Gateway FX 6800-01e BIOS Update from Gateway Unsupported

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The programs installed on the Vista drive will only work when you Boot into Vista

Anything that you want to run in Windows 7 you will need to install in Windows 7.
As for the X-Fi MB Creative Suite, I would not advise installing that in Windows 7.

If you have just finished installing Windows 7 as it sounds like you may hve done, then when you reboot the system, you should see a boot menu which will give you a choice between Windows 7 and Vista.

If you're not able to boot Vista with the drives in their current position, you may just need to use the Vista disk, start the install and perform a repair of the Vista installation with the drives in their current positions.

I'll be heading to bed myself shortly and won't be up until sometime around 9:00 AM -10:00 AM (EST) perhaps a little later.

This morning I slept till 11:00
 
blitzseed,

Yes, as long as you have a copy of windows already installed such as on the drive which came with the system (the OS drive), then you can boot from the DVD, do a custom install and install to your "1"TB drive.
Hmmm.... Thought you already did that.

Fastway,

Last I knew, it wouldn't work with this motherboard in Windows 7 and seeing as it's nothing more than an OEM solution, there are no upgrades provided for it either.

Gateway's solution was to Cob a Hack to make it work and even before hand in Vista, it never really worked very well.

I don't even bother with Creative software or hardware anymore as they have truly gone downhill both in quality and in support which you can see for yourself by visiting the Creative support forums.
 
So is there another EQ I could use with our soundcard? I have it installed and it seems to be working just fine. I dont listen to much music but I use it in games to boost certain sounds makes it easier to hear someone sneaking up on you. Just a good EQ would be great.
 
blitzseed,

Yes, as long as you have a copy of windows already installed such as on the drive which came with the system (the OS drive), then you can boot from the DVD, do a custom install and install to your "1"TB drive.
Hmmm.... Thought you already did that.
Click to expand...

no i have not does it yet need to wait till the end of the week... low on the money lol ><
 
Fastway,

Well if the X-Fi MB working and not causing any problems, then maybe they might have done something right after all.

Although instead of using the OEM solution, you might be better off purchasing a Windows 7 certified Creative X-Fi Audigy Gamer PCI Express card with the controls which you can mount in the bay under your DVD drive.

blitzseed,

I'm sure you'll be able to get this done just fine :)
 
Yep I have one of the older Audigy cards I loved that thing. Still havent switched my motherboard yet was planning to buy a new soundcard when I did. Im guessing I just got lucky with mine they must have used it to test thats why everything seems to work on mine.
 
I was just looking through the Creative cards and it seems like unless you have one of the five X-Fi card across the top of the support page, you may be out of luck as these are the only ones that'll work with the FX6800 systems.

Here are the one's shown:

thumbnails_17813.jpg
PCI Express X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series

thumbnails_17791.jpg
PCI Express X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro Series

thumbnails_17927.jpg
PCI Express X-Fi Titanium

thumbnails_17926.jpg
PCI Express X-Fi Titanium Professional Audio

thumbnails_16770.jpg
PCI Express X-Fi Xtreme Audio
 
Hey Renegade have some more question for you >< , after I install 7 to my other drive is it ok to just format the gateway driver? I just need the OS drive when I’m installing right?
Also need some clarification as for the install, I just want to get it right ><

So I move the 1tb driver to port 0
Move the gateway drive to the 1tb port
Go to bios set the 1tb drive to boot drive
Put windows cd in cd drive
Exit the bios
Hit F10
Boot from the cd
Then the windows 7 install should see vista right?
Then i do a customs install and tell it to install to the 1tb drive
Wait for install to be done

Now as for the drivers are there an order I should install them in?
Edit:: there are no driver i need from gateway right. just the 4-5 you have posted here right?
 
Basically along those lines. :)

Switch those two drive around so the WD drive is on SATA-0
The OS drive (came with the Gateway) is on SATA-1 (or what ever port you had the WD on)

Enter BIOS - Set WD drive as Boot Drive
Save and Exit BIOS

Reboot System

When system gets to point where you would normally Hit F2 or F10, you would Hit F10
The system will finish going through the Boot Sequence, then it'll bring up the Boot Menu asking you which device you want to boot from.

Select the DVD drive and boot from the Windows Update Disk.

The update will start, then shortly after it starts, it should give you the option of Install or Custom Installation.

