Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with laptop and hardware

Do I 'need' a gaming laptop to play MMOs?

Kurichina — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:37:12 -0800

Do I 'need' a gaming laptop to play MMOs? Computer hardware knowledgable people: what sort of system do you use for determining your 'needs' for a computer? My HP lappy conked out last week (very likely a motherboard failure, I'm told) and I'm in the market for a new one. It wasn't an ideal time financially for this to happen, so I don't want to spend anymore money than I have to. However, I also want this next laptop to last 4-5 years if possible, or, at the very least, 3.

I'm not a huge gamer, but I started playing a fair amount of WoW earlier this year and it's not unreasonable to think I may branch out into a few other MMOs. On my old, mid-range HP, WoW had many errors (not able to process the zone files and crashing) and was generally frustrating. Other than the games, my needs are fairly basic: a small amount of graphic design, word processing/spreadsheets, listen to music and watch DVDs/blu-rays. Is it worthwhile to splash out on a newer, more powerful processor *(quad core or I7, for e.g.) and some extra memory or will this be money wasted due to not using this power? Is there an objective (i.e. not trying to sell me something) site out there that will determine my hardware needs?

I've seen this but that question didn't discuss the needs of MMOs, and I'm not interested in the PC vs Mac side of things. (For reasons of cost and wanting to keep using the same software I already own, some of it purchased at "educational" prices for which I no longer qualify, I'm sticking with a PC.)

MacBook Unibody Floppy-Hinge Hacks?

lonefrontranger — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 07:50:26 -0800

The hinge on my partner's new unibody MacBook Pro is just-loose-enough to make using it in bed annoying. Solutions, cases or a hack welcomed. O hive mind, please help us comfortably enjoy our weekend morning lazy-surfing, emailing bliss with a new unibody MBP!

So, after searching Google and finding this as the first hit, and this as the second, I'm not feeling very optimistic.

The new unibody MBP that mr. lfr. just bought is amazing. Really amazing. Photo processing has taken on new life, the screen is gorgeous, it doesn't get scaryhot when running video for extended periods of time, and last but not least, he's now able to run his heavy duty protein modelling software for work seamlessly on it now.

The only glitch is that he can't comfortably lie down in bed (or on the couch) with the laptop above his head because the new unibody has a seemingly "looser" hinge design than both his and my first-gen intel MBP did/do. The challenge with this is that we both tend to do a fair bit of lying around being creative (or lazy, your pick) either on the sofa or in bed, with the laptops above our heads, and the fact that he can't do that with his new one is actually fairly annoying. In fact, I am typing this question from a supine position right now on my older MBP. Also, I had planned to replace my own MBP with a new unibody soon, and this (seemingly quite minor) issue has suddenly become very important to me. Yes, I'm that lazy.

Has anyone here found a solution to this "floppy screen" issue on their new unibody? Since he already mentioned that he would like to find a case, is there potentially a (light, slim) case out on the market there that adds a little more tension/stability to the open clamshell design, to allow the screen to stay up/open when gravity takes over?

um, also please note: "get out of bed" is not really a helpful answer. He's already discovered that piling pillows to sit up and look at/down at the screen (rather than up at it) is much less comfortable and seems to put more strain on his neck.

Diagnose my laptop...

geos — Fri, 15 May 2009 14:58:39 -0800

When I turn on my Asus A8Jm (NVIDIA go7600) laptop, I get a strangely beautiful cross-hatching of colored lines. This sounds like a fried video card, right? Luckily, the card is replaceable... how likely is that this is the only problem and replacing the card will fix things?

Help me find the awesomest laptop ever.

gwpcasey — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:03:06 -0800

Laptop filter: please help me find an awesome laptop for business and personal use for the next 3-4 years. (Feel free to recommend an ideal setup, rather than the hardware itself if you feel so inclined.) Hello all. I'm currently in the market for a new laptop and am having trouble finding one that gets me all excited.

