
Laptops. "Your favorite laptop?"
#61 Posted 03 September 2014 - 12:00 AM
This post has been edited by ReaperMan: 03 September 2014 - 12:06 AM
#62 Posted 03 September 2014 - 06:34 AM
Protected by Viper, on 02 September 2014 - 08:28 PM, said:
So Intel dropped the ball w/ the Haswell chips? Well, I hope they can fix those heat issues w/ the Broadwell chips in Q4 2014.
This post has been edited by DustFalcon85: 03 September 2014 - 06:44 AM
#63 Posted 03 September 2014 - 08:35 AM
Haswell is a straight up disaster as far as heat production goes. There's two VRM's - one on the board and one on the silicon itself. I've overclocked one of the newer "improved" Devil's Canyon chips for a build I did for a friend and it was a nightmare trying to keep the temps at 90 degrees under small FFT load in Prime95. I had to create a custom fan profile in the BIOS to allow for the machine to keep quiet while doing basic work and then just have it spike from 60% to 100% fan the moment it hit 60 degrees C.
The build I made with the original Haswell back in April for a friend never got overclocked. He's happy with the stock performance anyway, but he lives in his unfinished basement and there's no AC. It's usually mid seventies in there, but in a 68 degree house I couldn't even keep the upgraded model cool! They really are a tragedy.
As for why I still get people Haswell instead of Ivy? If you live near a Micro Center, the savings is so great, it's worth the hassle. We're talking $100+ saved on each build. That Devil's Canyon rig was over $150 cheaper due to sales going on.
This post has been edited by Protected by Viper: 03 September 2014 - 08:47 AM
#64 Posted 11 September 2014 - 03:50 PM
Protected by Viper, on 16 July 2014 - 06:14 PM, said:
Well that thing got sold out. Here's a i7 alternative: http://www.newegg.co...CFYZaMgodhDUAJA
Protected by Viper, on 03 September 2014 - 08:35 AM, said:
I wished Micro Center open up a shop in Lexington, Kentucky. Ask the uppers at Micro Center to build one over there pronto!
This post has been edited by DustFalcon85: 11 September 2014 - 03:55 PM
#65 Posted 11 September 2014 - 05:33 PM
http://www.costco.co....100120738.html
#66 Posted 12 September 2014 - 05:49 AM
Also, I would look into Intel if I was buying a laptop. Even AMD's highest end A10 processor is no better than an i3, and even then the i3 will crush it for single threaded stuff.
#67 Posted 12 September 2014 - 06:46 AM
Protected by Viper, on 12 September 2014 - 05:49 AM, said:
This. Also I used to own two laptops w/ AMD CPUs in them. One of them is the HP Pavilion DV7-3160US 17.3-Inch Laptop. And hoo boy, I wasn't satisfied w/ it. Tried to take it back to Office Depot back in the late 2000's/early 2010's and I heard they won't refund laptops (Greedy unfair bastards!). Can't believe I've wasted $700 bucks for this POS. I was stuck w/ this for a while until I finally sold it on Amazon. That laptop was prone to overheating and while it did, it did a hard shut down. I know better now. I'm sticking w/ Intel/NVidia for now on. No more AMD powered laptops for me! At least Office Depot got refunding laptop policy together now I hope.
BTW Viper did you get the Micro Center thing above Yay Ponies post?
*Turns to Yay Ponies* If you got $850 bucks in your bank get this MSI Laptop: http://www.amazon.co...keywords=MSI+i5
#68 Posted 12 September 2014 - 10:36 AM
DustFalcon85, on 12 September 2014 - 06:46 AM, said:
Hahaha, no I don't have $850. Two months ago I ordered a Lenovo laptop for $100 less that has an i7 and 8GB of RAM. I love it.
Thanks for the quick feedback on the Toshiba. I will dig deeper.
This post has been edited by Yay Ponies: 12 September 2014 - 10:49 AM
#69 Posted 12 September 2014 - 10:59 AM
This thing is like a black man's Macbook Pro...the ergonomics are amazing, the bottom chassis is solid magnesium, the screen bezel is edge to edge glass with an anti glare coating, it's got a built in subwoofer and dual headphone jacks, the keys are backlit and feel phenomenal, the touchpad is multitouch, it's THE SHIT. It's so fucking comfortable to use, it's like a mobile workstation. It fucking flies for day to day use, it's so quick I don't want to upgrade for another two years. Despite being wide, it's only six pounds and very sleek...the weight distribution between the base and screen is perfect...you can balance it on your legs in ways that would make other laptops unusable.
I'm going to upgrade it to the 1080p RGBLED backlit display when I get around to it. It's the best display put in a laptop until the Retina display Macbook Pros. Every color has it's own backlight. I can also upgrade the bottom chassis and motherboard and get an i7 and a 1GB Radeon 5730 if I want, but by the time I need that I'll probably buy a refurbished Latitude directly from Dell.
All it needed was $85 worth of parts! Didn't pay shit for it.
