**Official eMachines M68xx Thread**

[bjc112]

Originally posted by: MonkeyDriveExpress

Originally posted by: coolred
What exactly do you mean by "stiffed on the warranty"?

Inflated price for an extended warranty. Laptops are one of the few things that the extended warranty makes sense on.

TAP ( Carry in replacement @ Compusa for Printers & Mp3's are awesome deals )

 

[Apterigo]

Check and see what you get without overclocking. 9800 is a pretty bad score, especially when overclocked. I can get almost 12k with only overclocking video to like 390/240.

See: http://service.futuremark.com/servl...rojectdetails&projectType=6&projectId=7503636

Apterigo

 

[kuyote]

I just picked this up at the local best buy. It is the best computer we have in the house. We are all gamers, and fight over using it. Also, don't waste your money on the best buy extended warantee. Emachine offers a 2 or 3 year one that you can buy within 90 days of getting your laptop.

 

[Uuplaku]

How many memory slots does this laptop have? I've looked all over eMachines' and best buy's website, and I can find nothing about it.

 

[MDE]

Originally posted by: Uuplaku
How many memory slots does this laptop have? I've looked all over eMachines' and best buy's website, and I can find nothing about it.

There's two, but I can only find one (it's 2x256MB).
Anyone up for ripping theirs apart? :evil:

EDIT: I took my own bait and tried taking the thing apart but there's two screws by the screen hinges that I have no clue how to get at.
Approximate screw locations Red dots are about where the screws are. Looks like the screen has to be removed to get at the guts of the thing.

 

[panhead49]

just got the 6805 for my daughter today .......havent had a chance to mess with it yet....will uninstall alot of stuff, looks like......and will load seti of course...... .........seems to have a pixel almost in the center ,..off the the left ...that is always white...........is this a dead pixel??...stuck...or what??.........dosent seem to "get in the way" of any programs yet....(not that noticable)........this is my first notebook experience so any advice is cool.......

 

[MDE]

That's probably a dead\stuck pixel. I got lucky and didn't get any, but see if they'll exchange it for you (it can't hurt). This is my first laptop too, but there isn't much of a learning curve compared to a desktop.

 

[lane42]

Here's a few pic's of the inside
M6805

 

[panhead49]

think i will return the 6805 because of the dead pixel and upgrade to the 6807.......will check screens there .....and run deadpix if they let me......

 

[Edgy]

Got this laptop - nice machine...

No dead pixels, 4200rpm drive on 6805.

Everything runs great except trying to play Deux Ex GOTY which runs at like 2x the normal speed (game speed not framerate), which practically makes the game unplayable.

Any suggestions on a fix would be appreciated.

Thx

 

[eastvillager]

picked up one of these today, really good deal for the price, imho. It isn't as much laptop as I want, but at the price, I consider it pretty much disposable after a year(when the laptop I do want should be commonplace). I'l get to goof around with an athlon64, in a machine where I don't care if I break it from overclocking/tweaking.

First thing I did was replace the drive with a 7200rpm drive. Very easy, drive bay is on the bottom, towards the center back, 1 screw holding it in. Remove the screw, slide the drivetray out, remove the screws holding old drive to tray, use them to put new drive in, slide back in, fasten screw, voila. The restore disks are ghosted, there are 3 of them, didn't take more than 30 minutes to do the upgrade.

 

[BCompDude]

So the restore cd's Emachines coupled with the laptop install ok on a blank HD? Did you notice any improvements? Thanks a lot. I'm considering doing the same thing, and you are the first person I know of that has actually done it.

 

[fernakis]

I made a special trip to the States to pick one of these up (Canadian) and have not been disappointed. My only complaint is the hard-drive (Toshiba 4200), but I'll manage until I can afford a faster one. Video is still a bit on the slow side, even after installing the latest Catalyst 4.1 drivers.

Anyhoo, I was hoping you guys might help me out a wee bit.

1) My computer consistently freezes after hibernating. The recovery bar just freezes and I have to restart. I'm not sure whether this is a hardware problem I should worry about or a bad winxp installation. Anyone else experience these problems?

2) Has anyone here overclocked their video card? My 3dMark2001 came in at 8800, but I know some have hit 12K. I'd love to know what tweaks or programs you used to achieve higher scores.

3) Are the top buttons (music,mail,etc) customizable? I could use a mute button, and I certainly don't use mediaplayer or outlook.

Thanks e1!!!

 

[CruisinGT]

Hey everyone,

I've been following this thread for the past couple of days now and I'd like to thank everyone for sharing their experiences with their laptop. Especially on squeezing every bit of juice from it.

I ended up getting this notebook a couple of weeks ago and I'm quite impressed with its performance for its cost thus far. I've worked on it already for long periods of time, played BF1942 all day without a hiccup and all I can say is, "Wow, that was a real good deal!!" Unfortunately, I did get the one with a 4200rpm HD which hasn't impacted me all that much but perhaps will upgrade that part in the future with a bigger/faster HD. It also has a "stuck pixel on red" which is pretty annoying when I notice it but has become less noticeable as I work/play with it. (I've tried the Q-Tip method but to no avail....that sucker is either dead or stuck real good )

Hey Fernakis,

1) I have never noticed the Hibernating freezing problem you've been experiencing. Although I rarely, if ever, use that feature. I'll try it out later and see if I mine freezes also.

2) My default 3dMark2001SE came in at 9098 without any overclocking to the VID/CPU. Just WinXP tweaks and disabling a few unneeded services. When I did overclock my video from its default 300Core/200Mem to 440Core/238Mem, my 3dMark2001SE came in at 11810. I used 'ATITools' which made it real easy to overclock. Just Google it, download it and learning how to work with it is trivial. I'm still trying/playing around with 'ClockGen' and that tool is the one to get if you're thinking about overclocking the processor.

