MX6930 Core 2 Duo - Anyone? Anyone?

Boy I tell ya, sometimes Gateway comes out with products and it sure seems like I'm the only person on the planet that gets 'em. Can't find any decent info or reviews of this laptop - which I now own thanks to a stop at Best Buy earlier today. Found it on the shelf, saw the Core 2 Duo sticker, didn't see any price or spec info, asked about it, was told it was on sale for $799.99 and verified they had one then walked out with it - I paid of course.

So, it's got the following specifications (as leeched from the Best Buy Canada site since the US site is down as I type this):

Mfr. Part Number: MX6930
Processor Type Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5200
Screen Size 15.4"
RAM (Preloaded / Maximum) 1024MB DDR2
Hard Drive 120GB (5400RPM)
Optical Drives 8X DVD+/-RW Multi Format Dual Layer
Graphics Shared Intel GMA 950 Video Card
Average Battery Life 3 Hours
Product Weight 2.87 kg
Audio Type High Definition 2-Channel
Battery Type 6-Cell Lithium-Ion
Cache 2MB L2
Fax/Modem 56K ITU V.92 Ready
I/O Ports See The Features Section
Included In Box A/C Adapter, Manual, Battery
Network Card 802.11a/b/g WLAN, Integrated 10/100 LAN
Other Software See The Features Section
PC Card Slots 1 - Type I or II, CardBus
Pointing Device Integrated Touchpad With Vertical Scroll
Preloaded Operating System Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
Processor Speed 1.6GHz
Product Dimensions 35.8(W) x 3.6(H) x 26.4(D) cm
Removable Storage See The Features Section
Screen Type Widescreen UltraBright WXGA TFT
Speakers Built-In Stereo Speakers
System Bus 533MHz
Warranty 1 Year Parts & Labour

So, unless there is a different MX6930 out there, or it's using a different model number for the same config, does anyone besides me own one of these?

And another bonus: the C2D processor is socketed meaning I can get another one at some point as an upgrade. It'll most likely throttle down to 533 MHz (I think) but that's fine; having somewhat useful upgradeability almost makes this laptop a great deal, I'd say.

Installing Vista RC2 on it right now to see how she flies. If anyone does have one of these, share your thoughts and experiences, please.

Thanks...
bb

 

I am thinking of buying this laptop. Can you tell me your experience? Would it buy it again or spend a little more $ on something else?

Thanks!!!
Mak

 

I sent you, bbz_Ghost an email about you experience so far about the MX6930, but thought I would post the question here also in case anyone else had any info on this laptop as I am thinking about buying it before the sale goes off at Best Buy. It appears to be a pretty decent laptop for the price.

 

If I had the money right now, this moment, I'd be packing up this MX6930 to return and apply the cost towards this model:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...teway&lp=1&type=product&cp=1&id=1157068283471

That one is a 17" (big sucker), 1440x900 resolution, Core 2 Duo T7200 2 GHz with 4MB L2 (it's a Merom CPU), 160GB 5400rpm drive, etc etc. Mostly the same hardware as this MX6930 I'm currently on, which I love actually. But for $1199 out the door, that 17" model is damned hard to beat; I wish I had those other features (the 160GB drive, the 1440x900 resolution, and that Merom processor) in this MX6930, really.

The MX6930 is a fantastic machine for the price. I'm currently running Vista Home Premium 64 Bit Edition at the moment, and I just last night bought 2GB of PC2-4200 for it (533 MHz) and Vista is just flying along.

Intel released newer GMA950 drivers last week just after Vista went RTM - you can get those updated drivers (most people don't know about them for some reason) at:

http://www.intel.com/support/graphics/sb/CS-023621.htm

This is *not* a beta driver, it is feature complete and ready to roll for Vista, and released just last week. After installing it my WinSAT score for video went from 3 to 3.1 - no it's not a major jump in 3D gaming performance, but Aero sure seems a lot snappier and smoother with this new proper driver.

Here's a screenshot I just snapped a few minutes ago:



NOTE: For those people that think they're going to steal my key just because I didn't hide it in that screenshot, don't fool yourselves. I installed Vista without a key - doing so let's you choose which OS you want to install, so since I'm getting a free copy of Vista Home Premium with Gateway's Express Upgrade to Vista program (I just bought this laptop, remember), that's the version I installed on Sunday. But I chose the 64 bit version of Home Premium.

The only piece of hardware that isn't supported in Vista 64 so far is the media card reader, so I could care less really. My digital camera has a USB 2.0 port on it so I can the pictures off it that way.