For the purposes of this question, here are my key considerations:
1) let's pretend that money isn't an object;
2) I work out of a few different locations - I will hook the laptop up to a monitor and keyboard at some, but at others I'll be using the laptop itself (including at home), so I'd prefer a large screen;
3) I travel regularly but not a lot, so I'm not really concerned with weight this time around;
4) I live outside of most warranty zones (and/or have to ship it at my own, very high cost to get work done under warranty) so reliability is paramount;
5) I tried Mac many years ago, it was a disappointment and then the screen died, I had to ship it to the US and lost everything... I'm not likely to go there again;
6) I mostly use it for word processing, email and the internet. I also use some music recording and editing software, astronomy imaging and tracking software and will be loading up some photo and video editing software too. No gaming, no super-fancy graphics, and I'm not editing photos or music every day. So primary use is definitely low-bandwidth stuff, so to speak.

I'd appreciate any help you can offer - I'll be getting my chance to actually touch and play with some laptops in 2 weeks, until then I can only do research on the Internets.

Thanks.

Help me clean my laptop

tamarack — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 11:43:57 -0800

Help me clean my laptop! I understand about the software (OS + files) aspects of laptop computer maintenance, but what about the physical? Other than blowing compressed air over my keyboard, and trying to avoid getting crumbs in the corners of the touchpad, what maintenance can I (or someone else) do to keep the real-life gunk under control? I am going to keep using the thing, so keeping it on a pedestal is out of the question. I just want to know if I should get someone to open the sucker up and hoover all my dog's hair out of it, or if I should be cleaning the optical drive somehow on a regular basis? (BTW, my DVD drive is starting to sound like a lawnmower). Tips and tricks for management, whether DIY or not, much appreciated.

Pixels not included.

_dario — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 13:02:44 -0800

I'm at my wits' end trying to find a suitable LCD monitor to use as a secondary screen for an oldish Toshiba laptop. I have an laptop, a Toshiba Satellite A30 with an intel 82852-GM graphic chipset. I would like to buy an external monitor to use it (mainly) to watch movies. My size and price requirements direct me towards a 22" flat panel, so I looked into the market for those. Speakers are not a requirement since the audio output from the laptop is hooked to a hi-fi system, and the input port should be the classic VGA.

First disappointment: I saw an LG panel that looked great, (WG2234, apparently not marketed in the US) but - turns out - the laptop is not able to drive the panel with its native resolution (1680x1050). A little research on forums pointed out that there are many laptops with that same problem - apparently all those that have that graphics chipset which - besides Toshiba - was used by Dell, Acer and others.

A possible solution that was presented would be to download a developer kit from Intel and compile a custom driver for the resolution/frequency of that specific monitor. I don't want to do that, since success is apparently not guaranteed and I'd need the monitor anyway to make tests, etc., with a sizeable chance (I think) to damage it or void the warranty by feeding it the wrong res/freq values.

Browsing the list of resolutions the graphics card is capable of, turns out that no 16:10 resolutions are supported, while 16:9 resolutions as 1920 x 1080 are, so I turned my search into 16:9 screens, such as this Samsung 2233SN (apparently marketed as SW in the US), which looks good and has the right resolution.

Second disappointment: I had the monitor ordered from the store and took my laptop to check if everything matched, just to be sure. Despite numerous attempts by me and the guys at the store, there was no way to have the laptop and the monitor hook up correctly: even when the laptop resolution on the secondary desktop was 1920x1080, the monitor would have two black lateral bands, and all icons and such would be horizontally compressed, so in the end I had to leave it at the store.

My only hunch is that the 1920x1080 res. from the laptop is actually a lower resolution, which is then supposed to be stretched to a 16:9 factor by the display, but other than that, at this point I'm out of ideas. Can you suggest alternative models or - preferred - a way to have the (Samsung) monitor work as expected?