Be sure to select Custom installation and pay close attention to the install process so when it gets to the part where it asks you where you want to install, you can select the WD drive ("1"TB drive)

Once you finish installing and updating everything, you might want to create a disk image of the Vista installation just in case you ever need to reinstall Windows 7 again. After this it would be safe to wipe the drive. I would recommend the use of Rewritable DVDs as they would last longer than regular DVDs.
 
Once you finish installing and updating everything, you might want to create a disk image of the Vista installation just in case you ever need to reinstall Windows 7 again. After this it would be safe to wipe the drive. I would recommend the use of Rewritable DVDs as they would last longer than regular DVDs.
Click to expand...

what is the best way to make the image?

edit: Now as for the drivers are there an order I should install them in?
 
Sorry to take so long, I was out for awhile with my daughter.

I usually would install the Intel Rapid Storage driver first. If you noticed, there was tw versions, One to install using F6 when Windows setup gives you this option and the one with the stand alone installer.

As for making making a backup image of the drive, you can even use a spare hard drive and set the hard drive aside for safe keeping as that would be the best option. But for recommended software, Acronis True Image Home 2010 would be best.

The bottom offer on this page has the best solution deal.
 
As for making making a backup image of the drive, you can even use a spare hard drive and set the hard drive aside for safe keeping as that would be the best option.
Click to expand...

i do have a 500gb wd external hard drive. but how do i back up vista to it?
would making a restore disk be ok?







 
When you image the drive with backup software such as Acronis, you can select a backup medium such as Hard drive, DVD, or other media.

Hard drive is better than DVD if you have a spare drive that you can keep in safe storage. This way if you need it, you can use the backup program to restore the image to the same drive you imaged it from or even to a different drive.
 
I've briefly gone through this thread. When I say briefly, I mean briefly. It's a long thread and I don't have the time to read it tonight. I did read some sections of this thread regarding a hacked bios. I know that this MoBo's bios is locked and as such I can't overclock the i7. Firstly, I apologize for this questions if its been answered. My question - has anyone discovered a hacked bios for the MoBo that works? I've upgraded this rig as much as I can. I have additional case fans for cool air and exhaust, upgraded the PSU to a 750 watt Corsair, added corsair ddr3 memory (total 8 gigs), and have two XFX 4850s in crossfire. The rig is running well. I've tested it using Prime95, SiSandra, etc. ReaTemp shows my 4 cpu cores running well within desired temps under 100% load. I've played Crysis Warhead and Supreme Commander for hours on all high settings and the cpu temps don't get any higher than 77 degrees C.

I think one thing Gateway or Acer did do ok was provide a decent cooler for the i7. However, if there is a hacked bios out there, I would love to know about it and try it. I know the i7 is stable at 4GHZ. Of course, this is with rigs that are built by enthusiasts who have asus rampage extreme, Gigabytes U7, EVGA Classified MoBos, etc. Also, they use water cooling setups like koolance or even Corsairs H50 closed loop water cooling system.

Anyway, I'm rambling. So if anyone knows of a legit bios I can use to overclock my cpu, that info would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!!

Thanks in advance.
 
The Hacked BIOS was posted here by MelodyChloe in this thread and the second one she posted was the newest Gateway BIOS after it had been hacked.

As for memory, I honestly don't know if it does anything with the memory. You'd have to find out from the one who hacked it.

If you have your replies set to 50 per page, then her first post will be page 5 of the thread, 39 posts down the page.

This other tread was for the latest Publicly released BIOS from Gateway and has some useful information in it.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/267550-30-fx6800-bios-842p181g

As for getting the system to run any better, about the only way you're going to be able to do that will be by going with some decent Liquid cooling and don't forget to include a little something for the North Bridge while you're at it.
 
Well I broke down and tried the hacked bios and needless to say I'm back to factory bios. I didn't see any improvement in them what so ever. It lets you see everything but you can't take the multiplier passed 20 or adj the blk so as far as the processor and board speed its still the same as what your running now. The ram I bumped up to 1333 and it never took it ran the same and showed up as 1066 no matter what I used to test it and it did stay on the 1333 setting in the bios. I think if you could get into some more voltage settings maybe you could do something with it. Also my ram has stickers on it saying its 1333 so its not like I was overclocking it. If anyone else has tried and had better luck I would be interested in knowing what settings you used. I ran and played with it for about a week and a half. Oh and a little edit if you decide to try it out use your num pad plus and minus keys to move your multiplier up and down its on 12 when you boot in
 
Hey Renegade_Warrior! I’ve been a long time reader of this thread even before buying my FX6800-01E in March. Anyhoo, it’s been nothing but headaches since day one. I’m literally at a loss for words at the headache this machine is causes me. I’m by no means proficient enough with a computer to diagnose every single problem since I’ve never built a computer but I like many others it seems in this thread bought this computer since it seems like the best bang for the buck. I do consider myself pretty tech-savvy and computer literate.

