Customer Reviews

Gateway DX4831-05 Desktop PC (Black)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Overall this appears to be a great computer with lots of functionality such as multiple ports on the front and back, the integrated sound is great. The front of the computer even has a microSD card -great for many cell phones which use micro cards (you won't find included on many computers). This is a decent machine for gaming and obviously will do all the normal stuff (internet, Microsoft office, email, etc). I also appreciate the fact that the computer is pretty quiet. The only thing I usually ever hear is some minor hard drive noise.

I think the computer is pretty attractive. It does seem to collect dust on the glossy polished areas. The tray on top and in the middle is great for tossing a wallet/keys, etc. I usually shut my computer off every night because I cannot the "sleep light" that flashes on and off and is way too bright. The hard drive does reserve a partition which has all the software to do a complete backup. I would also recommend burning this to a disk using the "gateway backup" program as NO disks are included with the purchase. It uses 3 DVD's to create a backup.

As far as a performance computer goes I don't think you can find a better deal for what is inside.

I have several gripes about the computer though.

1. ) Boot-up time seems slow to become usable. Such that you login to windows and it takes a while for things to actually work when you click them. I think it is just a slow hard drive issue as it spends the first 2 minutes or so just loading stuff to RAM.

2. ) If I turn my monitor off and my computer goes to sleep I can't get the monitor to wake back up when the computer resumes. I'm not sure if this is a monitor issue or a computer issue.

3. ) The computer seriously needs a solid state hard drive (SSD) -read below

The computer REALLY needs a solid state hard drive because the regular mechanical hard drive that comes standard (on this computer and most computers) can absolutely not even start to keep up with the speed of this computer. You can really tell once things when a program has to touch the hard drive as it is much slower to process. You can try to max out the CPU but in reality you're just maxing out the speed the cpu can write to the hard drive and you won't get even half of the CPU used. The hard drive is a bottleneck.

The amount of RAM on this computer is way overkill. I haven't used over maybe 3 Gigs at any one time. It's like they should have saved the cash on the ram and the terabit hard drive and just thrown a small solid state drive to load the operating system and programs with a cheap mechanical hard drive to house the music and whatnot. It would be a better computer for it.

I heard that the Gateway brand really let themselves go downhill over the past few years, but bit on this system because of the specs vs. the overall price. The DX4831-05 looked like a great PC on paper, but after having two of them shipped to me and neither one being able to so much as boot, I can officially say that I will be avoiding Gateway computers from here on out. I tried two different machines and each one had the same problem. I'm just happy they were broken NOW instead of failing six weeks down the road.

It's also worth mentioning how horrible Gateway customer service is. They wanted me to send my brand new machine(s) back to them for 4-7 weeks of repairs. Sure. I'll do that. This was AFTER I tracked down their customer service phone number, which is not listed anywhere on their website.

A few issues with system. When I received it the PC would not boot. Being somewhat technically savvy I opened the case to find that one of the cables was not connected. Once I fixed that worked great. As someone else mentioned only other "issue" was trying to burn DVD's of image in case something when wrong and I had to restore.

On the plus side: machine is very fast and ULTRA quiet, If there were no lights I wouldn't know it was running.

I've only been using it for a few weeks now, but it seems like this is a great PC for the money. It's got lots of power. 64-bit Windows 7 doesn't support some of my older peripherals, so I used VMWare to virtualize my old PC and run it on the new one. That has been working well so far.

I had the computer operating pretty well for 1.5 months. The system did a decent job of performing light tasks, but would slow down while using multiple programs.

Unfortunately, the computer will no longer boot up. Gateway customer support gave the usual run around.

Please understand you cannot return this 'deal', as per Gateway policy. I suggest not purchasing this computer, and going with another model. As other reviewers have indicated, RAM does not equal computing power (even for something as simple as being able to boot the computer).

I purchased this computer on Amazon about a month ago and it has been great. No problems with setting up. I added another internal hard drive for backup purposes and had no problems. I did read that the covers for the PCI slots in the back of the computer are welded shut and very hard to remove, so if you plan on adding expansion cards then you want to make sure you have a soldering gun, but for the average user that NEVER installs expansion cards, this should not be a deal breaker. Another really great thing about this computer is the ability to connect two monitors without having to add another graphics card. If you've never tried two monitors, it's really awesome.

I chose this computer after reading computer reviews on C-Net. From the first time I turned the thing on I had trouble with blue screens and SLOW boot times. As a last resort before sending the thing back I reset everything to manufacturer's default. Still had the blue screens showing up periodically. I uninstalled Norton (it came with the computer but I never used it as I hate Norton), got rid of my McAfee Internet Suite, and installed Kaspersky in its place, and I haven't had a blue screen problem since. My conclusion is that if you buy this computer and have problems, it's more likely a software problem rather than a hardware problem. Still, for the the money I paid, I don't think I should have had to go through all the trouble I did. Be sure to keep the boxes and your receipt.

Super fast, tons of memory, and a great deal overall. I use Adobe suite products and this computer is lightning fast, able to have multiple large programs running at once. I bought a large LG hd monitor for it and the graphics are beautiful. Don't hesitate on this cpu its worth every penny!

Disaster. It would not boot Windows on the very first time I turned it on. I called customer support and they said they could not help me as they had an open ticket on the machine as defective though it was brand new! Since they had an open ticket, they said they couldn't assist over the phone and I had to take the machine to a store. Needless to say, I returned the computer. It was the second Gateway I purchased (the other was 8-9 years ago) and both had significant problems. I won't go back to Gateway.

This computer is fast, plenty of hard drive storage and most impressive is how quiet the fan is.
Has all the specifications I was looking for.
Took it out of the box, plugged in the cables, and turned it on.
Sit back and watch it set itself up...No problems...I love it!