PB G4 17in Display: Am I really screwed, or just kinda screwed?

fontophilic — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:45:57 -0800

My PowerBook G4 17in, with the dreaded W85 serial number is displaying (or rather not) a white 1.25in vertical block down the left side. Turned on my PowerBook G4 this morning, checked email, closed the lid and then went out for the rest of the day. Came back, opened it up and I've got this 1.25 inch dead while line down the left side of my screen. Doing a screen capture of this area reveals what should be there, and problem persists after restarting, leaving me to conclude hardware problem. It's about 4 years old, even extended apple care is long gone. It could be much worse, as this laptop is currently my livelihood, and I have access to an external monitor.

Doing some research I found that there is a known problem with serials that start with W85 for this model. Allegedly due to shoddy assembly in China. Apple censors it at every turn.

However, this is my question. These cases tend to look like a few lines, scattered around, but mine [1, 2] is a solid white vertical block Is there any chance that when I got my new hard drive installed at best buy a month ago, they pulled a monitor pin out or something along those lines?

Wishful thinking, or am I going to say good by to $300?

(the old hard drive was working fine, just too small)

Vaio gives "system timer error"

daksya — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 07:58:44 -0800

My laptop gives a "system timer error" and so I probably need some guidance in replacing my laptop's CMOS battery I've an 8 yr old Sony Vaio laptop, model PCG-F590 (a.k.a PCG-9201), which for practical purposes, stopped working 3 weeks ago. The computer boots into XP, but during the login screen, or shortly after logging in, freezes altogether, not responding to any input. Occasionally, it gets stuck during POST itself, displaying "KEYBOARD ERROR" and "SYSTEM TIMER ERROR". Some web browsing tells me that it's likely that the CMOS battery has a lifespan of around 10 years and that could be the issue here.

Before I replace the battery, is there something else I should look into? There was no physical trauma inflicted on the laptop, and I guess the system timer hardware itself hasn't gone kaput. This initially happened all of a sudden while watching a video (the sole purpose of the laptop) 3 weeks ago.

I searched online and this store indicates that the battery is NiMH 2 cells with a mainboard connector. How specific do I have to be with the battery purchase besides the voltage and the connector type?

Most importantly, before I open my laptop, I'd like to know where the battery is located and how I should go on about replacing it? Despite my best efforts, I can't find a motherboard schematic for this laptop. The laptop's way past warranty and besides I'm not the original owner. Repair businesses here charge exorbitantly, so I'd like to do it myself.

I'd like it with cream, sugar and an extra key, please.

_dario — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 04:31:39 -0800

Will a laptop keyboard with a different layout (and a subtly different number of keys) be a good replacement for the currently caffeinated one? Yesterday i spilled coffee on my old Toshiba Satellite Pro 6000 laptop.

Fortunately, it was a small quantity of espresso so the computer itself is undamaged, except for the keyboard, which, despite much cleaning and careful drying, appears to be dead on the left (cup) side and behaving weirdly on the right.

I'm considering purchasing a replacement keyboard on ebay (there's a few for that model), but I noticed that the US key layout is slightly different (expected) and with a key less than its Italian counterpart (unexpected).

I have a shorter space bar, which allows for a "<>" key immediately to the right of it (in desktop keyboards it's usually to the left of the Z).

I'm confident that - installing the new keyboard and using an IT layout on Windows - everything should work just fine, with a few key caps replaced from the old keyboard for extra comfort (accented letters, etc.) but what will be of the extra key? (it's somewhat important to code html).

I'd like to have a second opinion before proceeding with the purchase, thank you all.

Did my new RAM kill my video adapter?

YoungAmerican — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 17:31:06 -0800

BSODFilter: I tried to install a RAM upgrade in my girlfriend's Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop, and got nothing on screen after powerup. So I replaced the old DIMM, and got the BSOD -- the file that was missing was a driver for the Intel video adapter. Long story short, it's still not working. I wiped the HD, reinstalled windows, reinstalled the drivers, and after some installing and re-installing, finally have the computer starting up in XP. But it's giving me the BSOD seemingly randomly every hour or two. This is with everything as it was BEFORE the troubles started.

