Gateway FX 6800-01e BIOS Update from Gateway Unsupported

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i know it something to do with video card. When I install the nvidia geforce 9600 gt it works great. I can sleep and restore anytime without problems. I figured that the psu wasn't powerful enough.

I will try the hot fix and I hope it fixes it.

I do not think it's the hard drive ran many times. I've determine it's the video card b/c i've cross elminated all other hardware possibilities.
 
Good Luck with the Hotfix.

The only reason I suggested the possibility of a hard drive failing is cause a bad hard drive can cause a system to lock up like clockwork.

If it's the gForce card, then it's probably trying to draw more power than is available to it or there is something else wrong with the card.
 
It so weird. I tried the hotfix and now restore from sleep is even worst after 1 hour. the geforce card i have as a backup is low power. That does not make any sense b/c 600 watt ocz 80 plus should be able to power this pci-e card. Maybe I am wrong. I am going try this card on my old amd 64 system with a crappy power supply. I'll keep you all posted. Thank you for all you suggestions.
 
well mine did it once today. first time in about 2 weeks. it was doing it a few times a day before. todays was when i clicked on my outlook shortcut and a blue screen (not the usual BSOD) came up. it was a darker blue than the standard windows blue.
i'll let you know if it happens again.
 
I solve the problem when i switch to S1 in the BIOS. S3 is the standby option but I think it could be drivers problem or just the board.
 
You might want to check this article out as your system may need to have the memory leak HotFix applied.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Windows-Microsoft-BSoD-Hotfix-OS,9637.html

If after the HotFix is applied, you still have this problem, then maybe you may have a hard drive that is failing.
Click to expand...



Hi Renegade,

I was wondering if you could help me out with a problem I'm having with my Gateway. You're quite the knowledgeable guy about this model and I'm hoping you'll know the fix for this.

My problem started a few weeks ago.

When ever I try and do a reboot my system will hang at various stages of the boot process. At first this would only happen on a warm reboot and it would freexe at the loading windows (7) screen and then the orange power light would go out but the computer is still on. I have already swapped out my hard drive with a new one.

I updated the BIOS and things were fine for a week and now it seems worse. Sometimes it will freeze at the gateway screen. I flashed the BIOS through the supplied app and followed directions to the T.

What's wrong?
 
rxs2k

With what you just described, this late in the game, it could be just about anything seeing as your problems appear to have started fairly recently.

It could have been one or more windows updates which could have triggered this. Possibly a third party driver issue. Parasitic infection of some form such as Malware. Corruption of the drive tables. Or a simple hardware problem which may or may not be so simple to figure out.

If you have access to another system, pull the drive from your system and preferably put it in an external drive enclosure which you can use to connect it directly to another system as a USB drive. A Thermaltake Docking Station works just as good. If not, then just connect the drive as a secondary drive inside the other system.

What you'll need to do is first Open Windows Explorer > Right click on the drive and select Properties > Tools > Error-checking > Check now... > Start. (This will fix any corruption)

When it is finished, it'll tell you if there were any problems and if there were, it'll give you a detailed report.

Next, you'll need to run a Full virus scan on the drive itself.

At this point, I hesitate cause I do not know if you have any experience in the fight against spyware and other parasites. So if I give you the wrong advice it could be disastrous where as in experienced hands, the advice would be useful.

So instead, what I'll do is have you remove the drive, then before you reinstall it, use an air compressor and clean your system out good including the power supply. Be sure to get every spot that dust can possibly hide.

Once this is finished, reinstall the drive, then check all the cables to be sure nothing is loose, re-seat the memory, make sure you have plenty of air flow through the case as you don't want any heat build up.

During boot up, watch for any error messages and watch that the initial boot up where it say S.M.A.R.T. Drive - Be sure that it Lists OK

Two things I have done on my system with the power settings is to disable Hibernation and I have disabled Sleep Mode. I prefer to be able to manually select this from the shutdown if I so choose which I rarely do with my Desktop.

Once you have finished booting your system and you have logged in, the programs you'll want to run are MalwareByte's Anti-Malware and SpyBot - Search & Destroy (without the TeaTimer) and HiJackThis 2.0.3

The first two programs you'll install and update, let them fix anything they find and be sure to save the logs.

With HiJackThis, don't do anything except to save a log file.

