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[crazysheep]

* crazysheep counts his lucky stars

Thanks a tonne, Tell :3

[Tellemurius]

Be sure to click on the optimize for SSD when migrating. Also, once you are able to get the SSD to boot run the Windows Experience Index test so it can kick in the SSD TRIM functions for long-term performance.

[Lord Shonus]

I appreciate the suggestion to make a desktop portable, but I think we have different definitions of "portable." I live in an apartment on the 3rd floor of a building with no elevator. I have no car. Everything I transport must be something I can carry up and down the many stairs to my apartment, steps on the tram or metro (and something that is easily taken on crowded public transportation without damage or theft), and into the bowels of whatever warehouse I'm playing at. I usually have to walk at least a mile or two in addition to all the stairs and public transport. 8 kilos would give me a sore back-knees for days (I very rarely carry more than 4 or 5 max, and even that is strenuous). And the risk of damage during a trip like that is uncomfortably high. Furthermore, most places I play only have a very tiny area for the VJ to set up. Like, a tiny cage in the back somewhere. Sometimes it's difficult even to wedge a laptop in areas like this (I have a 15" screen and even that is sometimes a little too wide). The idea of hauling in a desktop computer (plus a screen, which I would need) is just... I can't imagine doing it. Maybe next time around.

Of course what is suitable for you depends on your situation (although I would point out that the idea I suggested involved everything being on wheels, so you wouldn't be carrying anything except on stairs). If it isn't practical, it simply isn't practical.

[miauw62]

I recently bought an XMG laptop from mysn.eu I'm very content with it. I think all of their current laptops come with the newest GeForce mobile card, so that should be good.

The A504 could probably be what you're looking for, unless you want a big screen, in which case it'd probably be the A704. The laptops are customizable, too.
http://mysn.eu/xmg-a504

I haven't had this laptop for long, so I can't tell you about overheating issues. It doesn't get warm at all right now, but dust buildup and age can do terrible things to a laptop.

[Sappho]

Well, overheating due to dust is easily fixable. Just get the dust out of there. My current computer's overheating problems are due to horrifically, incomprehensibly bad design. In fact, dust can't even really get inside, which also happens to be why heat can't get *out*. Have a look through the thread I posted about it last summer if you want the nightmare-inducing details: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=129156.0

[miauw62]

I'll construct a more coherent post now I'm on my laptop:

If you're looking for a laptop in the 1000-1500 euro range, XMG seems to be a good choice. I bought one myself recently, a 1500 euro A704 (Although it's very easy to make it a bit cheaper, by not buying 16 gigs of RAM, for example Just minor downgrades like a slightly smaller HD or something). Both the A704 and A504 come with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M (Which, as far as I can tell, is the newest mobile GeForce card) and are fairly customizable. If they're too expensive, the company provides other series too. I haven't had any issues with overheating and it runs most things pretty smoothly so far. The A704 has 4 USB ports, one of which is on the right and one of which is a hybrid with some other sort of port, I assume the A504 is similar in that regard.. Schenker's support when I ordered the P703 (that had just gone out of stock in favor of the P704) was fairly good. I'd recommend this company, I haven't been able to find anything better in Europe. (out of europe things just get insane shipping costs)

[Sappho]

Thanks for the recommendation. It's hard for me to think in euros (I earn Czech koruny, the exchange rate is something like 28 kc to 1 euro), but the last time I was looking for computers, anything decent I could find locally was around 50,000 kc (nearly twice what I paid for this computer). In any case, it sounds like prices have gone down a bit in the last 2 years, so I'll have to hope that I'll be able to afford something without having to save for another year...

Looking at the big electronics company for CZR, these seem to be pretty good deals, and I'd be able to afford one after a couple months at my new job... Any thoughts/warnings? I'm afraid the English site is mostly machine-translated but it should be understandable. These are all from the "gaming notebook" section of the site.

http://www.alza.cz/EN/lenovo-ideapad-y510p-black-d508317.htm
http://www.alza.cz/EN/toshiba-satellite-p50-a-13c-stribrny-d488341.htm (this one has 4 USB slots!)
http://www.alza.cz/EN/lenovo-ideapad-z710-black-d481317.htm
http://www.alza.cz/EN/asus-n56vv-s4027h-d458882.htm (also 4 USB and other useful ports)

[miauw62]

Protip: You can type "Y <currencyname1> in <currencyname2>" into google for fast currency conversion. (e.g. 50000 koruny in euro)

[Tellemurius]

Thanks for the recommendation. It's hard for me to think in euros (I earn Czech koruny, the exchange rate is something like 28 kc to 1 euro), but the last time I was looking for computers, anything decent I could find locally was around 50,000 kc (nearly twice what I paid for this computer). In any case, it sounds like prices have gone down a bit in the last 2 years, so I'll have to hope that I'll be able to afford something without having to save for another year...

