No Disassemble! - Gateway P-6831 FX: Best Midrange Gaming Notebook Ever

No Disassemble!

For those of you who like seeing the innards of the various notebooks we review, the following might disappoint you slightly. You see, we didn't really feel it was necessary to completely disassemble the Gateway FX chassis. The reasoning behind this should be quite obvious, however: there are two access panels on the bottom of the laptop, which provide you the ability to upgrade all the critical components — including the CPU!

Normally, you need to go to great lengths to access a notebook CPU socket. Generally speaking, you will need to remove 15 to 20 screws from the top and bottom of the notebook, take off the keyboard, and sometimes even remove the LCD panel. Only then can you gain access to the CPU socket. On the Gateway FX, five small screws are all that stand between you and a new CPU (not counting the six or so additional screws on the heatsink/heatpipe). It's almost as though Gateway is expecting some users will want to upgrade the CPU, so they made it easier, or maybe they're just being nice to the assembly workers. Also under the main panel are the SO-DIMM sockets and a couple of mini-PCI slots (one of which is occupied by the wireless networking card).

The second access panel hides the two hard drive bays. On the lower-end models, only one of the hard drive bays is occupied, but end-users could easily add a second hard drive should they so desire. The hard drives are installed in metal trays that slide into the chassis.

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