Aside from that, I have no issues with this laptop at all and no issues with Vista so far either, and again I'm running Vista 64. Those Intel drivers above, the newest final ones, are also available in a 64 bit version also.

I have a crappy HP Desktop D1320 printer that isn't directly supported, so I grabbed the XP 64 drivers, attemped to install them and the installation crapped out. But, they were extracted into a temp directory so I went in there and pulled them out, did a standard Add New Hardware thing under Vista, pointed the installer to the location of the drivers, and it read them off and installed 'em just fine.

No issues, so now this machine is totally 64 bit through and through save for 32 bit software I've installed and the lack of the media card reader 64 bit driver.

I'm pretty happy with the purchase, and I picked up 2GB of Kingston RAM last night as Fry's here in Las Vegas. With that installed, Vista is simply amazing. I strongly strongly recommend that anyone interested in Vista on the MX6930 - or any laptop at all from any manufacturer - invest in RAM, as much as your laptop can possibly hold, as soon as you can.

Vista works a lot differently from XP, and I mean a lot differently.

Now that I have 2GB of RAM installed, after booting the laptop, Vista sucks down over 800MB of it to cache a ton of stuff directly in RAM to speed the entire system up.

It's not like XP - it gets faster with more RAM consumption, not slower. Seriously.

I had it running with 931MB of 1GB in usage the other day and it wasn't chunky or slow in any way. I also have a 4GB USB 2.0 thumbdrive in place to help with ReadyBoost.

Every little bit helps, but I can say with all confidence that the Gateway MX6930 for $799 is practically a steal for anyone interested in a great midrange laptop that's 100% Vista 32 bit capable and currently only one single device doesn't have a proper 64 bit driver.

64 Bit computing is coming... I even created a website for it and everything related to it:

www.64bitrocks.com

Stay tuned... It's coming.

Hope this helps...
bb

 

w00000t!!!

Full Vista 64 compatibility... just found the 64 bit driver for the 4n1 media reader and now this MX6930 is fully compatible with Vista 64!

Here's the linkage for the info:

http://www.planetamd64.com/index.php?showtopic=27934

And a screenie of my now quite nicely laid out Device Manager:



I'm one very happy camper now lemme tell ya. No worries about any driver issues at all with Vista 64 from now on.

Great laptop, phenomenal deal on the price... run out and get one if you can.

 

bbz_Ghost, thank you for spending time for sharing the review of the Gateway MX6930. It is really nice to know that it runs Vista like a charm.

But what is important for what i'm looking is it has the duo core 2 chip, 1 gig of memory and a $200 off on sale at BB.

 

Yep. At this moment I'd say it's probably the best value laptop for Vista on the market today considering it's a Core 2 Duo machine for $799.

I'm pretty damned happy with it, and with Vista 64.

 

I just got this today, I don't know much about laptops but the sales associate told me this laptop was a good deal for what I was looking for (light-medium gaming), so I bought it. So far it is running well, but I wanted to upgrade the video card if possible because I want to play Final Fantasy XI Online on this. Any suggestions on video cards?

 

If the salesman even hinted that such a thing were possible, I'd say take that laptop back to the store and break it over his stupid head.

Laptop video cards aren't upgradeable except on some very high end models from Dell and Alienware and maybe 2 or 3 other manufacturers. The Gateway MX6930 that you got (and I and several other people own now) has Intel onboard GMA950 graphics, meaning it's not really a "card" you can remove and swap out for something better.

GMA950 is ok for some gaming depending on the game requirements, but it's not for gaming overall. It can do all the 3D stuff that Vista requires, but it's not a serious graphics processor (GPU), not by a longshot.

So the simple answer to your question is: you can't upgrade the video on that laptop, sorry, and any salesperson that used such a thing to entice you to buy it - or even brought it up in the conversation - should definitely look into another line of work.

bb

 

Bought it yesterday before sale ends but it turned out that it is still on sale this week.

Somehow there is an another Gateway MX6931 onsale $200 off too, with same specs except it sports a 160 gigs and 2 gigs for ram making me wonder to return to switch to a 2 gig meg of memory one since you have 14 days to try.

It is pretty fast and nice. Haven't played with it yet. Just it detects my wireless router
which has security on but 6 other wireless routers were unprotected and I could connect to anyone of them! lol

Is it a good move to switch to 2gigs memory and 160gigs hard drive for $200 more because Vista is very demanding in ram to run.