**Official eMachines M68xx Thread**

[flicman]

Hey guys-

I've been having a weird problem with my 6809, I think related to last week's SP2 install, but I'm not sure. My USB ports no longer seem to communicate with the OS. I have a USB phone charger and it has power (it charges my phone), but when I plug in my optical mouse, digicam or thumb drive, nothing happens. No notification that anything new has been plugged in, no activity from the machine at all.

Is there a known issue with the 68xx series and SP2? Is there something I may have done to disable USB plug-n-play or something? I came here looking for o'clocking and upgrading info (yay for that), but you guys seem to know your stuff, and this seems somehow more pressing to me.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[imported_Woody]

Originally posted by: ydgmms
My BSOD comes right after booting up. After it does the Windows XP screen ..bsod. Reboots on its on..and repeats over and over.<BR><BR>Had to boot intosafe mode and uninstall sp2. Will wait til theres a fix. ?

Interestingarticle in Microsoft Knowledge Base concerning this issue:

http://support.microsoft.com/d...;Product=windowsxpsp2


[S=http://support.microsoft.com/...p;Product=windowsxpsp2

Where can I get the BIOS for the 6811? Can't find anything on eMac website.

 

[Kaido]

Anyone know if this fits the m6809?

Fellowes BODY GLOVE NOTEBOOK SLEEVE 15IN ( 97761 )

linky

looks nice for ten bucks...my current laptop bag is a basic one without much padding, a body glove would be good for future protection. one amazon reviewer said it fits his 15.4" HP laptop.

Here's a link to a slightly larger picture.

Link to the manufacturer's website - they have a 15" and a 17" version (this link is slow to load).

Anyone tried one of these?

 

[MDE]

The HP laptop that the reviewer said fit is about the same size as the M68xx so, oyu should be good. I picked up a cheapie $10 laptop bag from Circuit City last week which was for 15" models, and my M6805 fit, so I'd go for it.

 

[imported_Woody]

Had the problem on my M6805 where the power buttons didn't work and the system would hang during shutdown after installing SP2.

I flashed the M6811 BIOS to this machine and it went very smooth. I ran the SP2 updater again and so far so good. All the buttons seem to work fine and the shutdown/sleep/hibernate process is back to normal.

Flashing the BIOS will void your warranty but as long as you are successful with the flash you can always flash it again back to the old BIOS if you need to send the system back for repair or replacement.

About the USB ports failing to recognize your mouse after a shutdown until you plug it back in: I've found that some products work better than others here. A Microsoft mouse doesn't give me grief but the Logitech mouse does. This is still a bug in the hardware, however, and a BIOS flash and software update will not fix it. I just swapped the mouse with a different PC so I don't have to deal with it anymore.

 

[flicman]

Originally posted by: Woody

About the USB ports failing to recognize your mouse after a shutdown until you plug it back in...

If this is a reference to my thing, it's much more than that on my end. USB simply doesn't work. There's power to the ports (USB has the option of sending power through its connections, and this is one way I charge my phone), but there's no reaction when I plug in any USB device. it's as if the root hubs aren't installed, only they are installed, and report that they're working perfectly.

A strange problem, indeed.

 

[boblon]

Has anybody tried to boot from a 'removable' drive? I have a Dell desktop and used HP's boot utility to make a USB drive bootable. This boots my Dell great (after a few minor edits to some .bat files). My M6809 just goes into XP even though 'removable' is the first item in the bios BOOT list.
So I thoght maybe 'Removable' didn't mean USB drive. I happened to have a 340MB IBM Microdrive lying around and again I used the HP utility (great little thing....doesn't seem to care what the hell the device is) to make it bootable. Once again, my Dell desktop boots to the Microdrive fine (after sticking it in a USB card reader), but also, once again, my M6809 just whizzes right by it to XP.
So......I have to ask......has anyone done this? I would appreciate any tips on getting this to work.

Thanks,
BobL.

P.S. Just ordered a stick of that memory talked about above. Didn't get the deal (had to pay $149) but am dang happy at that. Thanks much for the post

EDIT--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's the link to that HP Utility in case anybody wants to play with it. The drive does NOT have to be a HP product. It even worked on a Microdrive as I said above. Anyhow.....

http://h18007.www1.hp.com/supp...us/download/20306.html

 

[lchyi]

I just bought a M6810... and just curious... is the wireless adapter not backwards compatible? My school's network runs off of 802.11b and the laptop doesn't connect. I'm guessing it's a a/g and not a b/g card...

 

[ThunderPC]

Originally posted by: lchyi
I just bought a M6810... and just curious... is the wireless adapter not backwards compatible? My school's network runs off of 802.11b and the laptop doesn't connect. I'm guessing it's a a/g and not a b/g card...

b/g is in your notebook ... to my knowledge, a/g doesn't exist ... a/b/g does.

