Gateway FX Disassembly Guide (Covers all 17in FX Notebooks)

[stinger608]

best upgrade is the x9100. if you are not interested in overclocking the T9900 is a great cpu as well................

Thanks TANWare!!! Is the x9100 a quad?

The other thing I was wondering about, if one is to get a 79xx motherboard will everything inside the 7811 fit onto that board?

[TANWare]

The x9100 is non quad but C2D. The P78 series is relegated to C2D's only. The P79xx's can probably do a quad, my generic board accepted it fine and there ws a guy selling a used p7908 on ebay he upgraded to a QX9300 ES. So there is a great chance most P79's are upgradable.

Unless you REALLY need a quad though for those extra cores the C2D's are really the way to go....................

[Nakauri]

Hi; sorry to bother you and put this post here, but I have a question regarding my P-7901h that I hope someone can assist with.

I've been having overheating problems the past month, and I figured this was a result of sending the laptop back to gateway for a video card issue and them having only resat the processor. I was going to open her up and replace the TIM, but you gave a warning about this on your guide.

I've never had to do such a thing before, so I don't want to render myself laptop-less. I was initially going to use a TIM remover/surface purifier kit from AS and an AS ceramique compound. Is this a bad idea?

If you have any suggestions for prolonging my laptops life span, I'd forever be in your debt. I'm taking a bachelors degree in visual arts and require my laptop to do 3d and video rendering, but as it stands it overheats and turns off immediately. Ideally I need the machine to last at least another year.

[TANWare]

I prefer ICD as a TIM. As you can see from my Avatar I can overclock quite a way and keep it cool. The warning is for those planing a quad core upgrade. The copper plate when you pull it will not cover the entire two cores. That is yet another good reason to use ICD.

If it overheats that rapidly they may not have cleaned and applied new tim, just reused the old. To be sure though the CPU fan does work too.....................

Edit; an advantage of ICD too is that it is thicher than standard TIM's, therefore it will not "Boil Out" AS5 and others over time will do the application will last much longer under extreme conditions.

[Nakauri]

Oh, I see. Thanks for the clarification. The P7901h already comes with a quad core, so this shouldn't be a problem -- right?
The only reason I was planning on using AS over anything else was that the closest store to my house only sells AS and zalman TIM. I'll look and see if I can find any ICD7 elsewhere. My fans work, as far as I know, but I'll double check.

Thanks TAN. Have you had any heat problems with your P-79? Do you have any idea what could cause my laptop to go from 50C to 100C 3 seconds after beginning a video render? I'd like to do all I can to help dissipate the heat; redoing the TIM was just the only idea I came up with. You folks are much more versed than I am.

[TANWare]

that kind of heat acceleration on the CPU is either a fried CPU or severly lacking tim application. AS5 will work better than what you have so try that NOW. Overheating like that is a recipe for disaster and should be looked at ASAP.

If you stay with AS5 look to re-apply evey 6 months or so or as soon as you see an issue.................

Edit; While I can't mimic you ststem expactly with Prime95 down clocking to 2.0 GHz and 1.2250 vCore this thing gets up there, in the 90C plus catagory pretty quickly. Now with TS I can undervolt to 1.0500. With Prim95 I only see 80c and the fan kicks on just once in a while.

My suggestion then is to use RMClock or some other utility, even with new paste, to undervolt the CPU. This will help the system runn cooler and make it draw less power as well...............

[TANWare]

The other thing I was wondering about, if one is to get a 79xx motherboard will everything inside the 7811 fit onto that board?

Sorry missed the question, yes the board just replaces the original one. Of course there are alot of screws but take your time and you should be fine. Jut be absolutely sure everything fully plugs back together. It is easy with the small connections not to get them all the way connected and have a no boot..................

[Nakauri]

that kind of heat acceleration on the CPU is either a fried CPU or severly lacking tim application. AS5 will work better than what you have so try that NOW. Overheating like that is a recipe for disaster and should be looked at ASAP.

Thanks for the advice, TAN. I went and got the AS5 and applied it.
There was a thermal pad that was partially torn and stuck to the heatsink. I took it off and replaced it with TIM, but I'm not sure if this was a good idea. Should I try to replace it, or apply a thicker set of TIM?
Sorry for all the questions.

edit; scratch all that. I took the heatsink off again and saw that the TIM wasn't thick enough to contact, so the pad went back on. Not much I can do about that.
I tried to undervolt, but had to cancel my initial stress test due to my first core reaching 90C. I went ahead with the undervolting procedure, dropping .100v, but I again had to cancel the stress test when my core reached 90C. I'm at a loss.

edit2;
another thing - my motherboard temperature is now reading ridiculously high. My cores will all read 40-60, but my motherboard will fluctuate between 70-100. I feel like I understand nothing anymore.

[TANWare]

One word, undervolt! You are talking about the TSZ0 I believe, I noticed with mine it just shoots right up at the high vCore under load. I can get mine to 1.0500 volts 100% stable running Prime95, try to get it as low as possible and still be stable.

Also once you get the ICD it is a thick paste and you can use a large drop to replace the heat pad.

[Nakauri]

One word, undervolt! You are talking about the TSZ0 I believe, I noticed with mine it just shoots right up at the high vCore under load. I can get mine to 1.0500 volts 100% stable running Prime95, try to get it as low as possible and still be stable.

Could there be something wrong with my temperature sensors? I initially tried undervolting to 1.2500v from 1.2625. I cancelled the stress test at 90C. I just tried again from your encouraging, down to 1.2250v, and it immediately reached 103C and shutdown before I could react. Am I just really bad at this or does this sound fishy?