine than the old, it doesn't move up and down anymore.

2. The new silver top is more modern, cleaner, and has a steamline look, seeing how it's one big piece of plastic with no edges like on the old machines between the black and silver areas.

3. Left and Right touchpad buttons are easier to push and click quieter.

4. I Notice the depression around the buttons on the top right now merge togethor, sorta like now there's a canal connecting the volume buttons to the power button togethor in one depression instead of seperate.

5. Then the power button only lights up in the center through the power symbol instead of a blue ring around the button like on the 6805.

6. Screen is nice. The glossy screen gives it some kind of richer appearence, especially the blacks. Only time the glare will be a bother is at work with hundreds of lights above.

You can take a look at some photos here:
http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=54257

Well, it was only a six day turn around to send in my laptop to Gateway and get it back. The sent a loptop shipping box overnight (called on Saturday, got the box on Monday). I sent it in on Tuesday, and the following Monday it was returned, with the hinge fixed. Not bad time, better than the 4-6 weeks Best Buy told me. Chalk one up for Gateway on service!

Video Drivers

I installed Everquest on this laptop and it told me that I had version 6451 of the ATI 9600/9700 driver and that I should upgrade it to version 6476. I could not find this update anywhere. ATI's site sends you to the manufacturer's website. Gateway support (the number on the bottom of the laptop) told me that they didn't provide updated drivers for the laptops they support...??? The only place I found drivers were on the motherboard's website at http://www.arima.com.tw/ViewSupport.asp?View=71&cond=2 .
At any rate, Everquest seems to be running fine without the updated drivers so far. If anyone knows where to obtain the new ones, please post it. Thanks!

The Caped Avenger

I downloaded the Doom 3 demo and it seems to be running fine in low resolution mode. Still looks decent.

The Caped Avenger

I finally went through and bought the 7405gx.. and so far I feel like I made the right decision
I hope that i won't have to suffer from that broken hinges problem..
this thing is really silent, and it runs really cool sitting in my lap.
and yeah, i wanted to ask a question.. how long will the battery last if I run some heavy duty games (doom3 for example), will it at least last for an hour.

till now, this machine rules

I have no clue what driver version number EQ is looking at, but no one releases updates for laptop videocard drivers. Everyone explains that it is because each laptop manufacturer has to create their own .ini file, specifically for that machine. Hopefully this situation will change by next year, as laptops come with PCI express videocards that can be swapped out.

I downloaded ATI's new cat 4.12 drivers (without the new CCC) from their site and used the mobility modder from Patje at driverheaven.net. New drivers have been great rock solid since install. You can also use the new Omega drivers if you prefer.