Ah, the FX 6800...

[Merritt]

So my family felt inclined to by a new computer, so they went up to best buy and bought a Gateway FX 6800. The thing is pretty nice, comes with 3 gig memory, the new i7 core, and a few other things. The thing that i noticed tho was the ATI Radeon HD 4850. This is the cheap good card that was made by AMD to sell at a reasonable price. well this new computer lasted about three weeks before crashing and burning.

It all started out with a screen flash randomly one morning, only to blue screen and die, restart, load normally (minus the blue dots all over the Gateway screen and the two blue vertical stripes.), flash through black screens, and blue screen once again. A good ol' loop of death. so me, being the creative person i am, tried starting it up in safemode, and the first time it worked. i looked at somethings and tried to update drivers, then remembered that i didnt have networking up. Restart and safemode with networking...nope, freezes before anything happens. Restart try again...negative, same deal.

Getting irritated looked around for a recovery disk, thanks Gateway for not supplying one. Use another computer to go online, get a recovery iso and burn it to a disk using some program. Ok so recovery disk, check. Booted it off the disk and ran recovery things. Start up, no problems, System restore?...nothing...memory diagnostics, bingo, fixes it.

Well now i think i got it under control, got things figured out i said to myself. a memory issue...load everything up, works fine, restart the computer, flawless. Splendid. So now i decide, its time to check that video card. Load up some steam, turn on some left 4 dead (after 3 hours of reinstalling steam games) and kill some zombies...

Flicker, flash, freeze, and dead. Damn. Turn it off, and back on, and guess what? there are those stupid blue dots and vertical lines...the problem continues. So now i have had enough of this. I go on to gateways support site and go on one of those live automatron things and talk to someone. They suggested that i unplug everything thing USB, F8, and repair. Run recovery manager and restore to factory, because the "issue is software". Ok, gateway, ill take your word for it, after all im a lifeguard, not a computer wiz.

Load up the system recovery screen with my choices of fun to pick from and no recovery manager...the link they sent me said there would be...jerks, they lied...even the picture said it would be there...so disappointed i went back on to gateway and spoke to another "live automatron". They recommended that i Alt-F10 and restore factory settings. Ok i can do that.

Ah, the dependability of microsoft soon follows and during the load of vista files...crash. nothing...dead... thanks microsoft. So after following what gateway said, i have an even more dead machine than before, and to make it better, my hard drive has been wiped and i dont have a copy of vista...thanks some more microsoft.

So that leads to today, i take it up to best buy, give it to geek squad, tell them everything, and they take it, also agreeing they think it is the video card...too bad gateway thought differently. No promises were made, and i spoke to a manager because apparently they have a 14 day bring back, and exchange no matter what deal...well 14 days was last sunday, its friday....only if i didnt try to play god, and just would have taken it back when the issue started...on that saturday...:facewall: well best buy guy, who seemed to know video cards pretty well, also said it sounded video card related...thanks for listening to my problems gateway...talked to the guy some and told them that if it was in fact the video card, we wanted to talk to gateway and see if we could get a credit for the card and just purchase the difference for an upgraded card. we will see what happens...i also need to hit up gateway for some restore disks or whatever.

now before any of you go and hit me for not changing video cards, i just want to put out there, that i tried, none of my other computers have video cards, they are all on the motherboard, and i tried to take the 4850 and put it in an older computer but the power supply didnt have a power plug for it...so i couldnt. i was stuck, did what i could had got nothing from it.

So what do you guys think, whats your opinion on the matter? sound like a video card that ive been preaching this entire time, or something a little more software...? oh and please refrain from anything like, "why did you buy gateway, or why did you spend the money on that", or anything like that. We got a good computer for a grand...i couldnt put the parts together and build my own for what we got it. i dont care about your opinions on my purchase, just the issue. Thanks guys, and hopefully ill be back to playing in a few weeks...:crying:

 

[Endiment]

you could have tried taking the video card out and using the mobo integrated.

 

[Merritt]

actually i dont believe there was one...there was no way to hook up a vid cable to the motherboard...i looked, the only video hook up was on the card...at least im 87% sure, but cant check because i dont have the computer at the moment.