I spent a number of hours on the line with tech support, they seem completely baffled. In typical tech support fashion, all they want to do is install and reinstall drivers. I've googled my rear off, but to no avail.

Could I somehow have zapped my video adapter when I installed the DIMM? Could they conflict somehow? Would replacing the video adapter fix the problem? Could I replace it myself, as someone who's never done anything more than replace drives and RAM?

If I start up with the new RAM only, I can get it going in safe mode, but with weird purple lines up and down the screen.

I was about to buy a new computer to replace this one, but part of the plan involved getting a few hundred bucks for the oldie-but-goodie, which won't work if it's an oldie-but-baddie. Help me mefites, you're my only hope.

What happened to my laptop, and did I fix it?

sleeplessunderwater — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 21:57:10 -0800

Laptopfilter: I'm curious about how CPU usage, noise level, and being able to go to standby/hibernation and shut down properly are related. For a long time (over a year, I think) my HP laptop(running Windows XP) was at 100% CPU usage all the time, ran loudly, and wouldn't go to standby or hibernation or shut down all the way. There's a lot When this started: I packed it up one day, closing the cover and putting it in the case as I usually did (I had it set to either hibernate or go to standby when I closed the cover) except in a bit more of a hurry than usual. When I opened it back up, it wasn't on standby--the lights in front weren't doing the "in standby" thing where one of them slowly blinks, and nothing I did would bring it out. I had to turn it off by holding the power button in, and restarted it. I soon noticed that several things had changed:

CPU usage was always at 100%, whereas normally it would stay between 1% and 10% and only spike occasionally when I started an application or something. It would also be quite loud.

When I tried to put it into standby or hibernation, the screen would go blank--not as if it were turned off, but more screensaver-black. It would not come out of this and would need to be turned off and restarted.

It also wouldn't shut down properly, and would get stuck at the "Windows is shutting down" screen. I could turn it off at this point, and it seemed to treat this as a proper shutdown--it didn't do that "Windows was shut down improperly" thing when I restarted.

Lastly, the screen would occasionally go dark for a few seconds and then come back. Again, this was screensaver-black, not turned-off-black. It seemed to stop doing this for a while (months at a time) but would still occasionally do it.

It didn't seem to be overheating (I could touch it, even use it on my lap, without being burned. Although for a while I absolutely refused to leave it on when I wasn't there, I started using it for longer and longer periods of time and it never seemed to get too hot). It also didn't seem to be running any slower than normal, and aside from the things I mentioned seemed to be working completely normally. I could even log out and log back in; it was only standby, hibernation, and shutdown that wouldn't work.

(I did mean to get it checked out, believe me, and I backed up all my data when it started, but it would have meant ~~clearing off my porn~~ cleaning up my hard drive and paying someone and since I 1)was lazy and 2)didn't really have the spare cash, I just watched it carefully and fretted. As time went on and nothing else happened, it seemed considerably less urgent.)

I ran virus scans, of course, but really I thought it was probably some kind of hardware issue (because of the noise and because it didn't seem to be affecting most functioning) and that I'd somehow jostled something out of place. This theory seemed to be reinforced when I was testing out some Linux live cds and it still did the CPU thing and the noise thing (although it would let me shut down) and for some of them wouldn't boot from the cd unless I turned it off and let it cool down first.

Fast-forward to the present. I recently switched to Opera out of frustration with Firefox's increasing slowness and need for me to restart it every few hours and reboot every couple days or so. Opera was much better about this and I could leave it up all the time. So, for the first time in a while I'd left my computer on for more than a couple days at a time and it, I believe, overheated and shut itself down. (I wasn't using it at the time, but the sudden lack of noise made me go over and check, and it did seem hotter than normal. I propped it up to let the air circulate more, and turned it on when it seemed cool to make sure it would start.) It had never done this before.