 

[Frightcrawler]

Hey, its been quite a few months since I bought my m 6805
But today I received a letter saying that my "6 month free trial" of dial up MSN is over (something about it being related to BestBuy) and that I will be charged $21.95 starting this month.
The problem is, I NEVER "activated" it. Nor have I ever known I was receiving it. The last purchase I made from BB was the laptop, so I'm pretty sure it came with it.

Did anyone else receive this letter 6 months after purchase?

 

[gweilo8888]

My guess: maybe you agreed to some kind of trial with/without a fixed term (you'll have to speak to AOL to find that out), in exchange for some kind of Best Buy discount.

 

[JimW74]

Originally posted by: Frightcrawler
Hey, its been quite a few months since I bought my m 6805
But today I received a letter saying that my "6 month free trial" of dial up MSN is over (something about it being related to BestBuy) and that I will be charged $21.95 starting this month.
The problem is, I NEVER "activated" it. Nor have I ever known I was receiving it. The last purchase I made from BB was the laptop, so I'm pretty sure it came with it.

Did anyone else receive this letter 6 months after purchase?

If you go back and look at your receipt you will probably see an extra charge for $0.01 for MSN. MANY stores do this (either for MSN or AOL) when purchasing a computer to sign you up for a 6 month free startup account. VERY annoying, and a BIG reason (along with all of the free CDs that pop up everywhere) that AOL and MSN have such a large hold on dial-up accounts. When I got my M6809 from Best Buy they charged me $0.01 for MSN even though I already have a dial-up account through a different provider and didn't want MSN, but also charged another $0.01 for a free trial membership to NetFlix. If you had taken advantage of the free NetFlix membership and ordered any movies you would have the same problem with them, where they would now be automatically switching you over to a pay subscription. I called MSN the day after getting my notebook to cancel the free account (always fun to fight companies and have to explain over and over again that you don't want their "free" service because you know it will switch to a pay service later and you want to take care of the hassle of ending it before having to worry about any money leaving your account.)

I also had another interesting thing happen to me due to the two $0.01 charges when getting the computer. Apparently all three went through as separate charges (two $0.01 and one for the PC.) The two $0.01 charges went through first, then when the computer charge was sent to my credit card company, it was flagged due to there being three consecutive charges from the same store to my account in such a short period of time. The charge was not permitted, and the clerk was given a code to contact my credit card company. He called them up, then put me on the phone. They had me confirm who I was, past charges, etc, and then asked if I had gotten an MSN account. At first I said no, not realizing about the two $0.01 charges, but just then the clerk was handing me the MSN and NetFlix pamphlets and I put it all together. I asked the credit card representative if the MSN charge was $0.01, and if there was also a $0.01 NetFlix charge. They confirmed it and appologized for any problems it caused.

From misleading sign-up to frustrating cancellations, I find this to always be a VERY annoying but prevalent practice.

 

[imported_haris]

Has anyone run into any strange behaviour from their 6805 after installing SP2? I noticed a couple of new services running, and I've had a few problems with the machine locking up. I also seem to be having a problem with it shutting down properly as well.

I remember someone saying that flashing to a new BIOS resolved most if not all of their problems. Does anyone know if BestBuy's warranty will be voided if I do this?

 

[wjcandee]

Ughhh... I have the same problems after installing SP2. Sigh. I never should have done it. The thing hangs almost every time on shutdown, it runs more slowly, programs crash that never did before. Even stuff like Realplayer is iffy (hmmmm....the competitive product to Windows Media Player). I had been basically pretty pleased with how WinXP worked -- much more stable than either 3.1 or 98 -- and now it isn't. Is there a patch or something?

Also, the only reason I installed it is that they said it would work with enhanced virus protection in my chip. But all the materials say that I have to "enable" that feature, and I was never given any kind of opportunity to do so.

All the best,

Bill

 

[imported_haris]

OK, I took the BIOS update plunge anyway based on forum posts that I have seen here and on other notebook forums. I thought I might have fried something bad when it didn't reboot properly after flashing. I turned off the power, rebooted, and then it rebooted again after it completed the updates.

I only flashed to the 6809 Phoenix Bios and so as far so good. All of my USB ports are working (don't have anything firewire to test that port). I think the update even helped with a minor graphics glitch I had with a program called dreamrenderer. Thanks to everyone for the links.

Now all I have to do is test the powernow settings, my network connections, some apps/games and then pray that nothing else gets screwed up.

 

[ShellGuy]

For everybody who is toying with the idea of SP2 let me tell you now i have had no probs with it up to this point. I installed it with a fresh install of XP. If you are hearin horror storys just now don't worry. It is going to be pushed out through Windows update site. So most people will have no choice but to add it. I havn't found a thing wrong with few exceptions. The popup blocker is a bit anoying at first just learn 2 set it right. And the same for the Firewall which is turned on by default. But other than that it is all good.




