# laptop advice



## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Hello folks,
Don't know if this is exactly the right place for this thread if not, a moderator is welcome to move it accordingly. But anyway, my Toshiba Satellite has gotten me through allot and now has a power issue. I looked into repairs for it and found that Toshiba wants over $400 (usd) to repair the unit and after some investigating i found that it may be a dry solder joint. The problem is that i do not know how to solder, do not have the equipment to do such repairs, and cannot find anyone who is willing to do it for me who knows how to solder electronic parts. I did try the usual doctor ups for it, like a new power supply, battery, etc. The new power supply lessened the severity of the issue but i still do not think it is worth fixing the Toshiba. Im afraid myself of repairing the machine myself because with soldering inexperience i may damage something and really be in a pickle. Now im looking at new pc's and found a good deal here:
http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/HP-P...93819/catOid/-12963/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do
Good machine but i have two concerns over it. 
1. The computer may have integrated graphics by what i read in Google. I might take a ride to the store and look for a floor model to confirm this. Shared resources just concern me for later on in the pcs life. 
2. It comes with the top level of vista. Great :up: but it is 64 bit. Would 64 be ok now to run or should i still stay at 32 and wait for better software support on the machine?

Thanks for the advice in advance folks. The current computer's spec is listed if you on my pc spec section of my profile you will see the specs under the machine named (lappy 486).


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Update:
I just found out the link in my original post to the new pc died like 5 minutes after a posted it. So now im back on square one in terms of a new one. This machine had amazing specs for its price tag so im very disappointed that it disappeared and is only shown at lower specs elsewhere . If anyone has another suggestion im open to them. However, im not interested in pcs with integrated graphics as that can have a negative effect on the overall system performance. Id like to have my card use its own resources without consuming system ones. However im also wondering if it may just be worth fixing the Toshiba as if i can repair that for cheap i will do that and just upgrade its memory. That should be good enough for it to get me though college.


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Ok i found another pc and this one link works http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/cto.do#a
I did customize and come with a pretty nice setup.


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## iltos (Jun 13, 2004)

new tech guy said:


> Ok i found another pc and this one link works http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/cto.do#a
> I did customize and come with a pretty nice setup.


that link doesn't work either....maybe you linked to your customizations?
i'm no expert, but from what i've read, stick with the 32 bit vista


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Yes that is what ive been linking to but the first link i cannot understand why it died. I will post again with an original link next time. Sorry about that . Thanks for the advice though. Like i said, im not sure if the current machine is worth repairing or just replacing.


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## iltos (Jun 13, 2004)

new tech guy said:


> Yes that is what ive been linking to but the first link i cannot understand why it died. I will post again with an original link next time. Sorry about that . Thanks for the advice though. Like i said, im not sure if the current machine is worth repairing or just replacing.


it sounds like it may just be a question of practicality....if you can't find someone to do the repairs then replacement may be your best option....you can always learn the soldering technique and repair your toshiba at a later time.

i just bought a new dell laptop, based on recommendations here....been happy with it so far
i looked at acer, asus, levono, too, as i've heard good things about them all...it's pretty confusing out there, and my budget was pretty limited...i wasn't going to be able to afford the fast processors, period.

i didn't like the port layout of the levono...plus it seems they charge a premium for being levono (less bang for your buck)

my other conclusions were (remember, shopping primarily for price)....if you want an nvidia graphics card, the best deals seem to be from asus, then acer (acer sound tho is generally considered subpar, so you'll probably want speakers)

those two brands are also a good place to shop if you like athlon chipsets (which i do, and that was why i started with 'em)

i decided on dell, tho, because neither asus or acer allow any customization, and they both have few builds available with 4gb of memory....which is what seemed like the significance difference in my price/benefit ratio.

if you're more hand's on with the guts of your computer than i am, tho, that may not apply.


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## Speakersrock (Dec 16, 2006)

Good thinking there iltos, but NTG, you know what I still think it is at the end of the day, those dang dry joints!


