A good laptop for SL? (and WoW, hehheh)

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Pe (Jig! Pssst! You' re looking silly again.)

I have to look silly. In my line of work I dont get paid if I dont make you laugh. And it was funny.
(well I get paid, but it's hard going)

It's a beast, but all of the 17 inchers are. Better to think of them as very easy to relocate desk top replacements.

Thank you, Ms. Litella.

Yeah, that's why I'm looking at a 15" at the moment; I'd rather not feel like I'm carrying a small desktop machine around...

This is my problem right now with my HP; I *know* I need a laptop cooler (I actually use my laptop on my lap!) but those things are humongous and cumbersome, can't imagine heaving that cooler/laptop combo onto my lap.

Check this out for a cooler. Very cool (pun intended) if it works.

http://www.thermapak.com/?gclid=CLa6orvBsJsCFRlcagodtAZ8DA

Yeah, I'm hoping to avoid having to use a laptop cooler. The things I plan to run on it (SL, WoW ,TS2, TS3) aren't really envelop-pushing graphics-intensive games, so I'm hoping the built-in fans will be able to handle the heat.

The Sager NP8662 is still on the top of my list, and I may take a deep breath and actually buy one just aaaaaaany minute now...

SL *is* an envelope-pushing graphics-intensive game. It's just pushing the envelope in a different direction from the usual one... the impact on your CPU and GPU is just as intense.

Is it? That's interesting; I'm by no means an expert on the subject. So SL with the quality turned up to "Ultra" works the CPU and/or GPU just as hard as, say, the latest "Left 4 Dead" or whatever? Maybe I'd better think about laptop coolers after all.

Yah. SL's graphics themselves aren't cutting edge, but because the content is built by people who aren't experts in game design it's got a much higher overhead than you'd expect from just looking at it.

I've got an HP Pavilion dv9000, and lately it is overheating and crashing all the time with SL, even when using external fans, etc, to cool it. I wouldn't recommend this machine.

In fact, I am in the market for a new machine myself, so this is an interesting thread. What about Netbooks? How do they fare running SL?

I wouldn't use SL on a laptop for more than half an hour without one. Although, something about Snowglobe's texture rezzing has actually made my ancient HP lappie run cooler, bizarrely.
.

Like a yearling colt trying to carry a sumo wrestler.

I throw this in in just about every laptop thread like this that comes up, so here it is again. My two favorite laptop makers are ASUS and Malibal.

If you want something off the shelf, nobody beats ASUS. As the only laptop maker in the world who also manufactures their own motherboards and graphics cards, they tend to be able to offer far more bang for the buck than anyone else. I absolutely love my G70. I posted a review when I first got it, which you can check out at /327/da/280009/1.html. That was a almost a year ago, and it's still performing just as well. I'm sure its updated descendants would do even better.

If you want to customize, Malibal has the best pricing I've EVER seen, and their workmanship is top notch. They even offer parts upgrades, which is practically unheard of in the laptop business. When it comes time to replace the G70, I'll probably go with something from Malibal. They're currently boasting the world's fastest 17" and 18.4" laptops, if you want to go big, as well as a pretty amazingly powerful and ridiculously well priced 15.4" version. http://malibal.com

Every cooler I've ever used has burned out and died. I now use a portable desk fan, blowing directly under and on my laptop! Oh, and a cookie cooling rack to elevate the computer for better air circulation. *SO* hillbilly, I know!

Can anyone recommend a good cooler that lasts more than a month?

I sympathize, I did that fan thing for a while. I've only used the Best Buy Targus coolers, and they last about 6 months for me.

At 19-32$ a shot, I figure if this keeps up at some point it will have been cheaper to just let the fully depreciated laptop slowly crisp ...

Have come to this thread rather late, so apologies if its too late. But, do not get an Alienware. Very overpriced and poor build quality, and poor customer service.

I have the M15x and regret it. The new M17x seems to be having similar issues.

What he said! Seriously though, Chosen's review was what influenced me to take a look at my current laptop which is largely identical to his except for the graphics card (they simply stopped offering that graphics card configuration by the time I got around to buying it). I should also note that it stays pretty cool even when running SL, and with a cooler pad I can have it running SL all day long with almost no heat at all.

I've had my Antec NoteBook Cooler for over a year now. I got it Best Buy. Don't know if they still stock it anymore though.

I am looking at a Toshiba A505-S6970 has a 16" screen and the following important stuff
Core 2 6500 800mh
4g RAM
ATI Mobility Radeon HD4570
Does it look like I would be ok with it for SL? Is it too much?
I do not do WOW or anything but am a texture artist so I do use lots of graphics software.
Oh this comes with Vista 64 which I will change to Windows 7 as soon as it comes out (well reasonable soon after)
Any other comments are welcome about this system
THX

Another Toshiba option that will save me some $$ woiuld be the A505-S6967 the only important difference is the graphics.It has Intel GMA 4500 MHD.

Would either work or is the ATI Mobility Radeon HD4570 worth and additional 100.00?

If it has an Intel GPU then run, run, as fast as you can. Flee that laptop as if it were carrying a swarm of bees. Yea, even a swarm of africanized honey bees.

nVidia: best
ATI: good
Intel: spawned from the very pit of mediocrity. Do not want.

That's not a very recent model, is it? So chances are you've had it a while, and it's had a fair amount of on time. Meaning the radiator is most likely fluffed over, causing teh overheating.

If you're handy with a screwdriver you can take off whatever access panel covers the heatsink and radiator assembly, remove it (carefully!) and give it a damned good cleanout. Failing that, a can of compressed air (air duster) sprayed into the grille the laptop exhausts through will shift a fair amount of debris (back through the grille the fan draws air in). Either will help if not cure an overheating problem

If you remove the heatpipe/ radiator assembly, remember to use new thermal compound when refitting - This also may help with temps, as sometimes compound seems to dry up and no longer fill all the tiny gaps properly (not that that should happen, but it can).



Netbooks are the things using the likes of teh Intel Atom CPU aren't they? Can't see them being all that good, even if you can cope with a 7" screen!

Until recently I was running SL on a P4 3G with an ATI Radeon 9000 64M AGP card. I did have a quick go with a beaten up AMD 64 laptop with on board ATI 9600 graphics, and that worked rather nicely (then I bought the wrong adapter and fried the charging circuit ). So although I can understand people wanting the best they can get, I'd also say it depends on whether you want and can afford the best, or can make do with good enough. If a bashed about 5 year old Mitac (as sold by Packard Hell, Tiny, Time, Novatech etc) can handle SL, then I'd imagine most current machines can too, so long as they're not cursed with Intel graphics. I've tried a core solo T1350 powered laptop with onboard Intel, and SL ran at about 1.5fps in a low lag sim...

I want to make a decision but I really would like more than 1 opinion (not that I am discounting it at all) on my choices. Just fine, overkill?

Oh yes, mostly I use my desktop for SL care for my shop. My desktop is a Core 2 6600 with a Nvidia GeForce 7600 but I will be gone almost a month and need to take care of my shop.
Just in case that makes a difference in what I should get for a laptop.