Maybe you need more memory on your laptop. How much memory do you
have? Click Start/Control Panel or Start/Settings Control Panel and
look for System or System and Performance. When you open System it will
tell you how much memory you have on the General Tab.Try using another player to listen to your music such as the VLC Player.
Try using VLC as your player. Go to www.google.com and
in the search box type "download vlc" (without the quotes).
Look for the Video Lan download from site www.videolan.org/vlc Download
and install it. It downloads and installs in 3 minutes or so. It's
a very fast player, smooth and it can play just about any type of dvd formats
and media. It's totally FREE.
I need to ask first. Are you prepared to completely disassemble the laptop, down to the bare motherboard in your hand, and do you have really decent soldering/de-soldering skills? Post back in a Comment.
For now here is the Gateway M6400 series of Notebook PC's > Service Manual.
On the top line that starts with Gateway 400, go to the line under it. Now go across until you reach > MX6400 This is a PDF file. The computer you are on now has Adobe Reader on it, which uses PDF files. I would recommend going to Adobe.com however, and downloading the newest version (Free) of Adobe Reader, if the computer does not have it. (Adobe Reader 9)
After you click on the file name MX6400, it may take up to 30 seconds before you see the first page. The file is downloading in the background. It may also take additional time for the file to fully download. Suggest you let the file download all the way before looking through it.
First, you need to make sure your power adapter is providing enough
power to both run the laptop & charge the battery. A very good way
to do this is to compare your laptop voltage & ampere requirements
(written on a sticker on the bottom of the laptop) with the voltage
& ampere ratings of the power adapter. Voltages should be the same,
or the power adapter's voltage about up to 0.5 volts more than the
laptop's voltage rating. Amperage of the power adapter should be at
least equal to or greater than the laptop's rating. It should never be
less than the laptop's rating, or else the power adapter will be
providing insufficient amperes to charge the battery. Of course, the
power adapter's nominal amperage might be ok, but it degraded on usage.
You can verify this by testing using a good or new power adapter. If
the battery did not charge using the new power adapter, take the battery
off the laptop, & using a dry tooth brush, scrub in between the
fins of the battery connector on the motherboard & on the battery it
self, then put the battery back into the laptop & try again. If
this still did not resolve the problem, then the battery itself could be
bad. Try it on another laptop, or try a good or new battery in your
laptop. If this did not work, there might be a possibility that the
charging circuitry on the laptop's motherboard is defective & needs
servicing. In order to do this, the laptop needs to be disassembled
& the motherboard checked for defective/burned out components in the
area near the DC jack. Any defective/burned out components found should
be replaced, or you might need to replace the laptop's motherboard
altogether.
If you want real cheap, then an universal AC adapter is your best option. Targus has one that you can purchase for 24.99 USD, which you can find here.
That adapter works for a wide variety of manufacturer's including Gateway. Also, this particular adapter can provide up to 70 watts of power. So any adapter that fits into that range will be fine on power consumption.
Your AC adapter takes approximately 65 watts of power and should be okay.
I hope this help.
-Ernest
If you have to ask "HOW" to disassemble your laptop, in order to remove and replace the hinge, then STOP, and take the computer to a qualified technician, who can safely make the repair.
>>> Re-install Sound driver
>>> Re-install Vista using DVD
>>> Check hardware connections of your laptop to speakers.
>>> Fix sound problems using its Wizard in Vista.
Not enough information to answer. Need manufacturer and specific model number before we can help.
Generally, though, laptops come with one of three ways to restore.
1. The manufacturer supplies a restore disk. This can be a self-booting image of the original load, or it can be an OS disk and an accompanying drivers disk that needs to be installed to restore the unit.
2. The manufacturer provides an application on the drive that the user is supposed to use at the time of purchase to create a set of recovery disks. This application is usually a 1-time-only thing and you cannot make multiple recovery sets with the app, but you can burn copies of the disk(s) you make.
3. The manufacturer places a hidden recovery partition on the hard drive that allows the user to restore the original factory image. There is usually a hotkey combination written into the BIOS that will divert the boot to the recovery sector when pressed at bootup.
Some manufacturers offer both options 2 and 3. But if you got a set of recovery disks at time of purchase, chances are there is no recovery partition on the drive. Recovery partitions are nice and convenient until the problem is the hard drive itself.
If you can provide a specific model number, we may be able to better determine which type of recovery option(s) are available for you PC.