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Someone else recommended that too me. I also figured if i can fix the pc later my mom has been wanting a pc for xp (she doesnt like when things get upgraded and undergo user interface changes). And if i can fix the pc it does run xp so i could wipe the drive, reload xp and let her use it with office 03.


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Ok i have returned. I think im definitely giving the old computer to my mom as she could use it and the problem isnt bad at the moment. Doing this so she can have her own and i think it would just be a waste to toss the machine at this point. In the meantime im just going to use it till i have the new one. Now, i was looking at different dell models. Only fear i have with them is that i may be getting a cheapy computer. Although i have serviced a client who owns one and have heard stories about them being good im still nervous about owning one. Are they a good option to look into? Thanks for all the advice so far.


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## Speakersrock (Dec 16, 2006)

new tech guy said:


> Ok i have returned. I think im definitely giving the old computer to my mom as she could use it and the problem isnt bad at the moment. Doing this so she can have her own and i think it would just be a waste to toss the machine at this point. In the meantime im just going to use it till i have the new one. Now, i was looking at different dell models. Only fear i have with them is that i may be getting a cheapy computer. Although i have serviced a client who owns one and have heard stories about them being good* im still nervous about owning one. * Are they a good option to look into? Thanks for all the advice so far.


Don't be! - Soo many bigger business use Dells, and although thats different from home use I guess, business wouldn't use them if they were not reliable, would they?

I have a 5yr old + dell Dimension as the family's computer downstairs. Ive never had any problems with it at all, that were not self inflicted - Besides memory, but that all comes from buy at cheap price obviously! 

Good luck mate.


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

I did do some shopping on their page and was looking at a dell latitude (towards the lower end i know) and i added alot of upgrades to it and was looking at a price tag of slightly under 1200 (usd) so that is really good. I beleive i was looking at it with windows vista business installed.


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## carolavis (Sep 4, 2004)

I saw some used or refurbished Dell laptops on Ebay and am looking for some advice about purchasing one. The prices run around $300. Has anyone had experience with them? Thanks.


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## Wino (Dec 1, 2001)

carolavis said:


> I saw some used or refurbished Dell laptops on Ebay and am looking for some advice about purchasing one. The prices run around $300. Has anyone had experience with them? Thanks.


I buy a lot on ebay, but laptop, no way. I'd stick with www.buy.com or www.tigerdirect.com or www.newegg.com for refurb units and stay away from used or refurb on ebay.


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Hi all,
I was just looking around at some dell laptops. I like the business class better because it has more customization options than the home line. I have the lattitude d830 and have customized it to a price of $1,218 (usd) very cheap in my opinion and the specs arent bad. Only concern is the graphics card as it is almost a split between independent and intergrated memory. Will this effect my performance? For info the chip is a 256mb nvidia quadro nvs 140m. I dont do heavy duty gaming but still would like good performance out of the system. I do play some small low demand light games but still like having decent power for when needed. I have the chip being upgraded to a 2.4 ghz intel dual core chip. So there is plenty of power under the hood and have it set for windows vista business edition. Thanks folks.


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## carolavis (Sep 4, 2004)

OK, I guess $300 is to good to be true. I will look at the other places mentioned. Thanks


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## Speakersrock (Dec 16, 2006)

new tech guy said:


> Ok i have returned. I think im definitely giving the old computer to my mom as she could use it and the problem isnt bad at the moment. Doing this so she can have her own and i think it would just be a waste to toss the machine at this point. In the meantime im just going to use it till i have the new one. Now, i was looking at different dell models. Only fear i have with them is that i may be getting a cheapy computer. Although i have serviced a client who owns one and have heard stories about them being good im still nervous about owning one. Are they a good option to look into? Thanks for all the advice so far.





carolavis said:


> I saw some used or refurbished Dell laptops on Ebay and am looking for some advice about purchasing one. The prices run around $300. Has anyone had experience with them? Thanks.





carolavis said:


> OK, I guess $300 is to good to be true. I will look at the other places mentioned. Thanks


I buy a lot online too, and from ebay. Im not recommending it, or advising you to steer clear of it, I can image that you could find some genuine lappys/sellers out there. - But remember, should you decide to go for it, talk to the seller first, ask a few questions, e.t.c, and also only go for sellers with very good feedback, and have sold lots and lots.