The first system I received from shop.revonate had issues. It came with the stock 500w PSU and the 512mb single slot 4850. After installing the 65 updates in Vista via Windows Update, my computer hanged on startup and would constantly BSOD. Tech support told me to pretty much reseat everything so after taking out the RAM, video card, connections, I put it back together and it would at least boot into my bios. I loaded up Win7 since I couldn’t make a recovery disk and went from there. I encountered nothing but GPU artifacts even after updating to the latest Catalyst drivers.

http://imgur.com/IwwD5.jpg
http://imgur.com/ZXpDf.png
http://imgur.com/QiVRv.jpg

I went into the display settings and wondered if it had something to do with my monitor and tried every single monitor in my house with no avail. I then came back to this thread to flash my bios and still nothing worked. Catalyst Control Center (CCC) would say that my graphics card was running at 70C idle and the same thing on HWMonitor and CPUZ. Thinking it was my video card, I borrowed my friends GTS 250 and it ran flawlessly, I could play Borderlands on high settings. I then ran SpinRite and Memtest86 to make sure everything else was good and then went again and called tech support since my video card seemed borked. They gave me my shipping label and I finally got my new unit two weeks ago

While waiting for my computer to come back I wanted to make sure it wasn’t the PSU that was insufficient so I bought the 750W power supply below (I noticed that there was only a 4 pin connector in the 8 pin socket on the MOBO and I read on some forums that this is just asinine.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?nm_mc=AFC-SlickDeals&cm_mmc=AFC-SlickDeals-_-NA-_-NA-_-NA&Item=N82E16817371025

Similarly I wanted to run crossfire so I decided to go ahead and buy another 4850;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?nm_mc=AFC-SlickDeals&cm_mmc=AFC-SlickDeals-_-NA-_-NA-_-NA&Item=N82E16814102824

I also bought a bunch of case fans and Arctic Silver 5 just in case it was my video card that was overheating. When I finally got the computer back I didn’t even bother taking any chances, I installed all the new components;

http://imgur.com/KUAfx.jpg
http://imgur.com/nT3T0.jpg

This time though, I wanted a set of recovery disks so I held off on updating anything until they were made. After installing the newest CCC drivers in Vista 64bit Home Premium, there were these two weird bars around my cursor whenever I moved my mouse into a text field so I googled around but I couldn’t find anything about that. I tried playing a game, Mass Effect 2, but all that would happen is a bunch of square artifacts would plague my screen. I went ahead and flashed the BIOS hoping that it would solve this problem but it didn’t. I took out the stock 4850 and everything was fine with just my Sapphire 4850. I tried to figure out what the heck was going on with the stock card so I ran it by itself (in the first PCIE slot, then in the second) then in crossfire but still no go, I couldn’t play a game without a bunch of squares on my screen.

Getting frustrated I just go ahead and install Windows 7. I couldn’t do anything though since anytime I moved my mouse the screen would just turn blue. I eventually just remove Catalyst using it’s uninstaller and then use DriverSweeper and RegCleaner to get rid of the leftovers, restarted and tried to install the newest Catalyst (10.3). Nope, still a bunch of artifacts and a messed up screen.

I ended up reading every single forum post related to Crossfire, FX6800, or CCC I could find but no help. The AMD forums were practically useless. I read everything I could on tweakguides.com and go ahead and disable Win7 from automatically installing its generic drivers via, gpedit.msc, I uninstall and deleted the drivers from the device manager, use the CCC uninstaller, DriverSweeper, RegCleaner, and even, deleted from Appdata, program files and everything ATI related. Still nothing, I have an unusable desktop.

I even tried the newest 10.4 CCC that came out a couple days ago and preformed the above steps to make sure I had a clean install, I’ve tried every version and hotfix from 9.3 to 10.4, used .Net 3.5 and 4.0, ran each 4850 by itself, in crossfire, but nothing. I’m at a lost as to what to do. Please guide me Renegade_Warrior, I only have 30 days left on my warranty and I just want everything working. I appreciate all you do for FX6800 owners.
 
