I got a new laptop! I went to the mail box and it finally showed up. Im soooo friggen happy. I only have to work from 12-4 today so that means I actually have time to install windows ect.....Its a compaq 8440p. I got it for a really good price because the hard drive crashed. Only one thing concerns me a little. There is a little dent in the case over the screen and I cant find replacement parts for it. And someone swapped out a back lit keyboard that i think is going to end up killing battery life. I just want to start playing some games again and doing all my photo shop fun. The dude forgot to ship the battery but no big deal.
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11:40 AM
PFF
System Bot
Formula88 Member
Posts: 53788 From: Raleigh NC Registered: Jan 2001
Oh snap. I got paid today too. I might have to talk with the finical adviser (brads wife) and see if I can buy a game. 512 GDR should be able to keep up on the games ok. At the moment it looks to be 6 gb of ram and from what ive been reading some of that can be dedicated to video.
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12:01 PM
Marvin McInnis Member
Posts: 11599 From: ~ Kansas City, USA Registered: Apr 2002
It is sitting here installing 7 so HA! Im debating on if I want to go buy a game to play. I now can actually play them because im rocking more than 128mb of video lol. So it just the "I want it but I dont want to spend the money" debate. I mean 20 bucks on a game is not going to really kill me or anything im just debating. I could always go to work and use the churches t1 line to download a game
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09:04 PM
MidEngineManiac Member
Posts: 29566 From: Some unacceptable view Registered: Feb 2007
It is sitting here installing 7 so HA! Im debating on if I want to go buy a game to play. I now can actually play them because im rocking more than 128mb of video lol. So it just the "I want it but I dont want to spend the money" debate. I mean 20 bucks on a game is not going to really kill me or anything im just debating. I could always go to work and use the churches t1 line to download a game
Grand theft auto, call of duty, need for speed shift, dirt2 ect...Im waiting for this video driver to download so I can run aquamark and see what I have to work with. It SHOULD be able to play damn near any game.
Here is a great place to check laptop GPUs. Not to knock the system, but I have 3x the GPU memory (DDR5) and it still doesn't seem as powerful as my desktops GPU which only has 1GB (DDR3). The W7 test shows my laptop GPU to be ahead by a long shot, but running WoW it doesn't stomp the FPS and the desktop is running two monitors. The resolution however is much higher on my laptop than my desktop, so this could be playing a huge factor. Anyway, enjoy the new laptop. If you decide to play WoW come play on our server. Good sized guild lots of 85s gearing up currently for raids.
Ok, how the hell did I kill a hard drive that has a read error? A little back history. I got this laptop FREE because of a hard drive failure. Yep, just a clean install of 7 killed the HD . Perhaps the hard drive I put in there is 3 years old and has been formatted more times than I can count? Perhaps I just really suck at life.
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02:29 PM
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System Bot
Formula88 Member
Posts: 53788 From: Raleigh NC Registered: Jan 2001
If this was the first device to die while in your possession, I might agree with you. Was that 3 year old drive in an ESD bag? Was it packaged to prevent shock damage? Did you take any ESD precautions every time you touched the drive? Or was the bare drive tossed in a drawer, and handled with your bare hands repeatedly over it's life?
If you smash a mirror with a hammer, it wasn't a defective mirror or hammer that caused the breakage.
Anti-static mat and wrist strap. http://www.amazon.com/StarT...Static/dp/B00009XT3H Get one. It might save you a LOT of money in failed electronics. Keep those metallic bags the electronics come in, and store them IN the bag when they're not installed in the machine. IN the bag, not ON the bag. It matters.
[This message has been edited by Formula88 (edited 01-08-2011).]
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02:42 PM
87antuzzi Member
Posts: 11151 From: Surrounded by corn. Registered: Feb 2009
The drive was in a little cage thing. I pulled it out and spun the drive and that seemed to get it to boot. It runs BEYOND slow and wont connect to anything. The head seems louder than normal. This hardrive has been beat to death. It was in the computer that my mom threw against the wall ect....Im thinking a new drive would be the way to go. As far as the braclet goes, I wish I had one but right now I ground my self to a lamp case LOL. So im going to just get a new drive all together. Hopefully this round will be better. This drive has given me problems in the past.
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02:52 PM
Rallaster Member
Posts: 9105 From: Indy southside, IN Registered: Jul 2009
Hmm... Antuzzi and PK need to get together. PK has something about buying and selling cars and Tuzzi has issues with buying and breaking computers. I think they'd be great together..
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03:08 PM
Formula88 Member
Posts: 53788 From: Raleigh NC Registered: Jan 2001
The drive was in a little cage thing. I pulled it out and spun the drive and that seemed to get it to boot. It runs BEYOND slow and wont connect to anything. The head seems louder than normal. This hardrive has been beat to death. It was in the computer that my mom threw against the wall ect....Im thinking a new drive would be the way to go. As far as the braclet goes, I wish I had one but right now I ground my self to a lamp case LOL. So im going to just get a new drive all together. Hopefully this round will be better. This drive has given me problems in the past.
The little cage thing would be a "no" you didn't use ESD precautions. The little cage thing isn't grounded once you take it out of the laptop.
Get an ESD mat and wrist strap with your new drive. Not only will it protect against static much better than Aladdin's lamp, it provides a cushioned surface so you're less likely to damage the drive when you set it down. If you set a HDD down on a hard surface and can hear when it touches - you have shocked the drive enough to do damage. Fortunately modern drives park the heads in a safe area off the platter to protect against such damage, but it can only do so much.
Is all this overkill? Hard to say, but I rarely have a HDD fail. The only "crashes" I've had in the last 5-7 years were due to SATA cables vibrating loose and causing data corruption.
You don't suck at life 87Antussi. It's just with used things you have to find the problem and decide if it would be cheaper to fix it or buy a new one. No big deal! Good luck with straightening out the problem.
Jane
------------------ Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality
. Perhaps the hard drive I put in there is 3 years old and has been formatted more times than I can count? Perhaps I just really suck at life.