I did a quick search and from what I found, I thought it seemed likely that the fan was clogged, so I took out the battery and partially opened up the case. (Only partially, because even after I unscrewed all the screws I could find, it was still attached somehow at the front.) I carefully poked a q-tip around in the fan area and it came out slightly dusty but not with an amount of dust that seemed like it would actually clog the fan. I closed it back up and blew hard a couple times into the air intake. Nothin'.

When I started it back up, it was running like it had been before all this started. CPU usage was normal; it could hibernate and go into standby normally. It was also much quieter--a normal level of noise. "Fixed!" I thought, and also, more quietly, "WTF?".

Then, a few days later, it turned itself off again, this time while I was using it. (When I started it up, it didn't do the "Windows was shut down improperly" thing, either.)

Before that, I had it on a table with a few sheets of newspaper on it--a reasonably hard surface, I thought. Now, it's on four carefully placed decks of cards (it's stable, and the left-back one isn't covering the air intake) to give it more circulation around it. I'm also keeping an eye on the temperature and noise level now--I've noticed that a sudden increase in noise often coincides with a spike in CPU usage, but it doesn't go down as soon as CPU usage goes down. What's up with that? (Is the lag just because it takes the fan a little while to dissipate enough of the heat?)

So--what was going on? Did my poking around fix things, somehow jostle something back into place? What's going on now? Is the fan just starting to fail now? Does this, as I assume it does, mean I shouldn't leave it on and not on standby overnight (the noise helped me sleep. I should probably just look into a white noise machine)?

Laptop on the cheap. What are the minimum specs?

Leonard of Vince — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 13:30:29 -0800

Shopping for a cheap used laptop: What are the minimum specs I should be looking for with respect to CPU, RAM, HD? I'm planning to use WinXP (maybe I'll settle for 2K), Open Office, and FireFox (including some AJAX-heavy web sites such as gmail, Google Docs, del.icio.us), with a wifi card. And not much else. I want to avoid "I'm always waiting for this stupid slow computer!" but not spend much more than the minimum needed to avoid that.

Help me identify a hardware problem with my laptop.

Pontius Pilate — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 09:40:32 -0800

Help me identify a hardware problem with my laptop. I've been having more and more problems with my HP dv4000 laptop lately. Here is a brief background. Some weeks back, my laptop stopped charging when plugged in. It is still under warranty, and so the tech support sent me a new AC adapter. That didn't do anything. I then shipped the laptop to them, and got it back a week later with a note saying something to the effect that they've replaced the "reasoning board" or something similar (presumably, they meant the motherboard). The laptop was charging fine again, and everything seemed okay.

I was able to play DVDs, use the Internet, MSOffice, etc. with no problems whatsoever. However, I ran into problems when I tried to start up games. (My laptop has a 128mb ATI Radeon x700 card.) About two minutes into the game - any 3D, computer resource-intensive game - the computer shuts down by itself in the following sequence. First, all animation etc. on the screen freezes, but I can still move the mouse. The mouse also stops responding about 15 seconds later, and another 10 seconds after that, the laptop shuts down. When I press the power button immediately afterwards, the hard drive spins up and the screen comes on, but it shuts down again a second later. (This happens either once or twice.) However, when I press the power button again right after, the boot-up sequence proceeds fine.

The last weird component to this is that all this happens only when the computer is plugged into the AC adapter. When it's running on battery power, I can play games until the battery drains with no shutdowns or other weird glitches. I do seem to recall hearing some months ago that HP laptops have some power jack problems, but I can't seem to find anything confirming this.

