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Personal Experience goes to show, HP does fail. They try too hard or fail to deliver on promises and "guarantees".

I personally wouldn't settle for anything less than an i7QM right now. Preferably the 2820, but it's a lot more $$$ for not much more performance compared to the 2720

ASUS. I got ASUS A72JK-TY030V and it's awesome.

I love my laptop so I could swear on Acer

Let me set this straight. On the MAJORITY of laptops you can not change any hardware other than the hard drive and RAM. CPUs are soldered to the motherboard which makes them impossible to remove. GPUs are a part of the motherboard.

Also, you DO NOT game on a laptop (unless it's an Alienware). $600 repairs are a hard lesson. Get a cheap netbook/Chromebook/tablet to use in school. Build or buy a desktop to game on or do other more intensive work on. This can be done for $1500 or less.

I called in to the MaximumPC podcast and this is the advice they gave me. I did not take it and subsequently incurred $600 worth of repairs on my laptop.



You do not game on Toshiba's or Sony Vaio computers. Their motherboards are locked to stock drivers. You CAN NOT upgrade your GPU drivers.

You're welcome.

But, but, Alien Ware is so expensive! QQ

Casual Gaming on a Laptop is no problem. It's prolonged gaming/use that wears it down. Laptops are already way less durable than a desktop. They have problems more often and die faster on average. Most I'd spend on a laptop would be $2,000. No more. If you have the money and no Financial problems, go for it. If it'll set you back financially, go for something cheaper that will do what you need it to do.

What if you have a dedicated GPU? Is it still attached to the motherboard?

I got a 3 year warranty anyways

I am planning to buy Crysis 2 on my laptop T.T

Dedicated Is a little confusing word when used with laptops. It does NOT mean you can switch it out. It's still attached to the board. It refers to the memory being dedicated, not shared. I went to wiki to find this to help explain it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_p ... hics_cardsThat is doable. But preferred on a laptop only if you have a Qaud on your laptop. Crysis 2 gets a massive improvement across 4 cores instead of 2. Along with a decent Video card, otherwise you will burn it out easy from it being on a full load the entire time while playing. That's why I'd rather have a GPu better than I need, than one that is just enough.

Yep my laptop performance setup is better than (almost double) Crysis 2 requirement, just it can be easily overheated since I dont have an Aircon >.< (I hope it wont die before Diablo 3)

Eh, if I can't game on my lap top, then fack buying a nice one.

But no gaming = I QQ. =/

Any guess on Guild Wars 2 requirement?

No you can game on a laptop just not for 4+ hours. Also get one of those laptop coolers if the laptop comes with vents on the bottom.

Laptops are a small space and air is a good insulator for heat. You want the air to be flowing at all times. That's why I dislike powersaving that disables the fan and just underclocks everything if it gets too hot.

My brother bought a dell for $1500 and it's still running 3 years later. He uses it for everything and games on it too.

That's quite possibly the worst advice I've ever read....

Been using a Gateway laptop with an ATI 5650 in it for a little over a year now. Anyone who knows shit about laptops knows that Gateway is a company that is hated for product quality. Then again, what company isn't? I've played SC2 on this laptop very several hours at a time. Yes it gets hot, it's a laptop. It would get hot if I wasn't doing anything at all, because it's a laptop. Any stress on the CPU would increase it's temperature much more than a desktop because, guess what, it's a laptop.

There's some myth that gaming on a laptop should be forbidden and you're stupid if you try and blah blah blah. I don't buy my laptops so they will last me 7 years. They're most likely going to die earlier because the heat eventually gets to the parts and something will fail, with or without me playing games on them.

I'm not sure what the hell you did that cost you $600 in repairs, but it doesn't mean you can't game on a laptop without it being "Alienware". If you knew about Alienware computers you'd know that for the most part they are the same shit as my $600 Gateway laptop. They do have that nice big logo that says "ALIENWARE" on them though...

Some of my friends are working as PC technician. They can do some simple reformat + dust cleaning + some hardware replacement and charge few hundred dollars for it. Simply because their customers don't know how to clean their laptop and actually it is quite easy.

^ Super personal uneducated post. Prolonged gaming is stupid on any laptop. Even Alienware. It's very taxing on laptops since they are always onboard and rarely have a decent cooling system. I don't care if it's Gateway,Dell, or Alienware(yes I know dell owns alienware, but they are still separate brands). It is stupid to get a laptop solely for gaming especially if you intend on using it for hardcore gaming. A $600 gateway isn't gonna have a quad (Aside from the 1.5 AMD...)nor a good gpu or ram. which is pretty dam necessary for (most)high end gaming nowadays. In terms of Value(Price/Performance) I think gateway is better yea. You can't get a decent gateway laptop for gaming purposes though or even close to what I would need it for personal things. Gaming laptops have much better options than a gateway for sure. When you think gaming laptop, you don't cheap out and get something for $600, your gonna have to dig a little deeper into those pockets and dish out at least $1500 to get something that can run at least 30fps on higher than lowest settings.

Note also that screen size highly influences the price of your laptop.

My laptop costed me 1,200$ two years ago and it only has Core 2 Duo @ 2.2GHz, 500GB, 4G RAM and GeForce 9600GT @ 1G. Why? Because it's an 18.4' screen.