Ok, the BSOD Stop: 0x000007B (0xF78DE524, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000) seems a lot of dead ends on this one as there is a lot of sifting through links and threads for this particular one. Not sure if XP related results would apply with Vista or Windows 7 (which ever you were getting this BSOD with)

Could be hardware, driver or parasite related. Any one of them could cause this problem. The trick is in trying to figure it out.

It sounds like you've had nothing but bad luck since you've had it. 🙁

Now the screen shots you show from your video card suggests the card is ccorrupt.

Have you tried the same card in another system to verify this possibility?


As for the majority of your problems, I see you appear to be running just the one hard drive which came with the system?

If so, then you're best off doing like I have advised others and that is to install a new drive to SATA-0 on the SATA motherboard connector, then in the BIOS set it to Bootable, save and exit BIOS.

Restart system, use F10 and select boot from DVD, insert Windows upgrade disk, start install and select Custom Installation. This way you'll be able to install to the new drive and you won't have the problems associated with the EISA partition or with the hidden Gateway processes that run in the background.

Do not wipe the old drive until after you finish you installation as you'll need the old windows for verification to upgrade.

Also do not install any of the gateway crap that came with the system or from the website or ftp site.

For driver information just read my most recent posts from the past couple of weeks or so in this thread.

BTW...

With a Cross fire setup, Liquid cooling might work better for you and the North bridge does run a bit hot in this system.
 
Have you tried the same card in another system to verify this possibility?
Yeah, my friend also ran into GPU artifacts.


As for the majority of your problems, I see you appear to be running just the one hard drive which came with the system?
Yeah, I think I'll pick up a spare drive at home and see if I can do the steps you've mentioned throughout the thread.


With a Cross fire setup, Liquid cooling might work better for you and the North bridge does run a bit hot in this system.
I find it odd that the stock card has a temp of 70C at idle but the Sapphire has a temp of 52C.
Click to expand...
I have a couple of other questions since it seems I wont get a chance to test out a new hard drive until tomorrow.

Why does my BIOS have those rectangles all over the screen? It's been like that even before the flashing.
http://imgur.com/G1lJL.jpg

Also, does everyone else's BIOS throw a bunch of random exclamation points on their screen?
http://imgur.com/japfP.jpg

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions!
 
If it does that with say just the sapphire card as the video adapter.
Then does the same thing with the ATI 4850 card, then I would say we found the problem with your current system.

Either there is some damage to the system itself or what I'm thing which would also explain the problems with the ATI 4850 card is a RootKit infection of the BIOS.

This last is something that can not be fixed unless the BIOS chip is removable.

The way it works is it writes itself to the blank areas in the BIOS code so when you look at it this way, there is plenty enough room for a RootKit to establish itself. It can basically infect anything which uses firmware and hasn't been write secured.
The latest version I have heard about writes itself to the BIOS, MBR of the hard drive and to memory so this makes it very hard to detect as it loads before the operating system and very hard to get rid of.

That is one possibility, especially if the system is renovated (refurbished) as it sounds like.

-

If when you're in the BIOS and it only shows that stuff when you're using the ATI4800 card but not when you're using the sapphire card, then it's just the ATI 4800 card that is corrupt as I suggested last night.

So if the BIOS corruption is showing no matter which video card you use, then you've gotta realize that this system is not worth saving. Take the stuff you bought and save it for a system that you, yourself could build from the ground up and put the other stuff back int the system that came with it.

The possibilities are defective hardware or a BIOS RootKit.

I doubt it could be a corrupt BIOS as just flashing it would take care of that and from what you have said, this has carried over from previous BIOS updates.

BTW....

Those exclamation points are in fact little skulls if you take a close look.
 
myuu,

After spending a great deal of time using a Refurbished unit, still within my 90-day warranty period, I had issues very similar to your own.

There seems to be an issue with the motherboard and the interaction with the Generic ATI Radeon HD 4850.

I moved the 4850 to another computer and it ran without any issues for days at a time. I moved another video card into the FX6800-01e, and it ran without issues for days at a time. Please understand that I don't play games or things along that line, but just exercise the video interfaces (Dual DVI ports on a single card), to two monitors.

My recommendation is to accept the refund, if offered, and go on to another product.

A secondary solution is to gut the machine and move the components to another motherboard (not knowing what you actually paid for this Refurb).

I tried all OS releases, all BIOS releases, all ATI releases. The net results were unstable video operation. Unsetting all hardward, replacing the Power Supply with the model mentioned above.