 

[pillar]

Well, I for one will not downtalk you. All I will say is that you should have looked up info on the FX 6800. I doubt that Best Buy told your parents about the issues that people have faced. I have actually read up on that system & have heard bout issues w/ the system. That is also one of the reasons why I will never buy a desktop from them. Still not sure about a laptop (my dad bought his current laptop from them & has had no issues whatsoever). The big problem with most people is that they can easily get taken for a product, if they arent properly educated on the item & the potential deal. It happens EVERYDAY. Thats how all the big corporations make their $$. Heck, I could make a gaming machine better than that FX 6800. You should have told your parents to check out iBuyPower.com because we do business with them. All in all, lesson earned here. It was a hard lesson to learn tho. I will simply say that Gateway is known for their old skool cheap desktops & their laptops, thats all. I have 2 of their old skool laptops.

Also, endiment refers to the fact that you can go into the bios (f8 while booting up, press it slowly a few times til the blue bios screen comes up) & from there you can activate onboard video.

 

[xenophek]

Sorry to hear about your woes. I can't be sure without actually touching the system, but my spidey senses keep telling me it has something to do with the chipset. I don't think it's the video card, because a malfunctioning video card wouldn't get you as far as you did.

Yeah, my money's on the motherboard (or more specifically, the chipset on the motherboard).

 

[Merritt]

hey, i understand, and they just went out and bought it, i found out after it was brought home. truth be told, i wouldnt personally buy something like that from best buy or anything, i would either build my own or something of the sort. in any case, the purchase was made, its ours now, and i didnt spend the money and its better than my laptop, soooo....

 

[RotaryVelocity]

im not sure either without being handson but im betting that its the motherboard for sure and not the video card

 

[Maj.Emish]

yeah i also concur it sounds mobo related

 

[Muffins]

I don't really know a lot about computers, but one thing I do know is that the best video card I've come accross of is NVIDIA, great graphics, never crashes, and I can even play CA which is 1.5 gigs and it seems like the audiosurf demo. I'd buy an NVIDIA vid card. Hope it helps

 

[Rawwwwr]

take it back to bestbuy, take your money and buy from New Egg (ego mall)

 

[xenophek]

I don't really know a lot about computers, but one thing I do know is that the best video card I've come accross of is NVIDIA, great graphics, never crashes, and I can even play CA which is 1.5 gigs and it seems like the audiosurf demo. I'd buy an NVIDIA vid card. Hope it helps

The 4850 is still a very powerful card. I doubt he's going to be looking for a new one soon. Besides, both companies are head and head. Thanks for your sales pitch though.

 

[drbob]

The blue dots definitely makes it sound like a video card issue of some kind.
Could've simply been an overheating video card, which using the ATI Catalyst Drivers you can jack the fans up to full (my fans never seem to go past "10%" which astounds me but its a budget card so *shrugs*)

You also noted how it didn't have a recovery disc, from what I recall Gateway loves to make recovery partitions now, which you have to strike a key combo @ boot to access. (Some manufacturers will hide the drive, you can find the hidden recovery partition by going to Start> Rightclick My Computer > Manage > Disk Management and you should see a "Hidden" partition named Recovery or something similar.

As for not having Vista, you still have a valid key, I believe you can actually download [legally] a copy of Vista from Microsoft. If not there are other less reputable sources. No matter how you obtain it you have the legal license to use whatever edition of Vista is on your Certificate of Auth.

Also as I said, unless you wiped out the hidden recovery partition, a copy of Vista is usually included on the recovery partition (or possibly an image of Vista + Gateway crapware)

 

[Vader]

Return it asap, post back on the forums or PM me.
I can teach you to build a PC and I will help you get the parts you need for a good price.
What you payed for that system will get you A MUCH BETTER SYSTEM if you build one yourself.

 

[Merritt]

thank you guys for your opinions, i was just curious what people thought. like i said previously, it wasnt my purchase, and i by any means wouldnt have purchased anything from best buy. personally im a new egg freak. i just happened to use the computer so i was considered the problem and was required to fix it as best as i could. haha...that went well, even tho i know what it is im doing, for the most part. we will see how things go.