Upgradeable Laptops

"just wish I could upgrade the video capability."

You can, go to Staples and get a new computer :tear:

I think throw away mentality in Redmond WA is growing in all areas of the industry.

I never shut my puter off but this morning my sidebar weather was set to Redmond WA instead of Salem, OR Hummmmmmmm was Bill in my puter last night :laugh:

The new laptops have pretty good video but like you say the new stuff is going to choke them.

Upgradeability would be nice but doubt it will happen. Major software companies are not supporting their products more than three years. I fear we are headed toward manufacturers doing throw away stuff that might be good for three years. That or the software folks are forcing us into paying for software by subscription.

Vista is not backward compatible and will force a lot of software/hardware into the landfills since there is so much money in this country that people will just buy what they want.

Portability in laptops would add weight, size and price I'd guess.

 

There are a few lappys with upgradable GFX, but not many. It's not that they were made to be upgradable, but the GFX cards are not made into the boards and can be switched out with a different one. the biggest problem, of course, is getting into it to do it.

There are a couple of brands that use modualr GFX cards. It allows you to pop out the old and pop in the new. I'm tired, so I can't think of which it is. Maybe Mr. Google could shed some light on it...

 

Hi Major Don!

Good to see you posting!

How are things in Iraq?

I heard about the Boy Scout 'care box' you got. That was from a friend of a friend. LOL

Several people had tears in their eyes when they read your reply and thank you letter to them.

THANK YOU for serving our country!

God bless you while you're away and your family back home. Our prayers are with you.

Stay safe,
Dale, §ue, & Brent

 

Apple for me please!

And this is why I am going to buy an Apple Imac later this year. Apple can run Vista faster than the same speed PC can run it. They manage their firmware better. I guess the Apple TV commercial is pretty dead on.

 

You go ahead, Hawg. I plan on building my next rig... just like I did this one. You can't do that with an Apple. And you can't overclock and tweak a pre-built, either.

What can I say... I'm a do-it-myself kind of guy.

Besides... Vista? I will be installing it on a spare partition to give it a go, but only because it was given to me. I sure wouldn't pay for it or choose it.

 

How do you find the prices on mb/cpus in the type you build Trotter? In the cheap price range there aren't any anymore. I built mine several years ago cheaper than store bought but not sure I could anymore.

My son has always built his own but just bought an HP since it was cheaper.

Things sure are changing in the puter world.

 

NewEgg.com is the leader in finding parts. If they don't have it, you don't need it. The rating system there is a good gauge to use, but many of the "reviews" are written by people who have no idea how to install of use the hardware... I seldom order from them, though, as I have to pay state taxes (they have a warehouse in my state, dangit). I do use them when recommending parts on the computer forum I help run.

I order a lot of stuff from ZipZoomFly.com. Ususally a few bucks higher than the Egg, but free shipping and no taxes make up for it.

For older parts, it gets tough. I use PriceGrabber to try to find older parts if NewEgg doesn't have them

 

Ah I see we travel in the same circles :laugh:

I do a lot with Geeks but also seem to be having a lot of trouble with their stuff of late, in fact they took me off their mailing list awhile back :laugh:

Uh, back to laptops - sorry folks :thumbs:

 

You might snoop http://www.tigerdirect.com also, but do your homework on the products. They sold me a motherboard/cpu combo few years back that were compatible, but the bios did not exactly fit the cpu thus I have a friend that comes to see me now and then called the blue screen of death :laugh:

Most desktops pull around 300-350 watts give or take if that helps you at the ac input (I could survey our puters and get a better figure if you want). My laptop adapter is110 ac/.75A (82.5 Watts P=IE) and the output is 3.5A/60W max. It is about four years old.

This may be useless info to your needs but there are two (maybe more) types of Desktop powersupply outputs. Some have an extra lead. The bigger ones are for the larger motherboards.

 

My laptop is almost four years old and running fine, especially since it is running on Windows XP. A 60 Gig hard drive is big enough for me, and I can always increase my memory.

If I want to upgrade to a new computer I believe I will only be down-grading because the only thing available to me now is Vista. So I guess I am stuck, although I am not really unhappy with what I got. But it is going to wear out one of these days.

 

Yes it will wear out. I had a three year old IBM that I loved and I wore it out. I miss that baby . . .

*sigh*

 

My laptop is probably 6 years old and I still view it as my new laptop - well till thursday night - due to Vista troubles (see vista thread on that I went to burn some cdrws on my laptop and just couldn't get them to work. Finally decided to just do some regular cds to get finished - wouldn't burn them either.

LIGHT BULB MOMENT -- check the drive specs - sure enough 4x and all I had in the house were 10x and higher :laugh: Silly me, that thing is OLDDDDD.

Sony has one I'd really like to get but they want four prices for it so not going to happen.

 

Sony? ::shudder:: Besides, I don't do lappys.

Actually, I have recommended several people to look at Dell's Vostro line (you will find it in the Small Business section). The Vostros are the same lappys as the home ones, but without all the "crapware" that comes on a new lappy. Plus, they seem to be a bit cheaper on the pocketbook.

Oh, and you can choose Vista or XP on almost all the Vostros...

 

There is hope beyond upgrading RAM and hard drives:

http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=5369

http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/01/13/ces_asus_xg_station/