The "Quick Questions that does not Deserve a Thread"...Thread. V3 - Hardware & Software

[QUOTE=latin_geek;38096135]What's a decent laptop with a big screen, a bigger battery and enough power to run Windows 7 and do web browsing, Office, maybe youtube videos? It's for my mother.[/QUOTE] Budget? [url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006740%20600004346%20600372105&IsNodeId=1&name=17.3%22]Pick one[/url].

I'm looking for a new MP3 player, any recommendations?

Which HDD Would be best? [url]http://www.ebuyer.com/146082-wd-1tb-black-hard-drive-wd1001fals?[/url] or [url]http://www.scan.co.uk/products/500gb-wd-wd5000aakx-caviar-blue-sata-6gb-s-7200rpm-16mb-cache-8ms[/url] I'm very wary of the Tera, someone reccomended it to me and it apparantely only comes with 1 year warranty, whereas the 500gb comes with a 24-month one.

[QUOTE=Cam00;38099993]I'm looking for a new MP3 player, any recommendations?[/QUOTE] Are you looking for some cheap plastic thing that only plays songs or something like an Ipod Touch?

[QUOTE=Roger Waters;38100832]Which HDD Would be best? [url]http://www.ebuyer.com/146082-wd-1tb-black-hard-drive-wd1001fals?[/url] or [url]http://www.scan.co.uk/products/500gb-wd-wd5000aakx-caviar-blue-sata-6gb-s-7200rpm-16mb-cache-8ms[/url] I'm very wary of the Tera, someone reccomended it to me and it apparantely only comes with 1 year warranty, whereas the 500gb comes with a 24-month one.[/QUOTE] WD Caviar blacks come with a 5 year warranty and the blues get 3 years... Get the Caviar black, it'll be faster and just as reliable as a blue.

[QUOTE=alien_guy;38102305]Are you looking for some cheap plastic thing that only plays songs or something like an Ipod Touch?[/QUOTE] I'm looking for a mp3 player with buttons; not a touch screen. I'm a bit of a scrub in my mp3 knowledge, so I don't know how much of an impact on quality mp3 players have; I've been using the same mp3 player for 6 years, and the sound has been fine for me. I use nice earphones though. I would only use it to listen to music; and I listen to music on the go a lot. I was looking at the ipod shuffle, however reviews said it had poor sound quality.

Looking for an upgrade for around $400-$600 current specs: [img]http://i.imgur.com/PQmal.png[/img]

[QUOTE=zezsniper;38108810]Looking for an upgrade for around $400-$600 current specs: [img]http://i.imgur.com/PQmal.png[/img][/QUOTE] i5 and a z77. and 8 gigs of dual channel DDR3

Would a SATAIII drive work on a SATAI board?

[QUOTE=RoboChimp;38110329]Would a SATAIII drive work on a SATAI board?[/QUOTE] Yep, all SATA versions work with each other.

I bought a can of compressed air, but it seems to contain ethane (extremely flammable). Is this safe to use inside a computer or is it just meant for cleaning keyboards and stuff?

[QUOTE=Akasori;38111774]I bought a can of compressed air, but it seems to contain ethane (extremely flammable). Is this safe to use inside a computer or is it just meant for cleaning keyboards and stuff?[/QUOTE] As long as you don't shake the damn can and turn it upside down like an idiot you'll be fine cleaning your PC with it.

Does heat create latency? If so, how?

When my laptop boots and the ethernet cable is plugged in, before it gets into windows it goes to this screen and stays there for a good 5 minutes it's really annoying, what's it doing? I know it doesnt hang because the symbol at the end changes to make it look like it's spinning. [img]http://i.imgur.com/13qS3.jpg[/img]

Trying to see if it needs to boot off a network image, I think.

[QUOTE=rampageturke 2;38115278]When my laptop boots and the ethernet cable is plugged in, before it gets into windows it goes to this screen and stays there for a good 5 minutes it's really annoying, what's it doing? I know it doesnt hang because the symbol at the end changes to make it look like it's spinning. [img]http://i.imgur.com/13qS3.jpg[/img][/QUOTE] That's it trying to boot off the network, not from your hard drive. It's looking for a server that provides the boot data - eventually it times out and looks on the hard drive, which is why it eventually succeeds. Go into your BIOS, look at the boot device priority. Either disable network booting, or put it at the lowest priority (below hard drive and CD).

Hey guys, just bought a 180gb intel ssd 330 and it works really great, cut my boot-up time to next to nothing. Is there anything I should do to optimize it?