3) The top buttons are not customizable with any eMachine software but it is custimizable using 'TweakUI' under the 'Explorer'/'Command Keys' headings. TweakUI can be downloaded directly from Microsoft.

Have Fun!

 

[MDE]

Lane42, AWESOME link, I'll have fun looking at those and figuring out how to rip this puppy apart.

Bcompdude, it probably isn't worth it, as you'll be restoring the original config. I just uninstalled all of the bloat and went through MSConfig like a madman and disabled everything that wasn't needed IMO.

Fernakis,
1) No apparent hibernation problems here, but I don't think I've had the thing hibernate yet.
2) I overclocked my video (for gins and shiggles) with RadLinker\RadClocker and got about 12,000 in 3DMark 2001 SE.
3) No clue, but it looks like CruisinGT has that one covered.

Welcome to all of the new members! Enjoy your stay at AT.

Could everyone do me a favor and disable all power management, download CPU-Z, run it and then unplug the PC and tell me if the clock speed drops to 800 MHz.

 

[fernakis]

MonkeyDrive: CPU-z already done, and it most definitely drops to 800mhz. I'm waiting for this bios patch everyone keeps talking about. Thankfully I bought this as a desktop replacement. I need the battery only for word-processing, or perhaps the odd dvd while on the run.

CruisnGT and MonkeyDrive:
1)Thanks for the overclocking tips. I'll try them out and see what I can do without breaking the guy.
2)As for hibernate, the power button is set to hibernate by default. I use it all the time because (with a 4200rpmhd) startups are way too slow. I'm suspecting it must be one of those 'tricksy' programs I have like norton is or av. Thanks.
3)Tweakui, I'll check it out immediately. Odd they wouldn't have an easier way. Does EVERYONE have to be microsoft-centric.

And thanks for the welcome e1. This is my first laptop,so there's quite a learning curve. I'm sure I'll be frequenting these sites regularly until I understand just what can be done with these puppies. I've been searching for a good notebook for about 6 months. Nothing that fit my budget and had good performance. I almost bought the M5310, but the awful performance stats scared me off. Anyways, enough babbling.

 

[stardot]

fernakis,

You can mute the system by pressing volume+ and volume- simultaneously, It takes some practice, but works nicely. The other buttons will invoke the default application for the button type. My Music button opens iTunes and my i button opens Mozilla Firefox.

Hope this helps

 

[MDE]

Awesome shortcut for the mute thing there stardot, you don't know how many times I've sat jamming on the button to lower the volume. Let me guess, you found this by reading the manual?

Welcome to AT!

 

[stardot]

Is there a manual?

It was really just a lucky guess! When I got my laptop I was just too excited to be bothered with anything paper-like. I suspect I am not the only one like this.

 

[CruisinGT]

Hey Fernakis,

I've tried the Hibernating feature, the Stand By feature and both never froze my system going back to XP. Have you installed any new drivers since you got it? Not exactly sure, but those would be the first thing I check.

Hey MonkeyDrive,

Good to be here.

I already had CPU-Z installed, I disabled all power management (that I know of) by going to the power options, selecting the 'Always On' scheme and selecting 'Never' on everything else. Let it sit for a minute on AC and it always read 1804 MHz. As soon as I unplugged it, it went down to 801MHz. When I tried running an application that always forces the CPU to run at 1804 MHz (like Sandra's CPU Arithmetic Benchmark), it never rose from the 801Mhz reading. Unfortunately, this problem is a reality and hopefully can be addressed soon.

 

[CruisinGT]

The funny thing is....while I'm running SuperPi and I plug the laptop in to AC, it jumps automatically from 801MHz to 1804MHz instantaneously!!

Anyway, has anyone here noticed that SuperPi will not run while ATITools is running in the background whether the video card is overclocked or not. Just making sure its not only me.

 

[MDE]

I tried emailing eMachines "tech support" about the CPU being stuck at 800MHz, but they were complete boneheads about it and kept telling me that it was a feature, or to uninstall the AMD PowerNow dashboard (which doesn't control anything).

 

[H2OH]

Thanks for the great info, everyone. I too am really enjoying my M6805. 3 Questions:

1. Alex, Where do I get a 7K 60gig drive?
2. How can I tell if my drive is 4200RPM or 5600RPM? I didn't see it labed on my drive.
3. Anyone figure out how to upgrade to 1gig of Ram? I only found one slot and it was full.

Thanks, all!
D

 

[fernakis]

Stardot: TYTYTYTYTY, that mute is a life-saver. Find of the century ;-D


Everyone: Yah, the speed drop is a bit of a drag, but fortunately this is something I knew about before hand. It was the case in a similar notebook. Look at the TH review http://www4.tomshardware.com/mobile/20031216/index.html. Hopefully SOMEONE at Emachines has an understanding of the problem and is looking into whether it can be fixed via the bios. I've discovered that they tend to be a little behind the 8-ball though. I don't even think they've updated their website to include the m6805 in support and specs yet.

H20H: Welcome!!

1) Whip out the hard drive and look at the model number, type it into google. With some drives it'll say right on it as well. The HD is front and center and requires just one screw. You can also do it via winXP device manager, but I've always been more hands off myself.

2)7200 drive. They're out there, being a cdn I'll let others answer the question about location

3) The M6805 comes with two mem slots (256,256). One is easily accessible, the other (and I'm making an assumption it's the same as the M5310) requires a bit of disassembly. Thus, to upgrade ram, you need to REMOVE existing RAM in the system.

Hope that helps,

Mike.

 

[MDE]

If you follow lane42's link above you'll see the disasembly required to get to the other RAM slot.