So - what could this be? I realize I can take this to HP tech support again, since the laptop is still under warranty. However, when I called them to address this, their first solution was for me to reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows. I have good reason to believe that this is a hardware and not a software problem, inasmuch as it never occurs while the laptop is on battery power, but I don't know exactly where the issue lies. If someone were able to identify the hardware problem, I could simply direct the tech support to fix that particular part, and not have to go through the pain of backing up about 60 gigs of data, reformatting the hard drive, and reinstalling Windows only to discover the issue still there.

As always, any help is greatly appreciated.

Hardware geeks, your advice please

Soliloquy — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 15:38:51 -0800

Hardware geeks, your advice please: what models of laptop can handle being used at a steep angle most of the time? Please help me before I kill another laptop. I use this with my laptop, say, 8 or more hours a day, and then on a flat surface while I'm sitting up practically the rest of my waking hours. Between the heavy usage and the steep angle I've had things simply come loose internally several times on two Dells so far, leaving me with expensive repairs and long stretches of Internet withdrawal exacerbated by having little other to do besides stare at my bedroom ceiling. Google tells me this is because of inferior hardware. Since it looks like I'll be in the market for a new laptop soon (yes, another component came loose) I'd like to see if there are any brands that can handle this treatment particularly well. Thanks, hive mind!

Why doesn't her laptop work on one Ethernet port?

cameradv — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 11:10:12 -0800

My daughter's college dorm room has two Ethernet ports, and her laptop interacts with them differently. I can't understand what's going on, so I'm asking the hive mind. When I first plugged her laptop into the port next to her bed, Windows Home on her new HP Pavilion dv2000 reported "network or cable unplugged." So I tried a different cable, and still a third and a fourth. All received the same error.

Three other computers, using those cables, plugged into the port just fine. Two Macs and one Windows Pro SONY.

So I purchased a USB Ethernet dongle for her, thinking maybe her laptop's ethernet port was bad. Same error.

However, if we plug her computer into her roommate's port, it connects fine.

So they're in a weird arangement where long cables cross the room, and each is plugged into the other's port.

What could explain this bizarre problem? Help a computer-wise Dad regain credibility with his daughter.

Boot up or die tryin' starring Systemax N34AS1

moift — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 18:37:09 -0800

How can I find out what's causing this laptop to power down during startup? The computer in question is a Systemax model N34AS1, and if it ever were to start it would be running Windows XP Home Edition (or it would be shortly, it's actually halfway through a fresh install). Problem is, when I turn it on it powers off soon after boot, usually right after the memory check with just a scintillating flash of Windows loading logo. Sometimes it is much earlier, and it can (sometimes) be delayed but not eliminated by booting from a CD.

The relative unpredictability of the power down time suggests to me a hardware problem. I've got another working laptop I don't mind swapping parts out of if it will help, but I'm really not sure how to diagnose this. What can I do to locate or at least narrow the scope of the problem?

Powerbook heat tolerances or "It burns! It burns!"

maniactown — Thu, 12 May 2005 08:02:19 -0800

My Powerbook (15" G4 1.25 Ghz) is criminally hot. Temperature Monitor reports that my Processor/Controller Bottomside temp. is 140°F, Power Supply Bottomside is 142.2°F, Battery is 95°F, and my Hard Disk is 104°F. The metal bottom of the "laptop" is too hot to touch for more than a moment. Is this reasonable? Is my computer broken? [MI] It's so hot that I have a sort of a sting-ey "half degree" burn on my right hand from typing on the built-in keyboard a lot yesterday and there's absolutely no way I can put it atop my lap, as intended by name and design. It is out of warranty, so Apple won't even talk to me about it without charging me for phone time. I can't find any information about the heat tolerances of this model, but I suspect the heat is partly responsible for the shortened life of the battery (I get about 12 minutes out of a full charge now) and may cause other hardware problems and possibly even ill health effects (i.e., sterilty and the burn on my hand). So MeFi friends, what can I do about it?