Hope that helps!


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Right now i was looking again at the dell lattitude d830 laptop. Now it looks good and i can equip it well and still get a great price on the pc. Just one factor has me concerned and maybe someone milling around can explain it more. It is the graphics card. Im looking to upgrade from the standard intergrated one to the NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M . Now this chip is getting 256mb of onboard ram which for my purposes should be ample. The trouble comes because when i look at the graphic card specs it has this technology called TurboCache where essentially along with using its own onboard memory and recources it will sap extra memory from the main system to extend its own. So it may have 256MB onboard and with the turbocaching enabled it will be say, 512MB. I am looking around on the internet to see if this chip has anyway of disabling the turbocache and at least am glad to know it is a software configuration change and not a firmware hack but nowhere on the internet has clear instuctions as to how. If anyone has knowledge of this system could they explain to me how i could either reduce the consumption of it or just best to disable the thing altogether. I just dont see any reason for it to be there.


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## Speakersrock (Dec 16, 2006)

Well I have done some more asking around for ya, and finally managed to find someone that does know a bit about it. He says that It really doesn't do much, and is only comes into play for high-end gaming, (and you would not normally do that on a lappy anyway of course, so tht is why it is there.)

Otherwise it shouldn't really do much at all. - To be honest, I would really not worry about it unless you plan to do high end gaming, which i don't think you do?!

However, I you do want to worry some more about it, he did mention that he put a fair amount on betting there would be some form of management software included &#8211; which will probably include either a way of really minimizing how much effect it would have should it come to life, or indeed disabling it completely.


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

But see wont the ram, still be allocated for the video, even if its just an empty chunk, its still there and allocated, therefore the system wont touch it, or will it give up that chunk alltogether and allow the main system to use it, then if video needs it, the peice of memory will be allocated and used? I know that sounds a bit confusing but this is an odd peice of technology.


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## Speakersrock (Dec 16, 2006)

yeah I hear ya, and I said, Im not sure. I got the impression that it just took the memory when/if it needed and and became available.
Anyway, hopefully all will be clarified tomorrow!


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Shared memory for video is a serious performance hit for any machine.


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Which is exactly what aggravates me on it John, I got my fears confirmed today as I contacted nvidia support. There is no way to turn this feature off and did find out it is controlled by vista APIs. In other words unless i can find some sort of hack to turn off the feature or set the shared memory to nothing, im in a bit of trouble. Might be best if i keep looking for a computer. Here is a quote from what their support told me:
Thank you for contacting NVIDIA Customer Care.

This is Ganesh and I shall answer your query.

I understand that you have Quadro NVS 140M graphics card with Vista operating system in your computer. You would like to know if you can disable TurboCache feature of the graphics card. You would also like to know if you can control the amount of memory need to be shared and if the graphics card would share the system memory when not using it.

I am sorry, TurboCache feature is not user definable. You can not disable or control the TurboCache feature. The amount of system memory to be shared is prefixed by the card manufacturer and is shared by the graphics card even when not using it.

Also, please note that in Vista, allocation of memory for the graphics card is controlled by the operating system itself. The GPU or the display drivers do not have any control in Vista operating system in the amount of memory allocated to the graphics card.

Please click the link given below for more information.

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvidia.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2118

Please feel free to contact us for any further information.

Regards,
Ganesh,
NVIDIA Customer Care

Well that makes me want to keep looking although this current pc was a powerhouse with the specs i had for it.... Only way out is if i can find a way in the system to not allow memory sharing and to make the os take all of the recources instead of the graphics card.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

You can't turn "shared video memory" off, the video card has no memory of it's one in systems like that! 

One of the selection criteria I had for my laptop was not having shared memory for the video adapter.


