Welcome to -WereSHARK- 's eMachines M6805 project!


This page is dedicated to and documents the efforts on my part of upgrading and tweaking the Emachines M6805 notebook computer. (I purchased my unit on January 30, 2004 and this has got to be one of the best computers available AND its one of the best values around! $1549.99 with $250.00 in mail-in rebates, which I've already received!)

Here are just some pictures of my eMachines M6805 notebook computer during its various upgrades. I took these photos to document the extreme difficult nature of the memory upgrade. This is because out of the two memory slots available for upgrades, one is buried deep within the laptop. To make matters worse, part of the PCB of the 5-in-1 Media Card Reader partially obstructs the memory slot, because of what I think is a "poor design".


Here is a close up of the annoying part that "gets in the way":


and this photo shows the fully exposed unit with the PCB removed and memory slot fully visible! What a chore!


Oh wait, but there is more! More graphic pictures of the eMachines taken apart all in for the sake of trying to upgrade to 1 Gigabyte of RAM!
Just a shot of the unit all open and stuff!


Let me pan out and show you all the great fun! Oh and note that the CPU Fan/Heatsink is off.


Here is a closer shot of the last picture.

Here are photos of My Boldest Upgrade ever!

The Upgrading the CPU on the M6805 from the AMD Mobile Athlon 64 3000+ to the AMD Athlon 64 3400+ DTR on February 22, 2004.


(Don't know the CPU differences? then I recommend that you see the info below)

For comparison of different AMD Athlon 64 model lines, check out these links:

Desktop AMD Athlon 64s: (3400+ vs. 3200+ vs. 3000+) - 89W power consumption
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_9485_9487%5E10248,00.html

DTR ("psuedo-Mobile") AMD Athlon 64s: (3700+ vs. 3400+ vs. 3200+ vs. 3000+) - 81.5W power consumption
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_10220_9486%5E10249,00.html

Mobile AMD Athlon 64s: (3400+ vs. 3200+ vs. 3000+ vs. 2800+) - 62W power consumption
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_10220_10221%5E10269,00.html

Low-Power Mobile AMD Athlon64s: (3000+ vs. 2800+ vs. 2700+) - 35W power consumption
http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation/0,,30_118_10220_10221%5E11030,00.html

Here are a few pictures of the CPU upgrade!

Here is a shot of the OLD 3000+ CPU (Model #: AMN3000BIX5AP) ready for extraction.


Here is a shot of the NEW 3400+ CPU super close up (sorry, my camera doesn't do close ups very well and I was try to get a shot of the model number, which incidentally says: AMA3400BEX5AR) sitting pretty in the Socket 754.


Here is the shot after I put the CPU Fan/Heatsink unit back on and starting to close up my little "operation".


Okay, so here is a screen capture of the Windows XP system properties, after the CPU upgrade:



About 5 days later, after playing with Overclock settings on the CPU and Video and finding a STABLE setting with no Blue Screens of Deaths, no Lock-Ups, and no Artifacts, I finally ran my 3DMark benchmarks.

These scores, while NOT a record holder or record breaker, is a personal best for my unit. Keep in mind that not all units will achieve the same scores, due to variability from one CPU to another.
The Overclock settings at the time of the benchmark were as follows:

I recently ran PCMark 2004 and these are my results:

Note: I originally had the eMachines M6805. However due to bad sectors on the HDD,(not my tinkering, mind you) and with the powers invested in the Best Buy 3-year PSP warranty combined with the DEVO status, I ended up exchanging my M6805 to the M6809 in May 2004. I immediately pulled the original 60Gig 5400 rpm HDD and replaced it with a Hitachi 60GB 7200rpm HDD, purchased from NewEgg.com. The only advantage the M6809 had over the M6805 was the combination CD-R/-RW/DVD+R/-R/+RW/-RW drive.(M6805 had only a CD-R/-RW/DVD-ROM drive)
On July 25, 2004, I discovered that there existed a website that has been collecting Arima W730-K8 DTR based laptop BIOSes. At that time, eMachines had released their latest and improved cousins to the M6809, the M6810 and the M6811. Someone by the name of 'Stuart' sent in their backed up BIOS from their M6811. (0F07.P00/ 05-20-04). I proceeded to upgrade my BIOS to this version as many M68xx people were having trouble with PowerNow! throttling, screen brightness issues and particularly M6805 and M6807 owner's were having problems with their problematic older BIOSes and Windows XP Service Pack 2.

Here is an excerpt from the "UNofficial BIOS upgrade for M6809 -> M68011, Just unofficially upgraded my M6809 Bios" Thread at AMD Processor Support Forum -> AMD based Notebooks and Laptops:

Hey guys! I've been busy, but I took a HUGE leap of faith this AM and decided to BIOS upgrade my M6809 to the BIOS of the M68011. Well the good news is computer is still functional... the bad news? I don't know if anything has changed!

Care to duplicate this task? Here's the break down.

1) Download WinPhlash v1.3 here-> ftp://ftp.support.acer-euro.com/utilities/winphlash/winphlash-utility.zip

2) Go to http://www.rmecc.com/~v2/em/index.html and read/understand the risks. While at the site download the BIOS for the M6811 -> 0F07.P00 / 05-20-04 / 00F07P00.ROM ( http://www.rmecc.com/~v2/em/00F07P00.ROM ) *Keep in mind that all these URLs/Links are only as current as the date of this message -dated July 25, 2004 - 10AM (+800GMT offset - I'm in Asia right now)

3) Backup your BIOS with the WinPhlash first! Then Backup and Write New BIOS! and Reboot! (DEFINITELY understand the RISK of a FAILED BIOS flash! Dead computer and eMachines won't address it as a manufacturer's defect, hence NO warranty coverage) *Addendum: When rebooting, Windows XP will almost always get stuck on "Windows is Shutting Down". Please do a forced shut down by holding the power button down for more than 2-3 seconds.

4) If all went well, you computer will now read on the boot/bios screen (after you hit Del) -> "BIOS 0F07.P00" and "KBC 3308" (at least that's what is now says on my system)

FYI: The Original M6809 BIOS is Phoenix 4.0 Release 6.0 with a BIOS of 0F05.P00, dated 03/26/2004. (I forgot what the Original M6805 BIOS..I wrote it down, but can't find the paper.)


Well that's all for now!

This page was first created on: April 05, 2004
This page was last updated on: October 26, 2004
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-WereSHARK-
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eMachines m6809 chassis
* upgraded CPU w/ Athlon 64 3400+ DTR running at 2357.87MHz
* upgraded to 1GB DDR RAM - Crucial 512MB 333 x2 SoDIMMs
* upgraded to 60GB HDD, 7200rpm (Hitachi HTS726060M9AT00)
* flashed stock Liteon SlimtypeDVDRW SDW-431S (DVD Region-Free)
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64MB ATI Radeon 9600 Mobility running at 432 core/202 mem
=3DMark2001 - 11681
=3DMark2003 - 3104
=PCMark2004 - 4156
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