Fujitsu Lifebook C-series disassembly manuals

loquacious — Wed, 28 Jul 2004 12:13:07 -0800

LaptopRepairFilter: I need to remove the bezel on a Fujitsu Lifebook C-series (C-6530) to measure and replace the cold cathode lamps that have failed. I've Googled off and on for a few months now, looking for service or dis-assembly manuals, with no love to be found. (Much more inside) Yes, I'm quite handy with tools and a soldering iron. Yes, I've opened up laptops before to do soldering and general repair, and re-assembled them successfully. However, this Fujitsu C-series Lifebook is like some sort of cheap but delicate and watch-like piece of jewelry. It's fragile, to understate the issue.

Taking it to an authorized (or unauthorized) repair center is out of the question, and totally out of the budget. The repair costs would most likely exceed the value of the laptop. I can get cold cathode lamps for 10-20 bucks each, so I could probably repair my screen for well under $50 USD.

While the prospect of cracking open the bezel on this thing doesn't give me the screaming fantods, it does worry me a bit. I can only imagine that the bezel/screen assembly on this laptop is one of those Sony-Vaio-esque monstrosities of adhesive, brittle plastics, and hidden screws. Only two screws are available on the bezel. (These were behind rubber button cushions on the top of the bezel. There aren't any other such rubber bits or screw-hole covering stickers.

Does anyone out there have a service manual for this laptop series? If you're reading this and don't have a MeFi account, please feel free to email me or IM me from my contacts directly.

Does anyone have any general tips and suggestions for bezel removal and lamp replacement? Personal experience with replacing screen lamps? Funny stories involving monkeys and underpants to distract me from this task?

Many, many thanks in advance. If someone can get me the actual service manual (PDF, jpegs, or paper!), I'll trade them one of my huge and insanely detailed eyeball and brain- torturing optical art prints, or perhaps a custom large format bubblejet output of their choice.

Dead Apple Pixels

garethspor — Sat, 22 May 2004 17:47:05 -0800

How many pixels need to be broken for Apple to replace one of their laptop screens? (more inside)

Laptop Shopping

oissubke — Sat, 01 May 2004 10:55:58 -0800

I'd like to purchase a laptop for my work, but I know jack crap about hardware, and I don't know where to start looking. Anyone have recommendations on where to go about getting a robust laptop for a fair price? (Specifically, a Windows machine with lots of speed and memory for graphic design and software development -- size/appearance aren't much of a concern.)

Help with buying a laptop

nthdegx — Thu, 15 Apr 2004 12:56:53 -0800

Can you help me spend an absolute max. of £1500 (UKP) on a laptop PC? Using some quite hefty/nasty engineering apps so it needs some grunt to it; wirless technology would be nice, but is not essential; and something that looks the part would be ace too! The company I work for has set the budget, but given me freedom to choose. It needs to run CAD and some engineering design software simultaneously, so as I said, I think it needs quite some welly. I like the look of some of the Sony and Toshiba laptops, but don't know how they stack up. I gather Dell have slipped on the customer service/support front of late. Any advice would be much appreciated.

Is it possible to build a new laptop into an existing case?

Grod — Thu, 18 Mar 2004 16:33:00 -0800

Is it possible to build a new laptop into an existing case? {More Inside} I have a Dell Inspiron 4000 running a p3 @ ~750mhz, 16mb ati video, etc. It's old. Is it possible to replace the existing mainboard with something new(er)? Or are there limits based on form? I can't upgrade either the cpu or the video card (I've searched Dell forums and Google in the past, no dice). I don't have much cash, I need a laptop, and this isn't suiting my needs. Thanks.

eMachines laptop reviews (circa 2004)?

callicles — Thu, 15 Jan 2004 12:32:10 -0800

i'm thinking of buying a laptop, and i see on bestbuy.com that they have an eMachines M5312 for $999 after rebate. does anyone here have an eMachines laptop, and, if so, how satisfied are you with it?