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Today i was in the local circuitcity for a set of headphones for my ipod (other ones broke on the plane coming home from vacation) and i found a diamond in the rough..It was an hp pavilion laptop that was installed with a graphics card on its own recources, (i found a nice site for confirming the exact specs of the card) 3 gigs of ram, and a dual core intel processor. All of this for around 829 i beleive. I thought i had found my new pc until i read the processor spec....1.63 ghz. A bit dissapointing for a dual core. I asked if they had a comparible machine with a little more punch in the cpu deptpartment and i would have been satisfied with 2 ghz. The best they had was at 1.83. Still slow. So i thanked the salesperson and let him go. He even told me that i wouldnt notice a difference between the two. Sheesh, talk about closing a deal. So i jotted down the pc models i saw and figure i can look them up on the manufacturer's website and see if i can find one with a better cpu clock and same specs.


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## Speakersrock (Dec 16, 2006)

hmmm shame about the whole processor thing. - But LOL at the sales rep.!
yeah, I guess in this day in age you shoud'nt settle for anyhing less than 2ghz

I would carry on loking for that upgrade! - sounds a good machine, but from a place like that, be sure to chek the warranty!


Good luck mate


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Will let you know, i have one more pc to work on later and then i can get back to this hunt. Dunno if i can get the sale price on it but i will see what i can do.


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## Speakersrock (Dec 16, 2006)

hmm, yeah well gl, and yes, please do keep me/us posted


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Ok good news on alot of different stuff (hopefully the links hold up this time). First i did find the pc from the store on the hp website but it was a locked configuration that was uncustomizable. However, i did look into the dv6700t. I had it equipped for under 1000 usd because of an on site discount and on top of that, i checked with my job's employee discounts page and i can get another 20% off the price of the computer. This totals out to around 30% as i beleive the hp store is taking 10% off the top of everything. If this works the way i want it to (will check the nitty gritty details later). Here is a link to the pc. It has preset configurations but i plan to go custom. Will let you know my findings and details as i learn them.


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## Speakersrock (Dec 16, 2006)

new tech guy said:


> Ok good news on alot of different stuff (hopefully the links hold up this time). First i did find the pc from the store on the hp website but it was a locked configuration that was uncustomizable. However, i did look into the dv6700t. I had it equipped for under 1000 usd because of an on site discount and on top of that, i checked with my job's employee discounts page and i can get another 20% off the price of the computer. This totals out to around 30% as i beleive the hp store is taking 10% off the top of everything. If this works the way i want it to (will check the nitty gritty details later). Here is a link to the pc. It has preset configurations but i plan to go custom. Will let you know my findings and details as i learn them.


well that sounds good! 
Unfortunatly, I don't see any link to the lappy, but it all sounds good. Im sure you'll get it worked out! Plus the employee discounts sounds good!


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Speakersrock said:


> well that sounds good!
> Unfortunatly, I don't see any link to the lappy, but it all sounds good. Im sure you'll get it worked out! Plus the employee discounts sounds good!


O whoops sorry, here is the link  http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/s...satile+performance&series_name=dv6700t_series


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Just a question however about upgrades as that pc is a contender for me buying it. It has the option of getting a recovery disc with windows. Im wondering if its worth the investment as i hear of hp computers coming with recovery partitions. Should i save the money and just burn a disc of the recovery stuff when i get the pc then nuke it to blast the partition or get the cd they offer? Thanks guys.


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## new tech guy (Mar 27, 2006)

Ok im in on the 6700 laptop. I have it for $970 (USD). Thanks for all advice. I have it coming with:
*  Intel Core(TM) 2 Duo Processor T5750 (2.0GHz)
*  15.4" diagonal WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800)
*  FREE Upgrade to 3GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm) 2GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)
*  50% OFF 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS - For Core 2 Duo Processors
# HP Imprint Finish (Radiance) + Microphone + Webcam
#  Intel PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Network Connection
#  120GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
#  SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support
#  No TV Tuner w/remote control
#  12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
#  System Recovery DVD with Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit)
#  Microsoft Works 9.0

Some stuff like works is being replace with office but i had to take it as default. We will see how it is when it comes. For now im marking this as solved.


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## Speakersrock (Dec 16, 2006)

wow yeah sounds good....hope its all you ever dreamed of plus a but more maybe!


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