Core 2 Duo T9600 2.8GHz 6MB L2 Cache (Upgraded from stock, ripped from the Asus)
Radeon 3670 512MB GDDR3 w/ VGA, HDMI, and DisplayPort
4GB DDR3-1066
1TB Hitachi 7200RPM 32MB cache HD. Got this thing through exchange for a 500GB from Hitachi. Fastest laptop HD ever built, it feels exactly like a high end desktop drive, NOTHING like the WD Black I bought for the Compaq.
16" WLED backlit 1366x768 display
Slot loading DVD burner
eSATA/USB combo port and Firewire, SD card reader and an ExpressCard54 slot.
This post has been edited by Protected by Viper: 12 September 2014 - 11:03 AM
#70 Posted 08 December 2014 - 07:40 PM
Now thinking a/b getting this MSI GT70 Dominator-895 w/ an i7-4810 2.80 GHz and an NVidia GTX 870M for $1200. I also may need to get a laptop cooler. Anyone out there can give me advice on which laptop cooler brand is the best?
This time once the laptop arrives. I'm gonna do some experiments on it just to see if that laptop works well w/ DOSbox now that laptop has a better CPU, how hot and loud it is and which laptop cooler is best for it, not removing the warranty sticker just to swap out the HDD drive w/ an SHDD until I'm damn sure everything is working and meets my expectations on performance.
Going through trials and errors.
#71 Posted 08 December 2014 - 08:04 PM
Few years ago I purchased for $200 off kijiji a used Toshiba Satellite a200 (using right now @ work) intel T5450 1.66Ghz upgraded to 4gb ram 15.4" 1280x800.
This thing runs hot but has been beautifully reliable and for day to day stuff is still speedy enough. The built in intel express 965 gfx suck but that's the way she goes for laptops.
I recently bought a dell 24" monitor and it honestly looked horrible running off the VGA port of the Toshiba so I went out and bought a refurbed HP 8440p ( business laptop ) for $350.
The HP is built like a rock, mostly aluminum in construction. Intel i5 520m 4gb ram.. again w/discrete gfx but I don't really buy laptops for intense gaming however it will run cod4mw reasonably.
14" 1600x900 display and has the display port so I can use the newly purchased monitor @ 1080p, oh and it runs nice and cool. It's been great so far ( fingers crossed. )
Ultimately it's a good idea to do your homework when purchasing a laptop ( or anything for that matter ) as it's easy to buy a lemon.
#72 Posted 10 December 2014 - 05:47 PM
#73 Posted 10 December 2014 - 06:55 PM
DustFalcon85, on 10 December 2014 - 05:47 PM, said:
MSI GT70 - GTX 870M 3GB
Lenovo Y50 4K - GTX 860M 2GB
MSI GT70 - 17.3" 1920 x 1080.
Lenovo Y50 4K - 15.6" 3840 x 2160
MSI GT70 - 1 slot for DDR3L 1600 - max 8GB
Lenovo Y50 4K - 2 slot for DDR3L 1600 - max 16GB
MSI GT70 - 1TB 7200RPM HDD
Lenovo Y50 4K - 256GB SSD
MSI GT70 - i7 2.70GHz
Lenovo Y50 4K - i7 2.40GHz
The next step up would be a Lenovo Y70 Touch or maybe a MSI GS60 Ghost-series
This post has been edited by Forge: 10 December 2014 - 07:13 PM
#74 Posted 10 December 2014 - 07:23 PM
Sorry for confusing you.
#75 Posted 10 December 2014 - 08:16 PM
DustFalcon85, on 10 December 2014 - 07:23 PM, said:
Sorry for confusing you.
It wasn't confusing

- I always thought MSI to be a very cheap brand.. when did that change?
#76 Posted 10 December 2014 - 08:48 PM
Robman, on 10 December 2014 - 08:16 PM, said:
their video cards took a nose dive, but their laptops are pretty good (at least better than Acer, Asus & HP)
i don't know enough about Gigabyte, dell, or toshiba laptops
i'd recommend MSI, samsung, or lenovo (though samsung tend to be over-prced)
laptop cooling stations - make sure it's the size you need, has 140mm or larger fan, and avoid generic brands that use cheap & loud fan bearings (stay with cool-master, or deep-cool)
This post has been edited by Forge: 10 December 2014 - 08:56 PM
#77 Posted 11 December 2014 - 10:39 AM
On to the topic on MSI. Viper said that MSI's motherboards suck and their Video Cards and Laptops kick-ass though. Oh I decided to buy the MSI GT70 Dominator-895. It's way and arrives on December 15th. Crossing my fingers if that one doesn't have lags on DOSBox than the previous one I didn't liked and ultimately selling it. Crossing my fingers if it exceeds my expectations.
Waiting for Viper to comeback from his two week suspension on Duke4.net. He's a great adviser on the technical stuff besides some of his posts that can be outrageous and offensive.