Our initial system was returned to the Refurb company, and a second system was sent out. The second computer was less stable than the first!

I had setup a detailed test plan, based upon my first experience, using that I was able to quickly zoom in to the necessary areas of concern when I began to test the replacement computer. I had saved off a dual boot disk image, which allowed me to bounce from one OS to another.

Chalk up your effort as a learning experience, and one of utter frustration.

Don’t look back.

I won’t be trying this a third time!
 
My specialty is in Systems Security, that is to say, dealing with the various forms of Malware, Spyware, Viruses, Worms, RootKits and what ever else is out there.

Believe me, it's getting to the point where it's getting hard for me to even deal with this stuff and the RootKit I mentioned earlier is very real in that it can infect unprotected system BIOS along with the MBR of the hard drive and load itself into memory. This is one which loads before the operating system does and as such, is extremely difficult to detect.

But that is only one of the variations that is out there.

That last picture of the BIOS screen was covered with skulls, not exclamation points. That right there goes to show that we're dealing with some sort of infection here.

The only thing I would advise him to keep is what ever items he bought for it such as the supply and other items.

He should restore the hardware back to the way it was when he bought it and return it so he can get he money back.

-

My system has been pretty much running problem free since I've had it. But then again, I've been using systems for a long time now and I do know what I'm doing. I installed a new dive and upgraded to Windows Ultimate, Clean install on the new drive without any of the Gateway crap what so ever. Made sure I got all my drivers from the manufacturers of the drivers. Kept everything up to date and did what I could both with my system and to try to help out here.

One of the worst things you can do is to buy a refurbished system from a source you don't really know that you can trust to sell you a system that will be 100% clean of any problems carried over from the previous owner. One of the worst problems that could be carried over is a RootKit on the hard drive or even worse, in the BIOS. Or how about finding out the system is part of a BotNet just waiting for you to connect it. There are a lot of nightmare scenarios that can happen these days.

Personally, I prefer to build my own systems.

This particular one I bought cause I couldn't afford to build what I wanted at the time and my old system was dying.
 

Same, I will not be trying a 3rd time. At 500 bucks shipped, I thought it would a killer deal for a i7 setup with a pretty upper tier graphics card. I guess some people just draw the short end of the stick =/. Are you familiar with how to do a chargeback? I've spoken to my friends about my computer and they say that I should tell them I want a refund. But what happens if they don't? Can I just go through my credit card company?

My specialty is in Systems Security, that is to say, dealing with the various forms of Malware, Spyware, Viruses, Worms, RootKits and what ever else is out there.

Believe me, it's getting to the point where it's getting hard for me to even deal with this stuff and the RootKit I mentioned earlier is very real in that it can infect unprotected system BIOS along with the MBR of the hard drive and load itself into memory. This is one which loads before the operating system does and as such, is extremely difficult to detect.

But that is only one of the variations that is out there.

That last picture of the BIOS screen was covered with skulls, not exclamation points. That right there goes to show that we're dealing with some sort of infection here.

The only thing I would advise him to keep is what ever items he bought for it such as the supply and other items.

He should restore the hardware back to the way it was when he bought it and return it so he can get he money back.

-

My system has been pretty much running problem free since I've had it. But then again, I've been using systems for a long time now and I do know what I'm doing. I installed a new dive and upgraded to Windows Ultimate, Clean install on the new drive without any of the Gateway crap what so ever. Made sure I got all my drivers from the manufacturers of the drivers. Kept everything up to date and did what I could both with my system and to try to help out here.

One of the worst things you can do is to buy a refurbished system from a source you don't really know that you can trust to sell you a system that will be 100% clean of any problems carried over from the previous owner. One of the worst problems that could be carried over is a RootKit on the hard drive or even worse, in the BIOS. Or how about finding out the system is part of a BotNet just waiting for you to connect it. There are a lot of nightmare scenarios that can happen these days.

Personally, I prefer to build my own systems.

This particular one I bought cause I couldn't afford to build what I wanted at the time and my old system was dying.
Click to expand...
Oh I feel you, I wanted these specs at the price I paid but the troubleshooting trying to figure out whats going on is driving me crazy. I graduate in May and dental school after that so this is the last thing I need on my plate. If they offer a full refund I'll take it and build my own system. I couldn't find anything regarding skulls in the bios but I'll take your word for it. What should I tell tech support when I call them on Monday? Would just saying corrupt BIOS and video card malfunctioning suffice?
 
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