Next you'll want to go over to the Spywareinfo Forums to the Malware Removal sub-forum. Be sure to read the pinned topics there, then create a new post and include the log files from all three programs.

If your problem is Malware related which is very possible, then they will be able to help you.

Power supply could be failing cause the power supply that came with this system just barely meets this systems needs and I mean barely. This system really requires a more powerful power supply.

Last year, I had to repair at least two systems which both had bad power supplies. When I opened the old power supplies up after swapping them out, you could see the tell tale sign of a scorched spot on the PSU circuit boards.

Good Luck
 
hi renegade,
you have been very helpful in my update of the bios a few months ago and my update was succesful and error free after following your instructions.
now i have a problem. i rarely use my fx6800-01e since acquiring a laptop. but i use this on video editing and photoshop. last night i have a photo in my laptop and i want to print it but first i want to edit in PS on my fx6880-o1e. i was turning my computer on while replacing the ink of my printer. my three year old was pressing the keyboard since i was on the printer i wasn't able to stop him. it did'nt get to windows instead it goes to boot from cd drive no medium. so i thought it was booting from cd. so i power it off by pressing the power button since it was stuck. then when i turned it on its the same it's booting from cd which is empty. so reboot it again and went to the bios (F2) since pressing (f10) for the boot menu doesn't do anything. there when i checked the boot secquence it was only the CD drive and the seagate freeagent external hdd that is connected in usb that is listed. the primary hdd wasn't there. i think it wasn't detected or something.
so i tried booting from CD again this time using the dell cd with vista64 that came with my laptop since this fx6800-o1e doesn't come with one. on the monitor reads windows is loading files after it completes it goes to the microsoft startup progress bar and get stuck in there and the power button when it get to that stage turns off. waht is wrong with my PC?
what i also did was in the bios is to load default settings and it still the same. when look at the drives the primary hdd wasn't there.
how will i get it detected? is it dead? or there is loose connection?
i'm not knowledgeable in troubleshooting pc hardware. so please can you help me like i'm a six year old.
thank you very much
 
OUCH!!!! :eek2:
Now that's really gotta hurt!

With what you're telling me of your technical skill level plus having a child in tow, if you have a friend who is good with computers, you might want to have them come over and check the system out for you. Have them read through this thread for any information which may be of use to them.

There is two things I can think of off hand, when you did a hard shutdown, the drive may have been ready to die and as a direct result crapped out. The other possibility may be a loose cable such as a power or sata cable.

The drives that Gateway (Acer) has been using for these systems, there is a batch of them which are known to go bad. I've been lucky with mine so far.

With out directly examining the system myself, I'm afraid I can't really be of any more help in this situation.

Good luck


 


Guys wish one of you would have saw my error in this post. These are actually the chipset temps. TMPION is the Northbridge temp I was told by a friend they were ram temps maybe for him but not for our Gateways. It was by luck that i found this because when I put on my corsair watercooler and a fan on my ram I didnt think about the fan I added to the side of the case for extra fresh air for the videocard. It just so happenes that fan sat right about the Northbridge and got a ton of cooling from it. I switched cases to a Antec P193 and thats where I discovered my error I was running at 203f with the same setup minus the fan I installed in the gateway the real kicker is the P193 case has a huge fan in the side but dosent put any direct cooling in one area. Sorry if I messed anyone up. Mini Northbridge fan is on its way hopefully temps will be back around 115f again
 
that would make more sense as i had a hard time understanding how 1 RAM stick was so much hotter than the others, even considering proximity to the CPU. the RAM cooler still dropped it about 20*F or so. it is a little noisier, although still pretty quiet.

update on the freezing issue, just that one time after changing my PSU has it froze, and it was a different looking screen than all of the other times. i would have to say that the freezing is being caused by the weak PSU. i installed a 700W and problem is solved.
 

Just out of curiosity which way does your processor cooling exit? Does the fins line up with the ram and fan on the back of the case or up and down towards your videocard and Northbridge. My brothers systems fins where horizontal with the ram and the back fan. I rotated his cpu cooler to exit up and down towards his videocard which directed more flow over the Northbridge and it dropped his northbridge to 40c from 70. we also took our fans off smart in the bios so cpu fan runs full. That was I believe one of Renegades cooling solutions but I dont remember now and I cant find it 😀
 
turning smart fan off was one of my original solutions, yes.