This post has been edited by DustFalcon85: 11 December 2014 - 10:53 AM
#78 Posted 11 December 2014 - 11:32 AM
MSi video cards are okay. not as good as they used to be. About on par with Asus anymore. I'd take an EVGA or Zotac over either one of them
#79 Posted 17 December 2014 - 07:25 AM
#80 Posted 17 December 2014 - 08:27 PM
i've seen more good than bad about Zotac/Sapphire - until they start cutting corners on their fans & heat pipes like the other companies, then I'd still be okay with one of their cards,
but yeah; can't go wrong with EVGA (at this point and time in the industry)
This post has been edited by Forge: 17 December 2014 - 08:43 PM
#81 Posted 22 December 2014 - 12:20 AM
He got a second refurb one after I RMA'd it and now it too started having issues.
Video cards are overly complex. Even the good brands have duds. Get a card from a company with a good warranty like EVGA or XFX. They'll actually take care of you. If you spend hundreds of dollars on ANYTHING, always buy from a company who will stand behind their product.
I also specced that exact same model of card in another system. No problems. It would still be my go to card for gaming builds, but the R9 290 dropped in price. I might just sell this shitty GTX 770 and get one next month...
This post has been edited by LIBERTARIANISMISNOTACRIME: 22 December 2014 - 12:25 AM
#82 Posted 21 January 2015 - 12:38 AM
Brand- Samsung
Series- 840 EVO
Model- MZ-7TE250BW
Type- Consumer
Form Factor- 2.5"
Capacity- 250GB
Interface- SATA III
Memory- TLC
Controller- Samsung MEX
Sustained Sequential- Read 540 MB/s
Sustained Sequential- Write 520 MB/s
4K Random Read- 97,000 IOPS
4K Random Write- 66,000 IOPS
MTBF- 1,500,000 hours
Dimensions 69.85 x 100.08 x 7.11 mm
Weight 0.12 lbs
This drive replaces a hitachi 7200rpm 240gb hdd.
Indeed my hp 8440p i5 520m 4gb ram seems snappier and boots faster. 1 thing should be mentioned is that the drive says it needs to be in AHCI mode to run at it's fastest (other than running at 3gb/s sata II). I cloned the hdd and I see windows was installed using the IDE format, so that's kind of a pain in the arse, might have to do a clean install as I've tried a few times to get it into AHCI mode and it doesn't want to.
These little drives are so light it's like they are not even there.
This post has been edited by Robman: 21 January 2015 - 01:32 AM
#83 Posted 21 January 2015 - 11:15 AM
steps for windows 8 is buried towards the last few pages (i think someone said steps 1 through 6 are the same for both OS)
#84 Posted 21 January 2015 - 12:49 PM
Forge, on 21 January 2015 - 11:15 AM, said:
steps for windows 8 is buried towards the last few pages (i think someone said steps 1 through 6 are the same for both OS)
Well thankyou for caring my good man, I've been to this site in my AHCI travels but maybe I'll take another crack at it.
edit - I think my virus scanner (avg) is screwing up the process, I do the necessary registry edit/ reboot.. go into the bios and set ahci and then it freezes at loading an AVG file.... likely will have to uninstall AVG, do the process and then reinstall avg.
This post has been edited by Robman: 26 January 2015 - 08:32 AM
#85 Posted 22 October 2015 - 07:04 AM
#86 Posted 22 October 2015 - 09:18 AM
DustFalcon85, on 22 October 2015 - 07:04 AM, said:
Because the manufacturers get dosh from the crapware vendors i'm afraid.
Try and look on the brightside - it helps you get accustomed to your new operating system, working out how to remove every trace of the stuff. Don't think "bloatware", think "training course"

TTFN,
Jon
#87 Posted 21 November 2015 - 08:56 PM
The thing is which OS do I want to get? Windows 7 Pro or Windows 10? Windows 7 only has 4 years to live.
If I go for Windows 10. Which steps do I need to take to get rid of the spying in 10?
This post has been edited by DustFalcon85: 21 November 2015 - 09:00 PM
#88 Posted 21 November 2015 - 09:29 PM
DustFalcon85, on 21 November 2015 - 08:56 PM, said:
Spybot Anti-Beacon. Run it on all your Win7, Win8, and Win8.1 machines too.
Viper is probably going to link you to some ghetto batch script on GitHub. I looked at it and decided against running it.
#89 Posted 22 November 2015 - 05:56 AM
WD 7200RPM HDD 1TB or Seagate SSHD 1TB? Leaning toward the SSHD.
UPDATE: If I get a laptop w/ an M.2 SSD and an SSHD. Do I need to enable Raid 0?
This post has been edited by DustFalcon85: 22 November 2015 - 02:13 PM
#90 Posted 22 November 2015 - 03:16 PM
Hendricks266, on 21 November 2015 - 09:29 PM, said:
Viper is probably going to link you to some ghetto batch script on GitHub. I looked at it and decided against running it.
These batch scripts are shit and usually break a lot of stuff.