• New Horizons on Maelstrom
    Maelstrom New Horizons


    Visit our website www.piratehorizons.com to quickly find download links for the newest versions of our New Horizons mods Beyond New Horizons and Maelstrom New Horizons!

Securing a New Laptop

Thanks very much, mate! :woot

I know that the Storm engine based games don't require much, but I do remember that I had to tone down some of the settings when I played LEGO Indiana Jones and that seems a bit sad to me. Also, I am always very enthusiastic with running dozens of programs at the same time and having, for example, two WinMerge comparisions going on while I'm zipping something else and am also running PotC while doing modding with Notepad++, having Windows Media Player playing music and also having ten Internet Explorer tabs with various forum pages open. Naturally, my previous laptop didn't like that very much. But it would be slowish even if I'd NOT ask that much of it. :facepalm

I thought that 6,144 MB memory option sounded a bit dodgy; thanks for confirming that one!

I still have a valid McAfee subscription that I'd prefer to use though. In which way is that one and others so bad? I did have Norton before and that one drove me nuts. I was quite happy to have McAfee again, which wasn't annoying me quite as much.

Additionally, should you choose to purchase from Dell, I strongly recommend that the first thing you do on receipt is format the hard drive and reinstall your Operating system, as Dell loves to package lots of proprietary garbage and "trials" with their computers, and not only is all of it useless, most of it actually slows your computer considerably.
Aaaagh; I HATE that kind of ***. I had a lot of that on my previous laptop from Acer. But how do you get rid of it properly? They would only give you a recovery disc that reinstall Windows and puts it all back again. :facepalm
 
I still have a valid McAfee subscription that I'd prefer to use though. In which way is that one and others so bad? I did have Norton before and that one drove me nuts. I was quite happy to have McAfee again, which wasn't annoying me quite as much.

Inferior virus detection and proactive protection algorithms. Without going into too much technical detail, McAfee is far more likely to let a known virus slip by than either of the products I recommended, is much more likely to return false positives (tell you that something is a virus, when it really isn't), and is much less likely to heuristically (proactively) detect potential threats. Kaspersky is literally the best security suite on Earth. Eset is a close second. Nothing else comes close. I feel comfortable saying this because not only have I done extensive research on the subject, but have also actively used and tested both products against the ones made popular by manufacturer contract (Norton, McAfee).

But how do you get rid of it properly? They would only give you a recovery disc that reinstall Windows and puts it all back again. :facepalm

If you can't get a proper full install disc... to be honest I would rather pay for the operating system again than deal with a manufacturer OEM. This is not extravagantly expensive. Downside is you can only use it once, and Microsoft will not provide customer support for it. To someone like me, that's not an issue. For many people, it might be one, but it is an alternative to the trash Dell OEM.
 
Very good explanations there Darkhymn! Thanks for explaining it much better than I did mate! :onya

One free solution to getting rid of all the crap that most OEM's insist on shipping with computers is a handy little program called the PC Decrapifier! It basically just uses Windows own uninstall options, but it is much simpler, and faster to deal with. If you don't have a Windows install disk, or are just not comfortable doing a complete format and reinstall from scratch, this handy little program will save you quite a bit of time. You can find out more about it and download it HERE!
 
I ordered it at last. Specs are: screw the money, let's get a good one! :dance
 
Haha! Good show! I am anxious for you. Perhaps this time, you could modify it to be water proof? xD:
 
Good choice mate! :onya
 
C'mon Pieter, we are geeks! We wanna see specs!! Whadya get??? Details man, we want details!! :woot
 
Well, I didn't get the 1 TB internal hard drive! :razz

Here's the specs:
Processor: Intel i7-620M(2.66GHz) Mobile CPU
Display: 17.3in High Definition+ (1600X900) LED with TrueLife
Memory: 8192MB (2x4096) 1066MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
Hard Drive: 500GB Serial ATA (7200RPM)
Graphics: 1 GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650
Operating System: Dutch Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)

Should be working well enough, no?
 
whoa! That lappy will surely kick the Llama's ass.....Did ya order me one too?
 
All good and pretty much the same as mine, except mine has English Ultimate 64 Bit Windows 7 and only 6gb of RAM

Good machine :yes
 
Awesome! :onya I thought that was the processor you meant, just checking. You are going to be seriously impressed with the speed of that one mate! The 8 gig of ram will help a LOT as well even after windows is fully loaded you will still have at least a good 6 gig left over to run pretty much anything you want.
 
Nice. Does it work nice and smooth and not-driving-you-nuts-y?
I took Darkhymn's advice to not go with the 6 GB of RAM option.
 
The only lag you will notice is from your hard drive, and until you get close to filling up that 500 gig, I doubt very much that you notice much of it. If the CPU approaches full capacity on one of the cores, it will kick into turbo on all 4 cores I believe, and slice whatever is slowing it down into manageable bits! It should be smooth as a baby's butt mate! You made the right choice on RAM, Darkhymn explained it much better than I could, he is 100% correct!
 
Ive had 3 games running... COAS, POTC and FIFA 10 and iTunes all running and it was completely smooth ;)
 
Well, I didn't get the 1 TB internal hard drive! :razz
AHA!! you got the 64GB usb key drive, the 2TB outboard with a Blue-ray on back-order.

Bet you even got the 74" LCD for your cabin use . . .

Still think you should have opted for the "King of Sweden" option (was only $200 more than the King of Denmark)
 
I got it! But it'll take a while to get used to this newfangled Windows 7 stuff. :wacko:
 
Great news Pieter! It is quite a change going from XP to Windows 7. One of the best help sites I have seen for Windows 7 is SevenForums, they have some great tutorials and are really quite a helpful bunch of geeks! Other than the fact it is written by Microsoft, the only major flaw I know of in Windows 7 is Microsoft's backup program. It is completely useless, don't even bother trying that one mate. There are many other third party options that do a much better job and won't mess up your computer. Enjoy your new laptop mate! :onya
 
Back
Top