I prefer a 15.6' personally. I don't like anything bigger or smaller. Seems too small or too big. Plus some have reduced customization on smaller sizes. For instance, a 15.6 Dell can get only 8GB ram, Geforce 540M. A 17.3' can get 16GB and Geforce 555M which is much better by spec comparison. Screen size also reflects battery life. Bigger screen = less battery life, but that should be obvious.

My personal laptop I'm looking to get is gonna look similar to
2720QM
256GB SSD
8Gb Ram
540M Geforce
15.6 Screen

Damn, need to save for another new desktop for gaming xD

hahaha... lol. I got this i5 Core HP, first 7 months full gaming. Now, while using it for something basic (like cam with friends) it easily gets overheat. This laptop is now 11 months old. Why do I never learn my Farking lesson?!

I don't game on any laptop anymore, unless is necessary.
Yay, XBOX360.

Go to the store and buy a can of air, dust remover, or what ever you want to call it. Put take the tube and attach it to the can. Find every vent on the laptop and blow air into it. Try and grt everything out.

Also a reformat of windows will help. Why? Your pc is probably doing a lot of extra work from unused running programs. Or you could solve this manually but that takes time and knowledge of what every program does. If you don't know much save your data and reformat.

Go to the store and buy a can of air, dust remover, or what ever you want to call it. Put take the tube and attach it to the can. Find every vent on the laptop and blow air into it. Try and grt everything out.

Also a reformat of windows will help. Why? Your pc is probably doing a lot of extra work from unused running programs. Or you could solve this manually but that takes time and knowledge of what every program does. If you don't know much save your data and reformat.

Never thought it could be fix-able (maybe in a small hint) but yeah, I kinda knew it was about my vents, but wasn't sure how to. I even thought about taking my lap to Geek-squad (BestBuy) but I think it would cost some money. I'll give it a try. Thanks, Amarisa.

EDIT: Well, if I use a can compressed air, and use it on any vent.. wouldn't that push all the dust inside?

............

1. No where in my post did I say prolonged gaming is a yes. I said I've done it. The next paragraph was about how laptops don't last long. Put two and two together please.

2. No where did I say you should buy a laptop solely for gaming.

3. No where did I specify my laptop specs so how you came to the conclusion that it isn't decent baffles me. But the follow up to your doubt is that someone needs to spend $1500 on a laptop to get "at least 30 FPS on higher than lowest settings". Now you sound like an Alienware salesman which bothers me even more because the "Super personal uneducated" shit you just said is incredibly wrong.

Gateway NV5909H, Purchased at 529.99 + tax CAD ($597.77)
Core I3, ATI 5650, 4GB RAM, 640GB HDD

Crysis 2 (Medium): 37 FPS avg
Black Ops (High): 40.4 FPS avg
SC2 (Medium): 38 FPS avg
GTA IV (Medium): 43 FPS avg

Man reading comprehension and a little bit of using logic and possibly common sense goes a long way these days. So next time before outright telling me I'm stupid, please stop being stupid yourself.

I guess brand don't matters anymore as long they got a decent graphic card and not an Intel Shit...

http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cdetland.to?poid=2000006035&src=MAKX&cm_mmc=Affiliates-_-Linkshare&siteID=PvTvb1zzm2o-YwRp.0R.WhqOoOP63qHTBA

Huge discount on this computer till 12am tonight.

Buy, yes or no?

No it's AMD's counter to the Intel atom. Isn't the most powerful thing out there but better then the Intel Atom + Nvidia Ion setups (at least the e-350 is).

unless you don't mind being limited to a 1GHz dual core and 276MHz GPU.

It's basicly a large netbook.

As with most laptops of $1200 base price, $600 will cover motherboard, GPU, and CPU. Now that is technically $400 worth of parts and $200 worth of labor.

I suggest Alienware for two reasons:
1)They are built to take the heat. They have good air flow and more than one lousy fan. Prolonged gaming isn't good, but it certainly isn't as bad as on a regular big-box store laptop.
2)Drivers. I'll leave this point with a quote from my last post.


Side note, nowhere in this post was there a personal attack on you. But since this is SRF, it is mandatory. Let's designate the word "doughnut" to be a scathing personal attack on your intelligence.

Doughnut.

I'm not sure if you noticed but there are major divisions of companies dedicated to gaming related computers, not just AlienWare. It's common knowledge that AlienWare is overpriced..I'm also not sure why you are hinting at drivers. Upgrade-able drivers are not an AlienWare premium. I can upgrade the drivers on my friends ASUS G60 (which was less than it's AlienWare mimic at the time). Though upgrading drivers as an argument in itself is not very valid. Many cards with old drivers run just as good as with newer drivers, it's very dependent.

Unless you've opened up a majority of AlienWare laptops and have done extensive testing concerning airflow, then compared that data with other data concerning other gaming laptops then making these claims is nothing short of laughable. Your ideas get overshadowed by the price gouging and marketing scheme that is Alienware.

Your first response also doesn't really answer my question which was initially what you did to cause the damage..Did you play games for 5 hours with your laptop on your bed? Laptop coolers make a big difference if used right and they are cheap, sub $20 cheap.

Build an external cooler. Get some fans, make a box(top at an angle) out of plexiglass/metal/wood with gaps for air to enter. Place the fans at the right spot, use an adapter or batteries for them and u are good to go.

But at first u should find out how the laptop is ventilated and how the air moves. If ur fan uses vents only on the side, then an external cooler wont help.

And ofc, clean it first, defrag it, do disk cleanup, choose which programs u need running on startup, etc.