Looking at the big electronics company for CZR, these seem to be pretty good deals, and I'd be able to afford one after a couple months at my new job... Any thoughts/warnings? I'm afraid the English site is mostly machine-translated but it should be understandable. These are all from the "gaming notebook" section of the site.

http://www.alza.cz/EN/lenovo-ideapad-y510p-black-d508317.htm
http://www.alza.cz/EN/toshiba-satellite-p50-a-13c-stribrny-d488341.htm (this one has 4 USB slots!)
http://www.alza.cz/EN/lenovo-ideapad-z710-black-d481317.htm
http://www.alza.cz/EN/asus-n56vv-s4027h-d458882.htm (also 4 USB and other useful ports)

the Y510p is the most powerful out of that group but the most expensive (2xgraphic cards), Asus looks good enough but that 740m is pretty weak for AAA gaming. Again for USB ports get a USB hub, those are so much cheaper to deal with nowadays (I have to use one cause my laptop only comes with 2 ports)

[Sensei]

I got an Ideapad y580 a couple years ago, which appears to pretty much be a couple years older version of the y510p you're looking at. It has 4 USB ports, HDMI, and is capable of running at full heat for a very long time (EG all bloody day). The screen is only 1366x768, but the card can handle a lot of games on 1080p (I use it with another monitor on HDMI a lot). The case is really solid, the battery life is OK, and I had one hard drive failure but no problems besides.

So, I think I can recommend the ideapad, Lenovo seems to build their stuff well. Also, it will handle any game you want it to run with freaking two 755m's. The RAM and CPU will also carry your video editing. That does seem like a lot of power, so you should check reviews to see if it overheats or anything, but if it's like my older model it will have a monster heat sink on it (oh yeah, if I have one complaint, it's a little heavy but this is what we call a "Desktop replacement"). Sucks that you bought a Dell laptop before, those things are awful. A friend of mine got one of those, after a couple years of use (and yes, cleaning the fans) it overheats too much to run basically anything.

If you do get the ideapad, one caveat, it has both integrated and Nvidia graphics to save power some of the time. HOWEVER, it will often use the integrated graphics when running a game Nvidia has never heard of before, which is relatively often for me. You can just right click the program and choose "run with... Nvidia HD Graphics", as well as set that to be the default for that program. Another caveat is that I've heard SLI rigs can have occasional weird problems in general, and require a little more user input to run well. I haven't personally used one before.

[AndClayton]

If my laptop battery is charged to 100% and it says it's not charging anymore, is it safe to assume leaving in plugged in at that point wont be detrimental to the battery?

I ask because it's tedious trying to play video games without it plugged in. Having to alt-tab out just to check the remaining battery life is annoying and sometimes messes up my game lol.

[Tellemurius]

Depending how old your laptop is it shouldn't matter. Nowadays most companies have setup so that once the battery is charged it switches the current over to trickle and keeps the laptop on A/C. Honestly you shouldn't worry much about it.

[MaximumZero]

Yeah, for longer than the last few years, all the batteries have been voltage regulated.

[Astral]

If I was never provided with a Windows 7 installer disk, or more likely lost it, and feel like it's time to do a reformat for the purposes of spring cleaning, how does one go about getting a new installer disk? The CD Key is still very legible on the side of my case, so that's not an issue, I just need something that will allow me to reformat and reinstall Windows 7.

Question 2: How does reformatting affect a secondary drive? I currently have an SSD as the main Windows installation location, and another 1 terabyte HDD. Will reformatting remove all content from that as well?

I'm currently doing prep work, such as downloading drivers and programs I currently use, as well as making backups of files, so I won't need it until next weekend.

[Aklyon]

Theres windows 7 legal isos here (the big first answer), and you can use a dvd burner if you have one for it. Otherwise, theres this for empty usb drives of sufficient size.

Reformatting one drive affects that drive, unless you've split up one physical drive into several letter drives for some reason. You have to reformat both to reformat both.