But since then, I have been recommending Liquid cooling if possible.

From what you have found and from what I have seen, I wouldn't be one bit surprised if the BIOS labels for the temp sensors are screwed up as is everything else in the Gateway FX6800 systems?

Hell, they can't even connect the drives to the correct drive ports.

Maybe it'll take a hacked BIOS to fix the Temp sensor BIOS labels?
 
Yep and EVGA and Asus both make a motherboard that will drop right in our cases. But as I build the new system I would like to slowly put the gateway back together for one of my kids. I still think for the money my Fx was a good buy and I have not had one problem with the way it runs other then there lack of bios support but we have Renegade for that and some other little screw ups they made putting these things together. My temp problems where my own doing switching to water cooling and not considering where the N/B got its air from but I have fixed that problem with a 40mm fan and a little mounting mod to the N/B heatsink.
 
Now i think i'm really in big trouble.
i called one of the pc techs here in our place and explained to him what happened and he told me the hdd is dead and he wants me to bring the pc to his place. but i did not do that because there are some very sensitive data in there thet he might see.
most of the data has been backed up.
now my question is if the HDD is dead and wanted to replace it with a new one how will i go about installing the new HDD and installing windows? and how will i restore the back up.

thanks renigade for your reply.

OUCH!!!! :eek2:
Now that's really gotta hurt!

With what you're telling me of your technical skill level plus having a child in tow, if you have a friend who is good with computers, you might want to have them come over and check the system out for you. Have them read through this thread for any information which may be of use to them.

There is two things I can think of off hand, when you did a hard shutdown, the drive may have been ready to die and as a direct result crapped out. The other possibility may be a loose cable such as a power or sata cable.

The drives that Gateway (Acer) has been using for these systems, there is a batch of them which are known to go bad. I've been lucky with mine so far.

With out directly examining the system myself, I'm afraid I can't really be of any more help in this situation.

Good luck
Click to expand...
 

I assume you are currently using a different system until you can get the FX6800 fixed?

If you haven't already done this already, install a new hard drive to drive port, SATA-1

- Here is the Drive port layout.

With the system laying flat on it's side so the motherboard is facing up and the
front of the system facing you, the SATA controller ports are as follows:

- - Left, Top Row - SATA-5 SATA-3 SATA-1 - Right, Top Row
Left, Bottom Row - SATA-6 SATA-4 SATA-2 - Right, Bottom Row


Now this will position the new drive as the first drive in the system.

Western Digital Black Edition 1TB is a good drive to get. Stay away from places such as Walmart, Target
and other such stores as the condition of the drive may be in an undesirable condition from being
mishandled both by customers, employees and shippers.

Places to get the drives would be such as Staples, Best Buy and other such places where they are more careful with their stock.

As to your Backup disks, are these the original restore disks which you had to create shortly after you first setup the system or are they regular backup disks?

If they are Backup disks, what type of Backup disks are they, Disk Image Backup, Partition Backup or are they nothing more than File Backups?
 
ok i will be buying a new drive. is it okay to buy it from newegg? might as will buy a new ram and psu. my system is still all stock no upgrades yet.

yes i have the restore disks that i created after first use of this system.

the back up that i'm talking about is from my norton 360 which has a back up feature that i routed to an external hardrive.
i think it is just a file backup. so i think i will be installing all my programs.

thank you.

I assume you are currently using a different system until you can get the FX6800 fixed?

If you haven't already done this already, install a new hard drive to drive port, SATA-1

- Here is the Drive port layout.

With the system laying flat on it's side so the motherboard is facing up and the
front of the system facing you, the SATA controller ports are as follows:

- - Left, Top Row - SATA-5 SATA-3 SATA-1 - Right, Top Row
Left, Bottom Row - SATA-6 SATA-4 SATA-2 - Right, Bottom Row


Now this will position the new drive as the first drive in the system.

Western Digital Black Edition 1TB is a good drive to get. Stay away from places such as Walmart, Target
and other such stores as the condition of the drive may be in an undesirable condition from being
mishandled both by customers, employees and shippers.

Places to get the drives would be such as Staples, Best Buy and other such places where they are more careful with their stock.

As to your Backup disks, are these the original restore disks which you had to create shortly after you first setup the system or are they regular backup disks?