Will G.

 

[stevenmh]

Same here. Flashed my BIOS first, then applied SP2. No problems at all.

 

[Mermaidman]

Originally posted by: Kaido
Anyone know if this fits the m6809?

Fellowes BODY GLOVE NOTEBOOK SLEEVE 15IN ( 97761 )

linky

looks nice for ten bucks...my current laptop bag is a basic one without much padding, a body glove would be good for future protection. one amazon reviewer said it fits his 15.4" HP laptop.

Here's a link to a slightly larger picture.

Link to the manufacturer's website - they have a 15" and a 17" version (this link is slow to load).

Anyone tried one of these?

I bought the 15" version from Amazon for a different 15.4" laptop and it fits like a glove. The M6805 is thicker than my Acer though, so I'm not sure if the sleeve will work with it. It would be a very snug fit. One other thing, this particular sleeve is padded on the "sides," but the edges have no padding. That's a flaw because the edges get a lot of bumpage in transit. I'm adding some padding to the bottom of my briefcase for that reason.

 

[Connoisseur]

Originally posted by: Mermaidman

Originally posted by: Kaido
Anyone know if this fits the m6809?

Fellowes BODY GLOVE NOTEBOOK SLEEVE 15IN ( 97761 )

linky

looks nice for ten bucks...my current laptop bag is a basic one without much padding, a body glove would be good for future protection. one amazon reviewer said it fits his 15.4" HP laptop.

Here's a link to a slightly larger picture.

Link to the manufacturer's website - they have a 15" and a 17" version (this link is slow to load).

Anyone tried one of these?

I bought the 15" version from Amazon for a different 15.4" laptop and it fits like a glove. The M6805 is thicker than my Acer though, so I'm not sure if the sleeve will work with it. It would be a very snug fit. One other thing, this particular sleeve is padded on the "sides," but the edges have no padding. That's a flaw because the edges get a lot of bumpage in transit. I'm adding some padding to the bottom of my briefcase for that reason.

Heh bought the sleeve myself. Fits my M6805 beautifully. Finally, i don't have to haul a separate bag for my laptop.

 

[Tower1]

This is a great thread, I have read all the posts 2 or more times.

I have a 6807 it has been great until I installed sp2.
First time I did the install had all of the common problems read how to update bios so I did (6811) all seem to be fine until I tried to us my docking station (EasiDock 1000EV ) that conects with a pcmcia card. The problem is that after the sp2 install the Generic CardBus Contrller gets a resources conflicts and will not work.
I have tried to set the resources manually windows will not let me. Is there updated drive I could try?

I need my docking to work so I have uninstalled sp2.

Any help would be great
Thanks

 

[epi117]

btw the one gig upgrade in memory , makes it run very very nice. thanks for who ever recommended that sale , think i got it for $143 or so or ten over the original sale price.

 

[Connoisseur]

Originally posted by: epi117
btw the one gig upgrade in memory , makes it run very very nice. thanks for who ever recommended that sale , think i got it for $143 or so or ten over the original sale price.

you're welcome

 

[DarkSide319]

I have a M6810 and had problems with my USB ports after SP2-Pro install. I Flashed the bios as meantioned here and now the USB ports work great. However ever since i first tried to install sp2 (pre-bios flash) My DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive does not want to read anytype of DVD's Burned or not. Just wondering if anyone else has had this problem.

PS: My hinge is cracked as well

 

[HemoPhilic]

I had some trouble with SP2 as well. My wireless connection kept dropping and wouldn't come back without a reboot. Also, it used like 30-40MB more ram . I took it off in a heart beat. Its OK to run without SP2 since you can get the security and critical updates without SP2 by doing the Custom Install.

On another note, I'm getting close to the :edit: 3:45hour mark on battery life. I have the PowerNow stuff installed, the video downclocked to 97/97, and the system memory downclocked to 100mhz. Downclocking the system memory instantly showed up in the battery meter as a ~30 minute gain and for general tasks there's no performance difference.

The more I fool with this thing, the more I like it.

 

[imported_Woody]

All you folks having problems with SP2 on the earlier Athlon 64 eMacs (by earlier I mean five months old), be sure to read up in this thread. There is a wealth of info and it helped me get my M6805 running smooth with SP2.

I'm using the M6811 BIOS and it has been very smooth with SP2. Just read the threads carefully and it's not too hard to fix. SP2 is a worthwhile upgrade and has fixed some other minor issues I had. I was intending to reinstall Windows to fix all my little glitches but now I don't feel the need.

BTW...I really need to get that Power Now stuff here. One of those things I've been meaning to do. I never realized how much extra battery life you can get by using it.