[QUOTE=Waterrmelonn;38123258]Hey guys, just bought a 180gb intel ssd 330 and it works really great, cut my boot-up time to next to nothing. Is there anything I should do to optimize it?[/QUOTE] [url=http://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/seans-windows-7-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds]This guide[/url] is quite thorough. Not sure if it's up-to-date.

Thanks for the guide Akasori. I tested my ssd using crystaldiskmark, but they only give a read speed of 133 and a write speed of 122 for sequential read; would that be normal? I'm using a sata 3.0gb/s so that might explain the slowdown.

[QUOTE=Oppenheimer;38112127]Does heat create latency? If so, how?[/QUOTE] No. Not directly at least. Excessive heat can cause components to stop functioning perfectly though, which depending on what it is can cause a system crash, or cause error correction stuff to kick in. That in turn can greatly reduce bandwidth throughput, the speed of memory, or anything else that reduces performance without nuking your system. GPUs are a classic example of this. Overclocking memory too far can cause it to become unstable, and (at least on 600 series cards), this can reduce performance without crashing, though this isn't necessarily heat related. That's generally a fine line. Usually it either works or it doesn't.

Lightweight OS for my mini-netbook. I have windows7 on it now, and that's hello slow I was thinking about going with Ubuntu, but since I knwo I don't knwo much about OS's I thought I'd get a wider opinion range thing. I just need to do some web camming and browser compatibility testing. Thasssit

[QUOTE=Primary;38126155]Lightweight OS for my mini-netbook. I have windows7 on it now, and that's hello slow I was thinking about going with Ubuntu, but since I knwo I don't knwo much about OS's I thought I'd get a wider opinion range thing. I just need to do some web camming and browser compatibility testing. Thasssit[/QUOTE] Ubuntu is not lightweight. It comes with the "Unity" window manager, which is a bloated mess. If you're a Linux beginner, get one of the Linux Mint distros (I like Xfce); otherwise, get Arch Linux.

[QUOTE=rampageturke 2;38115278] [t]http://i.imgur.com/13qS3.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] Press escape to get out of that. F10 for BIOS and change your boot order. Ladies and gentlemen you just witnessed about 75% of what I do at work every day.

Best Software where you can Select an area to capture/screen grab and then upload to Imgur? Needs to be piss easy. I heard about zscreen, but it seems to be down now. I would prefer it to be Cross platform, specific Windows and Linux. [editline]21st October 2012[/editline] Right now using Hyperdesktop. But it won't upload to a specific account. So I can't save the pictures for later.

[QUOTE=Jalict;38126488]Best Software where you can Select an area to capture/screen grab and then upload to Imgur? Needs to be piss easy. I heard about zscreen, but it seems to be down now. I would prefer it to be Cross platform, specific Windows and Linux. [editline]21st October 2012[/editline] Right now using Hyperdesktop. But it won't upload to a specific account. So I can't save the pictures for later.[/QUOTE] Snipping tool, ctrl+v on imgur page. mind-blown.gif

[QUOTE=MTMod;38126501]Snipping tool, ctrl+v on imgur page.[/QUOTE] I used that before :v: But I think it would be nice just to have the whole thing in one software, instead of the need for a browser.

[QUOTE=Jalict;38126488]Best Software where you can Select an area to capture/screen grab and then upload to Imgur? Needs to be piss easy. I heard about zscreen, but it seems to be down now.[/QUOTE] ZScreen has been replaced by [URL="http://code.google.com/p/sharexmod/"]ShareXmod[/URL]

[QUOTE=Jalict;38126514]I used that before :v: But I think it would be nice just to have the whole thing in one software, instead of the need for a browser.[/QUOTE] Something like [url=http://www.guidingtech.com/12769/auto-upload-screenshots-imgur-online-image-sharing/]this[/url] maybe? [editline]21st October 2012[/editline] Ninja dogs with tophats and pipes. What is this world coming to.

[QUOTE=ShaunOfTheLive;38126519]ZScreen has been replaced by [URL="http://code.google.com/p/sharexmod/"]ShareXmod[/URL][/QUOTE] Holy shit. It got Pastebin upload. This is what I need, and much more! Thanks <3 [editline]21st October 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=MTMod;38126529]Something like [url=http://www.guidingtech.com/12769/auto-upload-screenshots-imgur-online-image-sharing/]this[/url] maybe? [editline]21st October 2012[/editline] Ninja dogs with tophats and pipes. What is this world coming to.[/QUOTE] Thank you, too!

[QUOTE=Maximum Mod;38061374]Does anyone here know/think the BenQ XL2420T would be good for movies and the like?[/QUOTE] cough