If they are Backup disks, what type of Backup disks are they, Disk Image Backup, Partition Backup or are they nothing more than File Backups?
Click to expand...
 
NewEgg is generally a good place to get computer hardware from.

But always make sure you read the NewEgg reviews for what ever product you are getting as it seems that with some items you may be taking a risk with NE.

I've always preferred using ZipZoomFly.com as I've never had any problems with them, they ship fast, the packaging is good and they generally include free shipping on a lot of items. You can usually upgrade to 2nd day shipping for a couple bucks more or so.

Seeing as you have the original restore disks, once you get the new drive, before you install it, use another system to create two partitions but don't format either one of them, leave the partitions RAW (unformated). The first partition should be 10 GB (same as original recovery partition) or larger such as 20 GB and the 2nd partition will be the remainder of the disk.

After the partitions are created, the drive will be ready to be installed in the FX6800 system and you will be able to use the Restore Disks to restore your system to the way it was when you first got it.

Once you finish the restore, you'll need to run Windows update until all updates are installed and make sure all updated software is installed too. Make sure everything is completely up to date so as not to leave any security holes in the system.

Next you'll need to restore your most recent backup disks once you've got everything to the point where you are able to do this.

I hope all this helps
 
your reply is really helpful. it is shedding some light.
i think i can do all of it. except for one thing.
sorry for this stupid question but i know you have the answer. how will i do the partiton with another system. to be honest i haven't tried partitioning hdd. eve on that dead fx6800.

thank you again.

NewEgg is generally a good place to get computer hardware from.

But always make sure you read the NewEgg reviews for what ever product you are getting as it seems that with some items you may be taking a risk with NE.

I've always preferred using ZipZoomFly.com as I've never had any problems with them, they ship fast, the packaging is good and they generally include free shipping on a lot of items. You can usually upgrade to 2nd day shipping for a couple bucks more or so.

Seeing as you have the original restore disks, once you get the new drive, before you install it, use another system to create two partitions but don't format either one of them, leave the partitions RAW (unformated). The first partition should be 10 GB (same as original recovery partition) or larger such as 20 GB and the 2nd partition will be the remainder of the disk.

After the partitions are created, the drive will be ready to be installed in the FX6800 system and you will be able to use the Restore Disks to restore your system to the way it was when you first got it.

Once you finish the restore, you'll need to run Windows update until all updates are installed and make sure all updated software is installed too. Make sure everything is completely up to date so as not to leave any security holes in the system.

Next you'll need to restore your most recent backup disks once you've got everything to the point where you are able to do this.

I hope all this helps
Click to expand...
 
A friend who is good with computers could easily do the partitioning for you.

Just be sure to specify these parameters:

Partition 0 : = NTFS (Unformatted) 20GB
Partition 1 : = NTFS (Unformatted) Remainder of drive - Partition name : OS

Your friend will most likely use what ever partitioning program they prefer most or they may just use the Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Manager to do this.

When you use the Restore Disks, your system will be restored to Partition 1. I have not used the Gateway (Acer) recovery disks myself, so at this point it's mostly conjecture, but it's fair to assume that the recovery partition will be rebuilt. That is to say, it'll be filled with the files which are supposed to reside in said partition. If this does happen, then the partition will also be converted to an EISA partition.

As an EISA partition, you won't be able to see it any more or even do anything with it. But the Disk Management Console will be able to see it. The only way to access this partition will be with a tool called Ext2 IFS for Windows.

Generally, I don't advise users to keep the EISA partition or even to keep the factory installation as this is something that most people really don't want.

What I usually advise people to do is to do a clean installation of windows on the system free of any of the garbage installed by the manufacturer.

In this case seeing as you are buying a new drive anyways, I would recommend upgrading to Windows 7 Home premium or Ultimate. This way, you would not need the recovery partition and you will find a lot of useful information in this thread which would be very helpful to you.

I think I'm gonna call it a night as it's getting late and I'm really tired tonight.

Good luck :)
 
i buy from tigerdirect.com but newegg is also good. as for partitioning, an easier way to get to the computer management console is by right clicking on my computer and select manage. then on the left select disk management. find the new disk, it will not have a drive letter attached to it. right click on it (make sure it's the right one) and select 'FORMAT'. you can format the whole disk using NTFS. it doesn't matter which drive letter you assign to it as that will change when you move it to the new PC. if you don't plan to re-install the recovery partition then just scrap that whole scenario and plug it into the FX6800 as soon as you open it up. when you install the restore disks it will give you an option of formatting.

it's really not that hard, just follow the prompts and usually take all of the defaults. i would also recommend installing Windows 7 over Vista any day. it is 110% better. definitely worth the extra money.

as for a power supply, i installed a 700W. i read on here that someone installed a 600W or something, and they're still having problems. i would also try to find one with at least 5 SATA connectors. the factory one only has 4 and keeps you from installing a 2nd drive unless you use an adapter. the one i bought was an OCZ modXstream pro 700. i would also buy a northbridge heatsink while you're at it. mine was running at ~230*F but dropped to ~175*F after installing a RAM cooler. i read that the NB cooler will drop it quite a bit more and tigersirect has them for $5 (no fans, just a heat sink). the RAM cooler might not be needed after that but for $30 i put one on anyway.

good luck.
 
thanks for your replies renegade and dhay13.

so can i do that partitoning with my laptop? do i need an enclosure so i can connect it to the sata port on my laptop? by the way i have the studio xps1340 if that helps.
it is confusing me a renegade said not to format it and dhay13 said to format.

i'm thinking of just plugging it in directly so as not to go through partitioning for the recovery. what is that recovery partion for? isn't it the same with my recovery disk? or is it for the image of all the hdd's content with all the programs installed?

also if i decide to install win7 what version should i buy a full retail or OEM or an upgrade. if i choose to upgrade so that means i still need to re-install the restore disc, right?


dhay13 the psu that you recommend is not available where can i buy this or is there another alternative?

renegade is this the correct HDD to buy?
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?ProductCode=10008824

thank you




 
Yes, that's the same hard drive I have in my system and Western Digital is very reliable. WD is also very good with warrantying their drives.

With partitioning the drive, you can use the laptop, but you will need something such as an external SATA drive case or SATA drive dock to connect the drive.

As to the partitions, it doesn't really matter if they are formatted or not. But the main thing is the recovery partition will be converted automatically to EXT2 and changed to an EISA partition. The primary partition will be formatted during setup.

-

The only reason I've given you instructions to recreate the recovery partition is because of what you have told me of your technical skills and from the fact that it seems you're basically still running the factory default setup.

Preferably though, don't bother with the recovery partition and do a CLEAN installation of Windows 7. That is to say, do not restore your previous version of windows to the system.

OEM software generally requires you to make a hardware purchase at the same time (loose interpretation). Generally in the case of an operating system such as windows, OEM is supposed to be sold with a new PC. But many places such as NewEgg will sell OEM by itself.

Upgrade requires that you have a previous installation present to qualify before it will proceed with the installation.

Full Retail (or OEM) does not require a previous installation to proceed.

Just make sure the copy you get is legit and not a cracked copy which can
happen if you get it off eBay, Craigslist or some other places.

The recovery partition is what OEM's (manufacturers) use to hold a complete copy of the system the way it was when you first purchased it along with any software and drivers which were pre-installed. This partition will also usually hold some system tools among other stuff and the recovery files in the EISA partition are usually updated periodically.

Personally, I don't bother with the EISA partition unless someone is keeping things much as it was when they purchased it.

As for a Power Supply, if they don't have the one you want, just look for one with higher wattage then such as an 800 or higher and make sure it has the correct connectors for your video card and you motherboard. I like the modular power supplies.

Hopefully this reply wasn't too much to digest. :)

Good Luck
 
I have the FX6801-01 and it has run great except for a few pretty common problems I have read here and other places. On starting or restarting Windows 7 it freezes on the spinning Windows logo. I can get around this by turning off the computer for about 15 seconds and then restarting. It works fine then. Then, it BSODs occasionally after coming out of sleep for a long time. I have assumed that both these things (with symptoms) are the power supply. Is it worth it then to swap out the PS? I got a great deal on the machine, and to buy the parts myself it would have cost me 600 dollars more than I paid.

Also, I tried one of the hacked bios, but it kept clocking my i7 950 at 1.6 mhz and there were no options to OC the processor. So, I just reverted to the latest stock bios. Is there a bios out there that allows you to change voltages, FSB or anything on this? If not (and I'm assuming there isn't) what MBs will fit this?
 
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